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Researcher: Ohio graves misidentify Union soldiers

Published: June 2, 2012 11:10 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Grave markers at an Ohio cemetery designated for Civil War soldiers from the South misidentify some Union soldiers as Confederates, according to research by an amateur historian.

Dennis Ranney researched the soldiers buried at Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery in Columbus and believes six are misidentified, The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/L7v3R8 ) reported. He says he has doubts about four more, but hasn't found proof.

The 59-year-old Ranney, who is from New Albany but now lives in Georgia, enjoys learning about Civil War prisons and first visited Camp Chase a teenager. He decided several years ago to research the dead buried there.

Among the names was a John Kennedy. His grave marker, number 2100 on Row 41, referenced the Confederate States of America but listed a Kentucky regiment number that didn't exist. Seeking clarification, Ranney searched Confederate records to no avail.

Then, to his shock, he discovered the man's name in Union records: "John Kennedy; 33rd Kentucky Infantry; U.S.A." The man apparently had been wrongly labeled a Confederate since at least 1869, when some soldiers were disinterred elsewhere in Ohio and reburied at Camp Chase after a military chaplain relying on spotty records determined they were Confederates.

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"Oh my God!" Ranney said he thought to himself. And there was another surprise: He learned the same John Kennedy from Kentucky, identified as a Union soldier, has a marker at a different cemetery.

Some board members of the Hilltop Historical Society, which leads tours at the cemetery and keeps some historical records, believe that Ranney's conclusion may be true.

Historians know that Camp Chase gravestones are approximations of burial sites and that some of the dead don't have markers at all. Given the known errors, the possibility that there might be more isn't surprising, board member Dick Hoffman said.

"I believe there's a good possibility that (Ranney's work) is correct," said member Monty Chase, a distant cousin of the cemetery's namesake, Salmon P. Chase, who was Abraham Lincoln's treasury secretary.

It's not clear whether changes could be made to address the errors if they're confirmed. One option might be carving updates into the backs of the gravestones, Chase said.

Regardless, one label remains as true as ever, he said. It's on the cemetery's arch, and reads simply: "Americans."

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