Identities were confused almost immediately. T. M. Schleier took the photograph in the event that Captured Freedom on Tuesday, January 2, 1865. The former escapees and their mountain guides left Knoxville the next day. They all heading home, some to never see each other ever again. Photograph of nine Union officers and three mountain guidestaken in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 2, 1865. Escapees identities first confused shortly after the end of the Civil War In Spring 1866 noted historian Benson… Read More »Identities Were Confused

How did the book come about? A neighbor of mine about two miles over the mountain from our log cabin on Stanley Creek shared an old photograph of 12 men in early 2021. Evidently, one of the men in the 156-year-old photograph was an ancestor of his, his great-uncle whose name was David Ledford who had helped a group of Union POWs escape through the mountains. Or so he thought. What he told me was an American Civil War POW… Read More »Civil War POW Escape Story