Camp Chase Clawhammer Banjo

I worked up a banjo version to a crooked civil war tune I learned the other day on the fiddle “Camp Chase” A little history on the tune below. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The tune and attached story are popular among fiddlers in the central West Virginia area. The legend has been related by several writers (with slight variations) but most versions begin at the point that Solly “Devil Sol” Carpenter (fiddler French Carpenter's grandfather and himself one of the most influential fiddlers in West Virginia history) has been imprisoned during the Civil War at a Union prison in Camp Chase, located near the west side of Columbus, Ohio, where the present-day Fort Hayes is situated. Little remains of the prison camp save for a cemetery on West Sullivan Ave., and a small stone retaining wall on West Broad Street, Columbus. *** The story goes that while Solly was incarcerated the commandant held fiddler's contest to give the best player a chance to fiddle his way to freedom, or, as some versions go, to win a reprieve from a death sentence. Devil Sol, a man named Bowie and others played and apparently all the fiddlers played the same tune. Solly won by adding some unusual new notes to the tune according to his fancy (or perhaps, as one writer suggests, in desperation). West Virginia fiddler Wilson Douglas, a protégé of French Carpenter, relates "There was quite a few who played in the contest; but Saul put these two high notes in. That tune, he called it 'Camp Chase.' It was some kind of a tune before but they hadn't named it yet(George Booker). And when he got out of there he called it 'Camp Chase,' and it's gone by that name ever since." Although Sol gained his freedom in the contest he had to sign a parole, pledging not to take up arms against the Union; as the story goes, he ignored this and headed south to join another Confederate unit.