Back to Libby: In 1864, Capt. Matt Boyd successfully made the Great Escape from Libby Prison. In 1889, he returned to deal with his demons.

By Ronald S. Coddington, with images and artifacts from the Craig and Carol Wofford Collection 

Matt Boyd embodied the essence of a frontline commander.

Whatever dangers his men faced, so did he.

In Tennessee during the thick of the fray at Stones River, some officers in his regiment, the 73rd Indiana Infantry, sheltered behind trees. Not Boyd. He fought with Company F and helped his anxious boys, in their first major engagement, load their weapons. At one point, he picked up a gun and cartridge box and coolly fired at the enemy. His actions, and those of his company, helped prevent a rout of the Union Army of the Cumberland by Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee.

In Alabama a few months later, Boyd and his men faced off against Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry at Day’s Gap. Boyd kept calm and impressed his exhausted Hoosiers with words of encouragement. He again picked up a discarded weapon, this time a carbine, and used it to good effect through the rest of the action.

Boyd’s courage under fire motivated and inspired the men.

Boyd was a third generation American. Born Matthew Boyd in Brookville, Ind., in 1837, his father, Abraham, made cabinets, and mother Jane kept house. His grandfather, Irish immigrant John Boyd, had served as an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolution.

In the summer of 1862, Boyd answered President Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops and joined the 73rd as second lieutenant of Company F.

Lincoln was not Boyd’s choice for Commander-in-Chief. He supported the Democratic Party—pro Union and pro-slavery—and his politics irked some Republicans in the regiment. Boyd was not alone. Some of his men held similar beliefs, giving rise to the derisive nickname “Copperhead Company,” a reference to the ant-war faction of Democrats led by Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham.

Turns out the Copperhead Company fought as hard as any other in the 73rd. Boyd proved his command fitness early on, receiving a promotion to first lieutenant. He served in this capacity at Stones River, where his captain, Miles H. Tibbits, suffered death. Boyd replaced him as captain.

Boyd’s pro-slavery view transformed during his time in uniform. The paradigm shift began in April 1863 with a bold raid deep into enemy territory.

Streight’s Raid: “As never men yelled before”

Colonel Abel D. Streight bristled with restless energy after two years of relative inaction as commander of the 51st Indiana Infantry. A successful publisher of books and maps in peacetime, Streight sought an opportunity to fight.

Following Stones River, Streight proposed a raid into Georgia to disrupt the supply chain and communications of Bragg’s army, by breaking up the Western & Atlantic Railroad between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

Streight pitched the plan to Brig. Gen. James A. Garfield, the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Cumberland. Garfield appreciated its merits, and presented the plan to his superior, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans. After some hesitation, Rosecrans granted Streight permission to form a Provisional Brigade of four mounted infantry regiments and two companies of cavalry.

Thus empowered, an elated Streight vigorously organized and outfitted the expedition. Naturally, he selected his own regiment and added three others, the 80th Illinois, the 3rd Ohio, and Boyd’s 73rd, commanded by Col. Gilbert Hathaway. Two companies from the 1st Middle Tennessee Cavalry, composed of Union-loyal Alabamians, completed the 1,700-man force.

None of the men were informed of the goals of the secret mission. Streight and his Provisional Brigade left Murfreesboro and the environs of Stones River on April 6, 1863, by rail for Union-occupied Nashville. There they collected supplies, though quality mounts for the infantry proved a significant challenge. In the 73rd, the men laughingly referred to themselves as members of the Mule Brigade.

Beginning on April 11, the Brigade crossed Tennessee, mostly by water via the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, passing Forts Henry and Donelson, and Pittsburg Landing. The 73rd, with 303 men and officers, including Boyd, occupied the steamer Baldwin. It and other transports were escorted part of the way by Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Ellet’s Mississippi Marine Brigade.

Crossing into Mississippi, the Provisional Brigade arrived at Eastport on April 19. Streight coordinated with Brig. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, who had orders to screen the raid.

Four days later, as the Brigade broke camp, Streight announced his intention to head east through Northern Alabama, move into Georgia, and hit the railroad.

The author of the regimental history of the 73rd recounted that Streight’s order “explained the perilous nature of the undertaking upon which we had started. That we would have to penetrate hundreds of miles into the enemy’s country, would be surrounded by a wily foe; for weeks, if successful, we would have to subsist entirely upon the country for rations that might be hard to obtain.”

