Description: These two flags belonged to Ohio men held in Confederate prison camps during the Civil War. It is possible that one or both of the flags belonged to the Franklin County Ex-Prisoners of War Association. One flag is blue with gold fringe. Painted on each side is a shield with a brown background and gold border, beneath which is a scroll bearing text. On the front, the shield features an eagle and the text "We can forgive but never forget." On the back, an eagle perches on a soldier's camp roll and rucksack with crossed bayonets behind it. Below, connected by three chain links, is a hand-painted image of a dog attacking a ragged man on the ground, symbolizing the soldiers' horrific experiences in Confederate prisons. Beneath the shield is a scroll bearing the words "Death before Dishonor." The flag is 52 by 59 inches (132 by 150 cm). The second flag, the national colors of the United States with gold fringe, bears the names of Confederate prison camps that held Union soldiers. Among the camps were Andersonville, Libby, and Cahaba. It has 38 gold painted stars arranged in a double-circle pattern with three stars in the middle and one in each corner. The flag measures 57.48 by 71.65 inches (146 by 182 cm). Ohio battle flags were on display at the Ohio Statehouse until the 1960s, when the state formed a committee to oversee efforts to restore the fragile flags. Some of the battle flags were on display on the plaza level of the Ohio History Center from 1970 until 1989. For conservation reasons, the flags have been in storage since 1989. In the 1960s, the collection was photographed and commercial artist Robert Needham painted illustrations of many Civil War flags. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om1330_1637692_001
Subjects: Military Ohio; Civil War; Prisoners of war; Flags; Eagles
Places: Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: This bird's-eye view shows the layout of Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. Established in 1861, Camp Chase served as a recruitment and training center for the Union Army and as a prison camp for captured Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. There are over 2,200 Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery at Camp Chase. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL04216
Subjects: Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery (Columbus, Ohio); United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865; Prisoners of war; Prisons--Ohio; Ohio History--Military Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: This is a postcard featuring a photograph of the Confederate burial grounds on Johnsons Island, a military prison in Sandusky Bay where Confederate prisoners of war were held during the American Civil War. The prison was in operation from April 1862 to September 1865. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06146
Subjects: Cemeteries; Cemeteries--Ohio; Confederate States of America; Soldiers; Civil War 1861-1865; Civil War--Prisoners and prisons
Places: Sandusky (Ohio); Erie County (Ohio)
 

Description: This is an illustration of the military prison on Johnsons Island in Sandusky Bay where Confederate prisoners of war were held during the American Civil War. The prison was in operation from April 1862 to September 1865 and was later destroyed. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06147
Subjects: Confederate States of America; Soldiers; Civil War 1861-1865; Civil War--Prisoners and prisons
Places: Sandusky (Ohio); Erie County (Ohio)
 

Description: This is an illustration of the military prison on Johnsons Island in Sandusky Bay where Confederate prisoners of war were held during the American Civil War. The prison was in operation from April 1862 to September 1865 and was later destroyed. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06148
Subjects: Confederate States of America; Soldiers; Civil War 1861-1865; Civil War--Prisoners and prisons
Places: Sandusky (Ohio); Erie County (Ohio)
 

Description: Illustration showing Johnson's Island Confederate Prison and Cemetery around the time of the Civil War. Johnson's Island was a Union prison for Confederate officers during the American Civil War. It was located in the Sandusky Bay of Lake Erie, near Sandusky, Ohio. It was chosen as a prison site because it was thought that the island location would make escape more difficult. The 128th Ohio Volunteer Infantry served as guards at the prison, which began operation in April 1862 and continued to house prisoners until September 1865. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1177_002_01
Subjects: United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865; Ohio History--Military Ohio; Johnson's Island Prison Camp; Prisoners of war;
Places: Johnson's Island (Ohio); Sandusky (Ohio); Erie County (Ohio)
 

Description: This image is a view of Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio. Rows of headstones mark the soldiers' graves. Visible in the left center background is a bronze figure of a Confederate soldier standing atop a stone arch. The cemetery is located in a residential neighborhood. Organized in 1861, Camp Chase initially replaced Camp Jackson, located near Columbus, as a recruitment and training center for the Union Army. The facility was named after Salmon P. Chase, Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln and former governor of Ohio. However, Camp Chase became a prisoner-of-war camp early in the war. The first inmates at Camp Chase were chiefly political and military prisoners from Kentucky and Western Virginia allegedly loyal to the Confederacy. Union victories at Fort Donaldson, Tennessee, on Feb. 16, 1862, and at Mississippi River Island No. 10, on April 8, 1862, brought an influx of Confederate prisoners to Camp Chase, most of whom were enlisted men and non-commissioned officers. During 1863 the prison population at Camp Chase numbered 8,000 men, its peak. Like many prisons in the north, Camp Chase was ravaged by disease; during late 1864, a smallpox epidemic resulted in many deaths. During the course of the Civil War, more than two thousand Confederate prisoners died at Camp Chase. Initially, prison officials buried dead prisoners in a Columbus city cemetery. In 1863, however, the prison established its own cemetery. Remains were reinterred in the prison cemetery after its opening. Following the war, thirty-one Confederate bodies from Camp Dennison near Cincinnati were moved to the Camp Chase cemetery. The Union military closed Camp Chase at the end of the Civil War. Efforts to mark the graves of the Confederate dead within the cemetery began by the mid-1890s. Led by William H. Knauss, a wounded Union Army veteran, this movement succeeded in bringing together both Union and Confederate veterans’ organizations to pay tribute to those interred in the cemetery. Memorial services have been held at the cemetery every year since 1896. On June 7, 1902, a monument to the Confederate dead was erected at the cemetery. In 1904, Congress allocated funds for the maintenance of Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. Most of what remains of Camp Chase today includes two acres of land, consisting primarily of the Confederate cemetery. Officially, the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery contains an estimated 2,168 remains in 2,122 graves. Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery has two monuments. The first depicts a bronze figure of a Confederate Civil War soldier standing atop a granite arch, his rifle held vertically in front of him, with both hands resting on the top of the barrel. Originally the memorial consisted of a wooden arch inscribed with the word “AMERICANS,” but in 1902 the wooden arch was replaced with this 17' tall stone memorial. The second monument is a 3-foot-tall boulder underneath the stone arch. Installed in 1897, the boulder bears an inscription that reads: "2260 Confederate Soldiers of the war 1861-1865 buried in this enclosure." (This statistic disagrees with the official record.) The Camp Chase site, including the Confederate Cemetery, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06659
Subjects: Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery (Columbus, Ohio); Camp Chase (Ohio); Civil War; Cemeteries--Ohio; Civil War--Prisoners and prisons; National Register of Historic Places
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)