Francesca Lanese

Francesca Lanese, of Grove City, Ohio, is a member of the 2020-2021 American Battlefield Trust Youth Leadership Team. 

Francesca hopes to create an interactive website, with an informative video about the updated history of Camp Chase and its importance today. Camp Chase, established in 1861, was a Union training and Confederate POW camp. It contains the stories and hardships of roughly 150,000 Union soldiers and 25,000 Confederate prisoners. Over 2,000 of those prisoners died from either unintentional starvation or disease outbreaks and were buried at Camp Chase. Today, it is hard to find and its context is missing. She would like to restore it for her community.

“Union veteran William Kanuss’s efforts to preserve Camp Chase exemplify the mission of the American Battlefield Trust. While many contemporaries would have preferred to erase the tragic history of the camp, Knauss recognized the need to honor both sides’ sacrifice. The Trust upholds the truth of history, not an airbrushed version. They keep historic sites like Camp Chase from being swept into the dustbin of the past.” —Francesca Lanese