The wily foes included brigadier generals Phillip D. Roddey, who commanded the District of Northern Alabama, and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Before the first full day ended, Streight’s men encountered Roddey’s brigade of mounted infantry. Skirmishes became routine as the raid unfolded.

Forrest’s cavalry was not far behind. On April 30, his troopers attacked at Day’s Gap, a mountain pass located about the midway point through Alabama. Streight formed a battle line with the 73rd on the left flank. According to the regimental historian, Col. Hathaway walked along the line, setting expectations for Boyd and other officers and within hearing of the rank and file: “Colonel Streight has ordered a charge to be made when the enemy comes to the top of the hill, and I want you, as soon as I give the order, to rise, take deliberate aim and fire, reload your guns as rapidly as possible, and when the order to charge is given, make a grand rush upon the enemy, firing at the same time, and yell in doing so as never men yelled before.”

Captain Boyd “acted with the same cool and determined spirit, his every act and word giving new life and energy to his almost worn out men,” observed one man.

And so they did. About 15 minutes later, Forrest’s boys crested the hill and galloped toward the line of dismounted Hoosiers. Boyd and Company F, and the other companies, steeled themselves and awaited Hathaway’s order. When he gave the word, they delivered a concentrated fire with the intended effect. In Company F, Boyd “acted with the same cool and determined spirit, his every act and word giving new life and energy to his almost worn out men,” observed one enlisted man.

The Indianans repulsed the enemy. The Confederates regrouped, charged again, and suffered the same fate. The rest of the Union line achieved similar success, including the capture of two cannon, and Forrest retreated.

Though down, Forrest was not out. Later on, as evening settled in, he attacked again at Crooked Creek. Streight’s forces turned the captured cannon and their own howitzers loose, and added musket fire. Darkness revealed flashes of fire from heated barrels. Boyd, armed with a carbine and ammunition box he picked up after the first assault at Day’s Gap, added the force of bullets and gunpowder to his words.

The fighting ended in the wee hours of the next day when Forrest withdrew, his second loss in less than 24 hours.

Streight’s success was temporary. Forrest’s cavalry continued to harass the expedition from the front, rear, and flanks. As the days ticked by, the strain of being under constant pressure and a belief that they were outnumbered told on the troops. No one felt safe. Disoriented and exhausted, hope for success faded.

Forrest got in their heads. The momentum shifted in his favor.

The skirmishing continued. Following one action during the afternoon of May 2 at Blount’s Plantation, a sharpshooter’s bullet struck Col. Hathaway in the chest and knocked him off his horse. The Hoosiers immediately fired on the marksman and made him pay the ultimate price for shooting their colonel.

Hathaway succumbed to his wound less than an hour later without uttering a word.

The next day, May 3, Streight surrendered the Provisional Brigade just a few miles from the Georgia border. The raid ended in failure, about 25 miles shy of the target.

Inside Libby Prison: “Our zeal for the Union and our utter hatred of all its enemies”

The next day, Forrest and his staff escorted Streight and his officers, including Boyd, to Rome—the Georgia city they had intended to enter as victors. Forrest’s troopers followed with the noncommissioned officers and enlisted men.

Confederate authorities forwarded everyone to Atlanta and on to Richmond. The noncommissioned officers and enlisted men traveled by rail and foot to Belle Isle prisoner of war camp. They soon received paroles, as negotiated by Streight and Forrest, and transportation North to await formal exchange.

Streight, Boyd, and the rest of the officers remained in Richmond for an indefinite stay at Libby Prison.

On the same day Streight’s Raid ended in Alabama, another drama played out along the Mississippi River. A few dozen Union troops accompanied by newspaper correspondents attempted to run the Vicksburg batteries aboard the steam tug George Sturgess and two barges of provisions and hay. The alert Confederate defenders of the city fired well-aimed artillery, making quick work of the convoy and its passengers.

The survivors included a celebrity journalist, Junius Henri Browne of the New York Tribune. Confederates in rowboats searching for survivors plucked Browne and two fellow correspondents out of chilly waters of the Mississippi after they abandoned a burning barge. Their captors treated them as combatants and sent them off to Libby Prison to await an uncertain fate while the Tribune’s Horace Greeley and others tried unsuccessfully to release them.

