Libby Prison, in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, housed Union prisoners of war during the American Civil War (1861–1865). A three-building complex that had been a tobacco factory and then a shipping supply and grocery store, Libby became a prison in March 1862. It was later converted into an officers-only facility, while also serving as a processing center for all Union prisoners. (Union enlisted men were often routed to Belle Isle on the James River.) The officers who stayed at Libby were crowded inside a three-story former tobacco factory in sparsely furnished rooms that exposed them to the elements; they often also suffered from severe food shortages. Their guards, in turn, struggled with controlling a large prison population. In February 1864, 109 prisoners escaped by tunnel, with 59 eventually reaching Union lines. A few weeks later, Union cavalry general H. Judson Kilpatrick and his one-legged protégé Colonel Ulric Dahlgren mounted an ambitious but disastrous rescue attempt, prompting Libby officials to dig a mine, fill it with explosives, and threaten to destroy the facility if any prisoners attempted to escape. Shortly thereafter, Confederate officials began transferring Libby’s population to Georgia, with the facility being used as a place of temporary confinement for the next year. After Richmond fell on April 2, 1865, former Confederate officials became Libby’s newest inmates.
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