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Re: One less unclaimed medal
In Response To: Re: One less unclaimed medal ()

Thank you all for the kind words and encouragement. We all make important contributions to history in some way or another. Almost everyone who post at this site has made finds of one kind or the other. And there are people out there whom we have never heard of doing the same thing. I'm always intrigued by folks who I've never run across and their vast knowledge of the war.

My small niche had been and always will be the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. I believe it's now time to reveal who one of the Union soldiers was.

His tombstone (2094) at Camp Chase stated he was B. Fetterl 3rd Virginia Cavalry C.S.A.

He was in fact Benjamin F. Fettro and his CMSR's are listed with the 6th West Virginia Cavalry and he was a Union soldier from the beginning to the end. His family had been from Pennsylvania and bought land in Harrison County, where Benjamin was born in 1840.

The 6th West Virginia Cavalry absorbed members from the 3rd Virginia in 1864 and that is why his CMSR's are listed in the 6th but by that time Private Fettro had been long dead.

Although suspected as being a Union soldier because of his place of burial and time of death documentation could not bridge the gap until the Camp Chase Hospital Records were located at NARA in D.C.

Those of you that have fold 3 you will notice that he was listed as dying at Petersburg, Virginia which I interrupted at Petersburg, West Virginia in 1862. However hospital records reported him admitted to the Chase hospital on October 3, 1862 and his name was listed as Benjamin F. Fethro of the 3rd Virginia and hospital records again reported this same soldier and died on October 30, 1862 from chronic dysentery with the same spelling and unit. Also keep in mind the Fetterl/Fethro/Fettro/Fetrow has no prison transfers to Camp Chase.

Camp Chase Prison Records listed a B. Fetterl as died on October 31, 1862.

Upon talking to a genealogist in Harrison County, West Virginia it was surprising to know how many Fettro descendants were still living in Harrison County. I asked the genealogist if he had Benjamin F. Fettro on the county census for 1850 and 60 and the answer was yes and he was the son of James M. Fettro. Because of the misspelling of his surname I could not locate him on the 1860 and 50 United States census.

Upon checking with the West Virginia Archives and History Department he does have an unclaimed medal due to one of his descendants. And to add to the confusion a bit, the medal was made out to Benjamin F. Fetrow.

I am not prepared to say that his body is underneath the tombstone however. I will go on record as saying this Union soldier has a Confederate tombstone at Camp Chase. In May of 1869 the United States quartermasters department sent Captain Irving to Ohio to remove the Union and Confederate dead from city cemeteries to move them to other locations. In the captains report to General Bingham he stated he dug 58 confederate graves but eight were empty and moved the fifty to the Camp Chase Cemetery. I know of at least one Union soldier named Kennedy who was moved to another location from the city cemetery in January of 1864 according to the Ohio Adjutant General. Kennedy has two tombstones one at Green Lawn Cemetery where Union dead now rest and one at Chase Confederate Cemetery. Both with the same Kentucky unit both reported as died on the same day. There are now a total of eight Union soldiers who have Confederate tombstones at Chase. Could they all have been removed prior to Captain Irving re-interring the graves? The mysteries at Camp Chase continue.

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One less unclaimed medal
Re: One less unclaimed medal
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Re: One less unclaimed medal