Streight “was hated as heartily

as if he had been altogether successful. The ‘hatred’ of the chivalry disturbed him very little, however: indeed, I am quite confident he enjoyed it; and hated them back with an intensity that must have left some margin in his favor.”

—Junius Henri Browne, New York Tribune

Browne recalled the day of his arrival at Libby, where he joined 70 or 80 officers captured at the recent Battle of Chancellorsville. That afternoon, about 3 p.m. on May 16, Col. Streight, Capt. Boyd, and the rest of the surrendered officers arrived. During the days that followed, the total number of officers swelled into the low hundreds.

“All of us felt very gloomy, at least; but we kept up a cheerful exterior, and endeavored to make the best of our very obnoxious surroundings,” Browne remembered.

Browne noted that the Richmond press ridiculed Streight. “He was hated as heartily as if he had been altogether successful. The ‘hatred’ of the chivalry disturbed him very little, however: indeed, I am quite confident he enjoyed it; and hated them back with an intensity that must have left some margin in his favor.”

It is likely that Streight’s instinct to give as good as he got inspired Boyd and the other Western officers, and the Eastern Army of the Potomac officers holed up with them.

The prisoners made the best of their surroundings.

On July 4, as Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia retreated from Gettysburg and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant accepted the surrender of Vicksburg, the Libby prisoners gathered to celebrate the birth of the nation. They improvised a flag of red, white, and blue shirts. Colonel Streight led the festivities, presiding over a program of planned toasts and resolutions. The event had just started when the prison’s commandant, Maj. Thomas P. Turner, confiscated the flag and ordered the men to disperse.

The captives were not able to toast and read formal resolutions. One of them, 2nd Lt. Leander P. Williams, who served with Boyd in the 73rd, preserved the written program.

Williams listed 15 toasts, to independence and liberty, President Lincoln, the Union, the armies of the Potomac, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Gulf, heroic soldiers who gave their lives to defend the country, the future of the nation, loyal men of the South, the Northwest, the Midwestern states, New England, immigrants, and the press.

Williams documented six resolutions unanimously passed by all 300 prisoners:

Resolved, That the return of this day should inspire every patriot with the spirit of our revolutionary fathers; that our cause, like theirs, is the cause of justice and human nature, and will be crowned with the same glorious success, if we bring to it the same unfaltering courage and unselfish devotion.

Resolved, That the indignities we have suffered and the violated pledges we have witnessed, only stimulates our zeal for the Union and our utter hatred of all its enemies, whether treason sympathizers in the North or the more manly and honorable armed rebels of the South.

Resolved, That we heartily support the policy of the Government in emancipation, for the sake of the Union, and making the freedmen serviceable in every way compatible with the rules of civilized warfare.

Resolved, That all who seek to embarrass or obstruct the Government in its deadly struggle for national existence, will go down to posterity branded with the eternal infamy which attaches to the name of Benedict Arnold.

Resolved, That if the North should accept any adjustment short of the unconditional submission of every rebel, it would deserve the scorn and execration of the world, and prove recreant to its ancestral fame as a great and manly people.

Resolved, That now while the strength of our Republican institutions is being tested, and the destiny of a continent decided, all patriots should avoid dissension and party spirit by mutual concession and toleration, present a united front to the common enemy, and swear anew to support our glorious flag at all costs, and at every sacrifice, until “its ample folds” shall float again from ocean to ocean, and from the lakes to the Gulf, over every foot of our national soil.

Streight, Boyd, Williams, and the rest of the prison population remained united and defiant.

Inspired by John Hunt Morgan: “No desire to be out-done by the redoubtable chieftain”

About 450 miles northwest in Ohio, inside the State Penitentiary at Columbus, a group of failed raiders in gray showed the same defiance as their Libby counterparts. They were Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan and several of his subordinates, all captured after their Buckeye State raid ended in disaster in July 1863. Morgan and his compatriots tunneled their way to an airshaft and, after midnight on Nov. 28, 1863, climbed into the prison yard, scaled the wall, and escaped. News of Morgan’s brazen act prompted rejoicing in the South and mortification in the North.

