Libby Prison
It is divided into nine rooms; the ceilings are low, and ventilation imperfect; the windows are barred, through which the windings of James River and the tents of Belle Isle may be seen.
Its immediate surroundings are far from being agreeable; the sentinels pacing the streets constantly are unpleasant reminders that your stay is not a matter of choice; and were it so, few would choose it long as a boarding-house.
"[5]In March 1864, Union worries about the safety of Richmond and related security of the prisons, and the scarcity of resources peaked.
The next month, Union officer Harland Richardson pleaded "once more" for a "Mr. Reilly," presumably on behalf of the U.S. War Department, to send provisions to Libby.
[6] Such requests were either delayed by Libby commandants or ignored, as the U.S. War Department funneled supplies into active Union lines.
From April to August 1864, Libby continued to be used, mostly as a place for temporary confinement of Union officers and a small number of Confederate military criminals.
Lieutenant-General Ewell ordered "all negroes on hand not employed about the prison" turned over to "Brigadier-General Barton for work on the fortifications."
Colored Troops," 66 in total, either had perished or could not physically depart from Libby Prison due to ailments and wounds.
[13] On March 30, 1865, The New York Times published a summation of Union captive numbers in Libby Prison, as well as the conditions of confinement, less than two weeks before the Battle of Appomattox Court House.
[17] Upon their release from Libby a group of Union surgeons published an account in 1863 of their experiences treating Libby inmates in the attached hospital: Thus we have over ten per cent of the whole number of prisoners held classed as sick men, who need the most assiduous and skilful attention; yet, in the essential matter of rations, they are receiving nothing but corn bread and sweet potatoes.
Meat is no longer furnished to any class of our prisoners except to the few officers in Libby hospital, and all sick or well officers or privates are now furnished with a very poor article of corn bread in place of wheat bread, unsuitable diet for hospital patients prostrated with diarrhea, dysentery and fever, to say nothing of the balance of startling instances of individual suffering and horrid pictures of death from protracted sickness and semi-starvation we have had thrust upon our observation.
Due to the "systematic abuse, neglect and semi-starvation," the surgeons believed that thousands of men would be left "permanently broken down in their [bodily] constitutions" if they survived.
[18] An article in the Daily Richmond Enquirer vividly described prison conditions in 1864: Libby takes in the captured Federals by scores, but lets none out; they are huddled up and jammed into every nook and corner; at the bathing troughs, around the cooking stoves, everywhere there is a wrangling, jostling crowd; at night the floor of every room they occupy in the building is covered, every square inch of it, by uneasy slumberers, lying side by side, and heel to head, as tightly packed as if the prison were a huge, improbable box of nocturnal sardines.[19]Lieut.
Colonel Federico Fernández Cavada, who belonged to the Hot Air Balloon Unit of the Union Army, was captured during the Battle of Gettysburg and sent to Libby.
"[citation needed] Commonly expressed was hostility toward President Abraham Lincoln, whom they considered responsible for their being held so long in prison.
The editors of The Chronicle rebuked such sentiments, saying, "these officers evince more the spirit of spoiled children than that of manly courage and intelligence which should characterize the actions of the American soldier.
"[citation needed] During the second week of February 1864, 109 Union officers took part in what was later dubbed by the press as the Libby Prison escape.
Infantry, wrote in his published memoirs about his successful escape: "On the night of February 9th, as soon as it was sufficiently dark, the exodus from the prison commenced.
Morton Tower", June 1870) The Charleston Mercury carried the story: At the base of the east wall, and about twenty feet from the Cary street front, was discovered a tunnel, the entrance to which was hidden by a large rock, which fitted the aperture exactly.
Its passage lay directly beneath the tread of three sentinels, who walked the breadth of the east end of the prison, across a paved alley way, a distance of more than fifty feet, breaking up inside of the enclosure in the rear of Carr warehouse.
Through connection once opened, the prisoners were enabled to worm themselves through the tunnel, one by one, and emerging at least sixty feet distant from any sentinel post, to retake themselves off, singly, through an arched gateway, to some appointed rendezvous.
("Particulars of the Escape of the Yankee Officers from the Libby Prison", The Charleston Mercury, February 16, 1864) Three tunnels were built: the first ran into water and was abandoned.
The Christian Recorder and other papers, from both Republican and divided states, sometimes included letters from prisoners prior to the fall of Richmond in early April 1865.
[26] The front door of Libby Prison is displayed in the American Civil War Museum, located at the former Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond.
In the context of what historian Benjamin Wetzel referred to as "a growing body of scholarship that questions the reconciliationist narrative",[27] scholars have explored how Union widows, sisters, and cousins, in both correspondence and verse, lamented the deaths and "changes" in survivor psychology and physiology that resulted from Libby Prison confinement.
