Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Camp Dennison, OH

Camp Dennison is a census-designated place in southern Symmes Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, just outside the village of Indian Hill — it is an unincorporated community, not a city.

The community grew up around one of the largest Union Army camps of the Civil War, established in 1861 and named for Ohio Governor William Dennison.

Before the war, the site was the German Pietist mill village of Neu Deutschland, founded by Christian Waldschmidt, who built the 1804 Waldschmidt House that later served as the camp commandant's headquarters.

The camp site, about 700 acres 17 miles northeast of Cincinnati, was chosen by then-Captain William S. Rosecrans under the direction of General George B. McClellan.

More than 50,000 Union soldiers were mustered in or out of service at Camp Dennison, and as many as 12,000 men occupied the camp at one time.

After the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, a military hospital with more than 200 beds was established at the camp, and nearby Waldschmidt Cemetery served as the temporary gravesite for 340 Union soldiers and 31 Confederate prisoners of war.

The camp was deactivated in September 1865, and local residents built many of the community's homes and barns from lumber salvaged from the abandoned army buildings.

In 1973 the Waldschmidt House and the camp's surviving guardhouse were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Waldschmidt-Camp Dennison District, and the guardhouse now houses the Camp Dennison Civil War Museum.

The 2020 census counted 384 people in the Camp Dennison CDP, up slightly from 375 in 2010, and the community keeps its own post office with ZIP code 45111.

Camp Dennison's old railroad line along the Little Miami River is now a path for hikers and bicyclists, and the community is also known for the Schoolhouse Restaurant, a dining spot in a former school building.