Word of the escape soon reached the Libby prisoners. They “were induced to consider the practicability of undertaking, from the success which had attended John Morgan’s adventure in the same direction. They had no desire to be out-done by the redoubtable chieftain, and did not feel easy without an attempt to square accounts,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

The Union officers in Libby were motivated to tunnel out of prison, in part, by Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s escape from the Ohio State Penitentiary.

The Libby captives, well versed with the layout of the prison and the routines of the guards, were already mulling ways to break out. The desire to match Morgan further motivated them. By mid-December, two like-minded prisoners and native Pennsylvanians joined forces: Col. Thomas Elwood Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania Infantry, a civil engineer captured at the Battle of Chickamauga, and Capt. Andrew Graff Hamilton of the 12th Kentucky Cavalry, a carpenter captured in East Tennessee near Jonesborough. They discussed and fleshed out an escape plan. Jones emerged as the leader and Hamilton his second in command.

In early January, 1864, Rose organized a group of about 15 volunteers and began excavating in the rat-infested basement—Rat Hell, as it came to be called. Making a 2 foot by 18-inch opening in a cook room wall, and using improvised tools, among them an abandoned hinge, a stolen sugar spoon and chisel, pocketknives to chip through masonry, and a rope and cuspidor boxes to remove debris, the indefatigable band labored for more than two weeks in fetid air to construct a narrow, 52-foot long shaft to liberty.

Captain Hamilton recalled, “The only difficulties experienced in making this excavation resulted from a lack of tools and the unpleasant feature of having to hear hundreds of rats squeal all the time, while they ran over the diggers almost without a sign of fear. The earth was soft and easily removed.”

The men completed the work on February 8. Borrowing from the nomenclature of enslaved people seeking freedom, Col. Rose dubbed the tunnel an “Underground Railroad to Liberty.”

The team decided to rest a day before the breakout. As a reward for their work, the 15 were first in line to climb through the shaft, and each man was allowed to bring a friend with them. Five other officers who had been brought into the scheme, described by Capt. Hamilton as “silent partners,” were also kept informed of the plans. One of them, Lt. Col. Harrison C. Hobart of the 21st Wisconsin Infantry, was designated as the officer in charge of the tunnel after the 15 officers and their friends escaped. He agreed to give them and their friends an hour’s time before other prisoners entered the tunnel.

After dark on February 9, the prisoners set the plan in motion. Colonel Rose entered the tunnel first, squirmed through, emerged into the cool night air, gathered himself up, and strode away beneath the glare of gaslit streets. Captain Hamilton and the others followed on his heels.

Before the agreed upon hour passed, the exodus of others determined to leave Libby began. They formed squads of two, three, and four. Many wore citizen’s clothes, helping them pass by unsuspecting guards. Lamplighters extinguished the gas between one and two in the morning, providing additional cover.

The last man out, Col. William Patrick Kendrick of the 3rd West Tennessee Cavalry, had been captured near Corinth, Miss., the previous June.

As Kendrick emerged from the tunnel, he heard the voice of a nearby guard announce, “Post No. 7, half past two in the morning, and all’s well.” In an interview, Kendrick noted that “he could hardly resist the temptation of saying ‘not so well as you think, except for the Yanks.’”

In all, 109 men escaped.

Rat Hell to Liberty

Captain Boyd escaped with the second wave of prisoners. He teamed up with 2nd Lt. Williams and fled with the clothes on their backs and scant provisions squirreled away from their meager rations. Undetected by the guards, they disappeared into the night.

They moved as quickly as their legs could carry them to the swamplands and pine forests of the Chickahominy River. Circumventing enemy pickets and finding their way to the headwaters, they crossed a narrow tributary by placing a rail between its banks. Before daylight, they sought refuge and went into hiding until the sun set.

They encountered three other escapees during the day and joined forces. On the second night out, in the Chickahominy swamps, the five lit a modest fire beneath the moon’s thin waxing crescent. Suddenly, a lone Confederate picket armed with a double-barreled shotgun appeared.

Both sides recoiled in surprise. The Confederate, realizing the escapees outnumbered him, beat a hasty retreat. Boyd, Williams, and their comrades assumed the soldier went in search of reinforcements and broke camp. But one man, sick and weak, could not muster the strength to rise and run. They had to leave him behind.

Over the next four days, the officers followed a pattern common to escaped prisoners. Moving by night and resting by day, they were assisted along the way by unnamed enslaved people who supplied food, oriented them to the area, and offered guidance.

