2022 Lessons in History Presentation with Dr. Robert Watson

Many Civil War enthusiasts are familiar with the horrific conditions facing those imprisoned at Andersonville in Georgia. However, Libby Prison in the Confederate capital of Richmond was another notorious facility, known for housing senior Union officers, its use in propaganda by the Confederacy, and for the largest prison break in American history that occurred there in 1864. This is the story of the "Bastille of the Confederacy," the Union prisoners who struggled to stay alive in the face of beatings, starvation, and abuse, and the remarkable escape that befuddled and infuriated Confederate leaders.