The thrilling true story of POWs
escaping the grasp of the Rebels.

Nine Union officers, all prisoners-of-war, travel through enemy territory on foot. Dressed in rags that were once their uniforms of blue, some with the remains of their disintegrating boots tied to their feet, some barefoot. 

This is the true story of the nine officers.

Rebel search parties, bushwhackers, and local southern home guards were on their trail, trying to hunt them down. They desperately tramped over 350 miles of rough terrain, successfully escaping their Confederate captors in brutal, freezing weather, finally making it to Union lines. The path they traversed went from Columbia, South Carolina, into the rugged mountain terrain of Western North Carolina, and continued into the even more difficult mountains of Eastern Tennessee. 

Union Officers from regiments across the north

They were officers from regiments representing a cross-section the Union–Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Captured Freedom tells their compelling, true stories as they participated in most of the major battles of the Civil War. Author Steve Procko weaves an epic tale of survival. The major battles, the true story of each man’s capture and horrible conditions they endured as prisoners-of-war while their familes wondered of their fate.

• Two fought at Gettysburg.
• Three fought at the Battle of Chattanooga.
• One survived the Siege of Vicksburg. Then a week later captured in Jackson, Mississippi.
• One escaped with 108 others through the tunnel at Libby Prison. Recaptured three days later.
• One led a company of black soldiers into The Crater, then when captured, talked his way out of his own execution.
• Three recaptured after escaping by jumping off a prison train.
• Many wounded in battle.
• Several reported as Killed-in-Action to their loved ones, then reported alive months later.
• One captured and wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, then pleaded for Rebel doctors to not amputate his leg.
• One would be dead less than ten months after posing for the photograph, never recovering from from the effects of prison conditions.
• One spent 539 days in Rebel prison.
• Two were North Carolina mountain guides helping Union escapees. Having deserted the Confederate army that had forced them to join.
• A third mountain guide was just 14 years old.

Helped along the way

Enslaved people and Union-leaning citizens aided the officers along their escape route. When they got to the North Carolina mountains, three guides showed them the way.

Remarkably, they didn’t come together as a group until three days before they crossed over Union lines on January 1, 1865. But they recognized the importance of what they had all accomplished, and wanted to commemorate their first taste of freedom after months of confinement, so the next day, they sought out a Knoxville photographer and posed together to capture their likenesses. It was an moment captured in time. A Civil War selfie. A photograph that Captured Freedom.

The true story of confused identities

Oddly enough, he ragged men in the picture were misidentified almost from the moment the photograph was taken. Over 150 years after they made their photograph, this error of history is still occurring today.The National Archives and Library of Congress as well as other institutions across the United States have copies of the photograph.

Every picture tells a story. Now their thrilling true story can finally be told.