On the sixth day, suffering from exposure and hunger, Boyd and his comrades encountered U.S. troops near Bottoms Bridge, due east of Richmond. Though Boyd did not reveal their identity, they belonged to the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry or the 1st New York Mounted Rifles.

The troopers had been ordered to patrol the countryside in the vicinity of the Chickahominy by Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, the commander of the Army of the James, after word of the escape spread outside Richmond. Gunboat crews were also placed on alert and patrolled the Chickahominy and James rivers.

Boyd succeeded—one of 59 prisoners who found their way to liberty. Among those who made it were Col. Streight and several others captured during the Raid. Another officer who made it to Union lines was Capt. Hamilton. The list of recaptured included Col. Rose, who, with Hamilton, masterminded what became known as The Great Escape.

Boyd and the other successful escapees were escorted to Fortress Monroe by way of Williamsburg, where they received food, clothing, and furloughs.

The Northern press featured front-page reports about the Libby breakout and interviews with the escapees. The return of Col. Streight, hailed as a noble and gallant soldier, received ample notice in the columns of many newspapers.

The Southern press focused much of its coverage on the recapture of almost half the escapees. The Richmond Examiner observed “Half a loaf is better than no loaf,” adding, “As for Streight, the Confederacy got more than ten times his value when it received Morgan back, and can afford to let him run.”

Boyd’s Libby experience: “It would be a little funny if the Capt. had changed his sentiments in regards to slavery”

On a transport vessel departing Fortress Monroe, Capt. Boyd and two dozen of his fellow Libby prisoners paused to give thanks. They drafted, adopted, and signed resolutions expressing their appreciation to Maj. Gen. Butler, Brig. Gen. Isaac J. Wistar, a subdistrict commander headquartered in Yorktown, and the men of the 11th Pennsylvania and 1st New York.

The escapees commended them “for their effective assistance in completing our escape from the rebel Libby prison at Richmond, and the lines of pickets and bloodhounds of the rebel army, and also for the many acts of kindness so graciously tendered us in our present time of need.” Remembering those brothers in arms they left behind at Libby, they thanked Butler for “his prompt and extensive efforts to aid our comrades who are yet in the rebel lines attempting to evade their vigilance and make good their escape from that prison of refined cruelty and slow death.”

Boyd and 2nd Lt. Williams traveled by rail to Indiana for a furlough.

On Wednesday, February 24, a large crowd of townspeople descended on the platform of the Plymouth train station to meet Boyd. Among them were his political friends from the Democratic Party. A local journalist with The Weekly Republican quipped, “It would be a little funny if the Capt. had changed his sentiments in regards to slavery, while suffering in Libby the refined torture which the slaveocracy dealt out to him. His old friends would quickly turn the cold shoulder on him and denounce him at once as a black Abolitionist. Wouldn’t they?”

The Weekly Republican correspondent’s curiosity had to wait as Boyd had been delayed by a day. When he finally stepped off the train, Boyd looked much better than anticipated. The writer observed: “The Capt. thinks the rebellion is very nearly played out, and approves, we are told, of the policy of our government in arming negroes to assist in crushing it.” The correspondent added that Boyd made comments indicating that his prison experience reinvigorated his patriotism, that he embraced the Emancipation Proclamation and making soldiers of freedmen, and that he had no tolerance for anyone seeking to obstruct the federal government in carrying the war to its inevitable conclusion.

In short, Boyd embraced Republican ideals.

The correspondent did not note how Boyd’s Democratic friends reacted. One can imagine they were less than thrilled with his conversion.

A copy of The Weekly Republican with the account of Boyd’s arrival made it to the camp of 73rd outside Nashville, Tenn. Robert Fryer, a private in Company F and resident of Plymouth, wrote a letter to the editor singing Boyd’s praises as an officer and issued a challenge: “My dear Republican, and friends of the Union cause, and of those engaged in it, and especially for the sake of those who love Captain Boyd for his real worth as an officer, do everything to make him happy while with you and assure him that we are ever ready to receive him again and will willingly follow him through any danger necessary, but we hope we may never be under the painful necessity of delivering him up again to Forrest.”

The next day, Boyd and Williams made a short trip to Chicago and told their story to Tribune. The newspaper published their account on March 1.

