Libby Prison Inmate Letter, 1864

This anonymous letter, written December 18, 1864, by an inmate of Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia and addressed to United States Senator William Wright of New Jersey, is an urgent plea for the senator’s intercession in obtaining the inmate’s exchange for a Confederate officer imprisoned for an unknown offence in West Virginia and for whom he himself is being held hostage, and his release from prison. The writer describes his failing health after several months as a general prisoner of war followed by the deprivations of close confinement, and his fears that without release he will not survive; he closes ‘With Great Respect,’ but his signature is missing from the torn lower edge of the page.