Captured Freedom is Now Available.
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In Captured Freedom is the epic true story of nine Union prisoners-of-war who escaped from a Confederate Prison known as Camp Sorghum in Columbia, South Carolina in November 1864. They scrambled north on foot in rags that had once been uniforms of blue. Traveling in brutal winter conditions more than 300 miles with search parties and bloodhounds hot on their trail. On the difficult journey they relied on the help of enslaved men and women, as well as Southerners who sympathized with the North, before finally reaching Union lines on New Years Day 1865.
After arriving in Knoxville, Tennessee, and checking in with Union authorities, one of the men had a wonderful idea. The nine officers and their three mountain guides found a local photographer, hoping to commemorate what they had accomplished by posing together for a photograph. The instant, frozen in time, showed twelve ragged men with determination strong on their faces. It was a Civil War selfie. A moment that Captured Freedom.
Author Steve Procko, an Emmy-award winning documentarian, received a copy of the more than 150-year-old photograph from a descendant of one of the mountain guides. Upon identifying and researching the men in the photograph, he realized their remarkable story had never been told.
They say every picture tells a story. This one tells many.
Click on the blue arrow to play the Captured Freedom book trailer.
What they are saying about Captured Freedom
A Civil War–era photograph reveals a sprawling true story of suffering and survival in Procko’s nonfiction work.
In January 1865, Knoxville, Tennessee–based photographer Theodore M. Schleier captured an image of 12 men: nine Union officers who’d escaped Confederate prisoner-of-war camps and three Unionist civilian guides who’d risked their lives to aid the officers in their flight to freedom. The officers, who’d been taken captive over the previous year and a half,
had been shuffled between several POW camps in Virginia and Georgia, including Richmond’s notorious Libby Prison, where they’d contended with insufficient rations and the proliferation of diseases such as dysentery and typhoid. Multiple escape attempts, including the excavation of a tunnel beneath Libby Prison, resulted in recapture and severe punishment. In October 1864, the officers were sent to Camp Sorghum, a hastily prepared three-acre camp in Columbia, South
Carolina. Taking advantage of the inexperienced state militia guard, dozens of officers escaped, starting the next month, traveling northwest through swamps along the Saluda River. They were hidden and fed by others along the way (“The charity of the enslaved people forever changed each escapee so desperate to get home”), and they managed to evaded pursuit, finally reaching the mountains of western North Carolina, where Unionist sympathizers guided them over the state line to safety. Filmmaker and photographer Procko’s exhaustive research includes biographical sketches of the officers’ lives and service prior to, and after, their imprisonment as well as quotes from their own accounts. Although the author refers to the book as a work of narrative nonfiction in the introduction, imaginative descriptions are sparingly used, and
they effectively enhance a small number of pivotal moments: “He was witnessing a near total lunar eclipse—an ominous sign at the start of a long and eventful twenty-seven hours that he would remember for the rest of his life.” The majority of the work, though, is a straightforward factual relation of the men’s harrowing experiences and of the toll on their physical and mental well-being—and it’s compelling enough to require no embellishment.
A thoroughly engaging account of trauma and resilience during the Civil War.
Kirkus Reviews
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/steve-procko/captured-freedom/
The Civil War is chock full of remarkable true stories, and Captured Freedom tells one that beats them all. Steve Procko’s detective work uncovered the lives of an amazing group of escaped prisoners, and he tells their adventures with a narrative flair. Everyone will learn something they didn’t know about the Civil War in the pages of this book.
Dr. Lorien Foote
Patricia & Bookman Peters Professor in History
Texas A&M University
Who are the twelve men in this photograph? Out of this one question Steve Procko crafts a story of suffering, resilience, and everyday humanity that collapses the distance between the time of the Civil War and today. Procko’s thorough, original research shows there are always more stories to tell about the past if you’re willing to look closely at it. Captured Freedom encourages readers to look more closely at the old photographs in their possession and wonder about what remarkable stories they contain.
Paul Durica
Chicago historian
Narrative nonfiction aficionados will greatly enjoy Captured Freedom, which Civil War buffs will find a special treat. Exhaustively researched, richly anecdotal, and well-written.
Joseph Wheelan
Author of Libby Prison Breakout,
The Daring Escape from the Notorious Confederate Prison;
Their Last Full Measure, The Final Days of the Civil War,
and nine other books of historical nonfiction.
Procko delivers. While prison and escape stories are a staple of Civil War literature, Captured Freedom adds a fresh approach; readers will become immersed in the various stories of these nine men and the Southern Unionist sympathizers who helped them.
David A. Powell
Author of the award-winning trilogy on The Chickamauga Campaign
The details of this adventure come to life. The photograph…becomes personal and poignant. The people are no longer characters in a picture, they are heroes. They are family. They are the new American spirit of a country reborn in the blood of its sons.
Eric Rosenbaum
Member of the Union County Historical Society
Elk Point, South Dakota
A well-researched book, Captured Freedom delves into the personal biographies of literally dozens of individuals, but also brings insight to the Confederate prison system. Another interesting addition is a glimpse at two obscure Union regiments, the 2nd and 3rd North Carolina Mounted Rifles. This book is a welcome addition to any Civil war library, particularly those collections on prisons and escapes.
Tom Parson
Park Ranger
Shiloh National Military Park
As the Senior Vice President of the Chicago History Museum, I encountered the image that graces the cover and animates this well-researched book by Steve Procko many, many times. The photograph is in the museum’s amazing collection of Civil War materials. But I had no idea that the museum had gotten the story of this image so profoundly wrong and was sharing a wildly inaccurate narrative about these impressive Union soldiers and their guides. In Captured Freedom, Procko corrects the record, telling the true story and honoring the men who posed for this photograph over 160 years ago.
John Russick
Interim President & CEO
Levine Museum of the New South
Steve Procko is the kind of historian who knows that all history is local, that all history resides in the story of individuals. A dogged researcher, Procko breathes life into a Civil War-era photograph and, in so doing, illuminates the intensely personal, life-altering decisions made by Americans amid this crucible.
Adam Alfrey
Assistant Director for Historical Services
Public Library – East Tennessee History Center
Written with an impressive degree of depth and detail, the reader gets to know (each man) and follow their experiences as citizens, soldiers, prisoners, and escapees. Each experience is described with crisp prose that allows the reader to understand the extreme challenges that these men faced. The author has taken great care to cite sources of information, but this work does not read as a dry academic account. It is a very readable account of an unknown story of people experiencing great change and challenge.
Janet Elizabeth Croon
Editor of The War outside my Window:
The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham
A great book about an early and long forgotten version of the great escape. It would make a great film.
Joseph Bilby
Author and assistant curator of
the New Jersey National Guard and Militia Museum
Historians live for “rabbit holes” and Procko fell into a big one! Procko takes something as seemingly simple as a dusty old photograph and by digging a bit deeper uncovers a fascinating story of survival and perseverance that up until now had remained lost to time…. It is rare to find a page-turning story that is also a historical reference work but Procko pulls it off.
Raymond Johnson
Chicago’s History Cop
A picture really is worth a thousand words, and many tell the most fascinating stories! The Civil War-era photograph that inspired Captured Freedom is a perfect example, and Procko’s well-researched work of narrative nonfiction is as compelling as it is informative.
Cheri Todd Molter,
Research Historian and Content Development Specialist
NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction
They Say Every Picture Tells A Story. This One Tells Many.
Now their true epic Civil War escape story can finally be told
