146

W.B. Stevens.

Letter discussing life at Libby Prison and the escape of 109 prisoners.

Annapolis, MD, 8 April 1864
Autograph Letter Signed to friend Nancie Abbie Harriman of Boston. 11 pages, 7¾ x 4¾ inches, on 3 folding sheets; faint dampstaining. With stamped envelope bearing Annapolis, MD postmark. 

William Byrd Stevens (1837-1864) of East Montpelier, VT was a sergeant in the 4th Vermont Infantry, was captured by the Confederates in October 1863, and was released from Richmond's infamous Libby Prison in March 1864. This letter was written on parole the following month as he recovered his strength. "You will never realize the sufferings federal prisoners undergo . . . from filth, starvation and vermin. It is almost too revolting to speak of. . . . While I was in the hospital, there were one thousand six hundred deaths." 

He describes the explosives rigged to kill the prisoners in the event of a Union raid on Richmond: "Think of the mine under the Libby, when, if Kilpatrick was successful, and made an entry to the city, two hundred pounds of powder was to be exploded under those nine hundred federal officers." 

He also discusses stricter conditions after the famous Libby escape of February 1864: "After the escape of the hundred and nine with Colonel Streight, all communications between the officers on different floors was cut off by removing the staircases, so that in a case of fire, few of them could have made an escape."

After the horrors of Libby Prison, Stevens was soon able to rejoin his regiment, and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Cold Harbor in June. 

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