About six weeks later, Boyd returned to the 73rd in Tennessee. He rejoined the regiment as it was being reunited after being separated on detached duties in the forts and other encampments around Nashville. On April 19, Boyd accompanied Maj. Alfred B. Wade on a 25-mile inspection tour of several posts.

It is easy to imagine the two officers riding from post to post through the defenses of Nashville. Major Wade, dismounting at each stop to evaluate the condition of each post and its garrison. Boyd, alongside his major, projecting an air of confidence as he greeted his comrades after nearly a year away, re-acclimating to military life.

Beneath the calm exterior of the man so many admired and respected as a combat commander, Boyd struggled to adjust. Weeks passed, and it became clear that all was not well. Whatever stresses and trauma he may have experienced went undiagnosed. Allegations of incompetency, unheard of before his prisoner of war experience, threatened to tarnish his sterling reputation. He chose not to dispute the charges and resigned for the good of the service on July 24. His superiors accepted it the next day.

On August 2, Boyd left Company F to sort out his life and face an uncertain future.

Return to Libby

Three days later, Boyd arrived in Plymouth to begin the healing process. Before the end of August he married his sweetheart, Mary Ann “Molley” Miller. They began a family of two children: a boy, Otto, who lived to maturity, and a daughter, Edith, who died in her early teens. Boyd supported his family for a time as Plymouth’s marshal, and at his father-in-law’s flour mill.

In the 1870s, the family moved to Chicago. At some point the marriage disintegrated. By 1880, Molley and the children lived alone. In the federal census, she listed her occupation as a dressmaker and marital status as widowed. Boyd, however, was very much alive and living elsewhere in the city.

Meanwhile, in 1888, a group of investors purchased Libby Prison. They had the structure dismantled, hauled by rail from Richmond to Chicago, and rebuilt as the Libby Prison War Museum. Opened in 1889, it became an instant success, drawing visitors from across the country to tour the historic building, view artifacts, and listen to stories by veterans who had suffered there as prisoners during the late war.

One of the veterans at the museum was Boyd, who landed a job as a guard. His return to Libby marked the beginning of a more active role in society. He joined a Libby veterans’ group and became First Vice President in 1891. At the 1892 reunion, he read a humorous paper titled “Ear Trumpets in Libby Prison.”

One day in June 1892, as Boyd sat in the museum, a small-statured, thin veteran with red whiskers entered the building. Boyd and the man exchanged greetings and talked. The man revealed that he had been one of the 109 officers who escaped and had been the same person left behind for dead in the Chickahominy swamps by Boyd and the other escapees. Both men became very emotional. The man was Capt. John W. Lewis of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry, who had been captured at Chickamauga. The Confederates had picked him up in the swamplands and returned him to Libby. Exchanged in April 1864, he served the remainder of his enlistment and a five-year stint in the Regular Army after the war ended.

A few months later, in November 1892, Boyd gained admission to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Milwaukee, Wis. He described himself as a lecturer and single. The examining surgeon noted a previous compound fracture of the ankle and observed his premature old age attributed to his wartime imprisonment.

Boyd died of consumption in the Home’s hospital on Aug. 8, 1893. His death occurred in the middle of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, which brought vast crowds to see the attractions. Many visited the museum, though it was not technically part of the Exposition.

Boyd was about 55. His remains rest in Milwaukee’s Wood National Cemetery under a military headstone.

It is fair to state that the Libby Prison War Museum helped Boyd to make peace with the devils that dogged him since that cold winter’s night in 1864 when he had climbed out of Rat Hell and ran towards liberty.

Six years after Boyd passed, as a new century dawned, the museum closed and the building was dismantled once again. This time, the materials were scattered, never to be reassembled.

Ronald S. Coddington is Editor and Publisher of MI.

References: The Weekly Republican, Plymouth, Ind., Feb. 25, March 24, and March 24, 1864; History of the Seventy-Third Indiana Volunteers in the War of 1861-65; Browne, Four Years in Secessia; Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1864; Col. Rose’s Story of The Famous Tunnel Escape from Libby Prison; Boggs, Story of the Famous Tunnel Escape from Libby Prison as Told by Major A.G. Hamilton; The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 1864; National Republican, Washington, D.C., Feb. 16, 1864; New York Times, Feb. 17, 1864; Daily Morning Chronicle, Washington, D.C., Feb. 19, 1864.

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