Confederate cemetery in Columbus gets much-needed cleaning

COLUMBUS (AP) — A major Confederate cemetery north of the Mason-Dixon line is getting a $120,000 federal cleanup.

Its guardians say Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery in Ohio contains the remains of more than 2,200 Civil War dead, nearly all of them Confederate soldiers. The site in Columbus was named for President Abraham Lincoln’s treasury secretary, Salmon Chase of Ohio, and it also was the place of a prisoner of war camp during the war.

The government owns the property and is paying crews to wash and straighten the headstones and plant grass at the graveyard, which sits about five miles east of downtown Columbus.

Officials say the work should be finished by early November.