The Civil War Through The Eyes Of A POW Who Experiences Were Eerily Similar To Those Of My Great-Great Grandfather James A. Rice

The Capture, The Prison Pen, and the Escape....by Willard W. Glazier, Brevet Captain, New York Vol. Cavalry, published in 1867 contained stories of battles prior to his capture and then details from the time Captain Glazier spent as a prisoner of war.

Captain Glazier's capture:

The move from Libby Prison:

Enroute to the Confederate prison at Macon, Georgia (where Captain James A. Rice was also held):

Capt. Glazier was moved to Charleston in the interim and then on to Columbia, South Carolina (a move to Columbia was also made by my POW ancestor, Captain James A. Rice):

Glazier's escape from Columbia:

 

After a successful escape, Capt. Glazier found himself in Savannah, Georgia, coinciding with General Sherman's arrival:

My ancestor, J.A. (James Alexander) Rice, 73d Ill. Vols., of Harrisburg, Ill., is listed in the Appendix:

A separate publication described Libby Prison:

This is a reprint of Official Publication #12, Richmond Civil War Centennial Committee, 1961- 1965, no copyright claimed, but the original was compiled by R. W. Wiatt, Jr.

The most famous prison of the Civil War was located in Richmond, Virginia. It consisted of three tenement buildings,each 110 x 44 feet, 4 stories high.

The prisoners were not kept on the ground floors. The west ground floor was used as offices and guard-rooms and the middle as the kitchen. There are prisoner references to rooms called by them, "Streight's Room", "Milroy's Room", and Chickamauga Room". The cellars contained cells for dangerous prisoners, spies and slaves under sentence of death, and a carpenter shop.

The City of Richmond has located an interpretive sign on the Libby Prison site at 20th and Cary Streets.

Willard Glazier's obituary was published in the New York Times on April 27, 1905:

Colonel Willard Glazier "Author, Soldier and Explorer" died April 26, 1905, at his home in Albany, NY.  He was born in 1841 in Fowler, St. Lawrence Co., New York.  He was a school teacher in his younger years.  He served in the Northern Army and was held at Libby Prison.  In 1876 he rode from Boston to San Francisco on horseback in 200 days.  His trip was interrupted when he was captured by Indians near Skull Rocks, Wyoming; he escaped on one of their own mustangs.  In 1881 he voyaged by canoe from the mouth of the Mississippi River some 3,000 miles.