Hello James, This story is 100% hogwash as another historian stated and I totally agree.

There was a real woman named Louisiana Ransburg Briggs who was the Grey Lady of Camp Chase and she was born in December of 1849 in New Madrid, Missouri and died in 1950 and is buried at the Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. The 1850 and 1860 United States census confirm this.

Louisiana's father had been born in Ohio and moved South and had freed his slaves before the war. Louisiana's mother, Nancy had died when she was only four years old and was raised by a former slave named Mary.

The legend of her lost love, Private Allen of the 50th Tennessee was nothing more than a made story created by a Columbus, Ohio journalist.

Private Allen was a day laborer according to the 1860 census and living in Stewart County, Tennessee. Unless you subscribe to the wild theory that a ten year old little girl is going to have a love affair with a man living more than 100 miles away it would be impossible.

Rather I'll tell you what my opinion is. According to her family history Louisiana Ransburg was sent to Ohio to avoid the war and her father still had friends and relatives there. But Louisiana refused to let Mary the former slave behind and therefore was sent with her to Ohio. Mary died in 1902.

In my opinion Louisiana was a patriotic southern woman. She attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware Ohio during and after the war. She would marry a man named Briggs in 1868. Therefore her full name was Louisiana Ransburg Briggs. Her husband was a Franklin County Commissioner and Louisiana wore a veil to conceal her true identity because of her husbands job.

She did pull weeds and placed flowers over some of the graves of those dead Confederates at the Chase Cemetery. The couple had seven children and often times Louisiana would also take them to the cemetery under concealment. Her husband died in an automobile accident in 1913 and after that the Grey Lady no longer wore a veil and was recognized for who she was.

The youngest of Louisiana's children was Josephine and she married a man named Cheney and their youngest child was James B. Cheney born in 1920. His father had died rather early and Louisiana Ransburg Briggs raised him as her own. She taught him of Southern roots and from all accounts according to James B. Cheney she acted as his mother. James B. Cheney adorned his grandmother who had taught him to read and write etc.

James B. Cheney would become a United States fighter pilot in Europe during WWII. He was shot down during his 75th mission and beaten and taken prisoner by the Nazi's. James B. Cheney died in 2011 at Urbana, Ohio.

The name of his fighter plane was "Mary Jane"

I assure you Louisiana Ransburg Briggs is not a ghost and rests in peace. Every year during the Chase memorials a woman portraying the Lady in Grey walks among the tombstones and lays flowers in honor of Louisiana. Unfortunately she woman today still lays flowers on Private Allen's grave which only adds to the false story of her lost love.

The United Confederate Veterans well after the war honored Louisiana Ransburg Briggs in Washington, DC. She also has a wonderful photograph of herself at the Chase Cemetery with her children in attendance.

There of course is much more to this story but I don't want to write a book about it.