Escape from Libby Prison (review)

book reviews265 ends with the Vicksburg campaign, as following their capture and parole the survivors of the 5th were consolidated with another regiment. Tucker's opening chapter examining the Missourians' background is particularly interesting, as the 5th was composed ofa mixture ofyeomen farmers from across the state and IrishAmericans drawn largely from St. Louis. The information he provides on the Irish who fought for the South contributes significantly to our understanding ofan importantgroupother scholars have largely neglected. Tucker does not utilize voting records and census data to provide the sort of exhaustive analysis one finds in Douglas Hale's The Third Texas Cavalry in the Civil War (University of Oklahoma Press, 1992). We never learn, for example, what percentage of the 5th Missouri owned slaves, how officers differed from enlisted men in terms of average wealth and slave ownership, or whether the counties represented in the regiment supported Douglas or Breckinridge in the 1 860 election. But he utilizes general county-level demographics to argue convincingly that very few of these men had a direct, vested interest in slavery. While Westerners in Gray has many merits, much of the writing is awkward and Tucker's prose style is more suited to the slick pages ofa popular magazine than a scholarly monograph. A good copyeditor could have blue-penciled such phrases as "pesky General Grant" (64), "butternut horde" (83), "steamrolling blue avalanche" (85), "onrushing blue tide" (87), "outnumbered ghosts in gray" (101), and the many, many others like them into the oblivion they deserve. William Garrett Piston Southwest Missouri State University Escapefrom Libby Prison. By James Gindlesperger. (Shippensburg, Pa.: Burd Street Press, 1996. Pp. xviii, 254. $24.95.) James Gindlesperger sallies forth valiantly into a field that is fraught with danger , that being historical fiction. However, be acquits himself well in his dramatized account ofthe 1864 escape from Libby Prison. This work also investigates, though, the horrors of prison life, how the escape was hatched, and the general feelings of the men in the prison. Thus Escapefrom Libby Prison is much more thanjust a fictionalized account ofthe escape, and it clearly illustrates life in the penitentiary as well as the breakout. The narrative opens with the arrival of Col. Thomas Rose at Libby Prison in Richmond, which held only officers, and describes the difficult process of acclimation . It goes on to show how he quickly decided to escape, his machinations , and how he hooked up with Capt. Andrew Hamilton in his efforts. The work relates their unsuccessful early escape plans and their failed later attempts to dig several tunnels, which were stopped by a variety of problems, including their digging under a canal and almost being drowned. The two finally enlist fifteen other men in their effort and dig a tunnel under a street to a fence-enclosed warehouse. From this warehouse, it was then a simple matter to escape, 266CIVIL WAR history which some 109 eventually do. And as the word spread, more joined in. The epilogue then explains what happened to the fugitives. However, this narrative is much more than merely a tale of a prison break. It also paints a very vivid picture of what life was like in that prison and in others nearby, with little food, few blankets, and no beds, if not worse. In addition, the death, disease, and misery is graphically portrayed, and one learns about the rivalries in the camp and the concerns about spies in the prisoner's ranks. The work condemns Major Turner, the abusive camp commander, and many of his staff, even while showing the difficulties of the prison camp and parole systems on both sides of the Civil War. However, in the fictionalized part of the book, many of the personalities are one-dimensional, as the account consists only of the viewpoints of Rose, Hamilton, and their associates. Thus, the work is a personalized story of prison life primarily and of the escape secondarily. Gindlesperger pens a good story that also serves as a competent cultural study. He ends the volume with ah excellent bibliography and an appendix containing short biographies of the 109 who escaped, which is billed as the only complete listing of these men extant. This...