Horizontal view of Libby Prison with tents and soldiers in the foreground. Confederate flag flying from roof. Pencil notations on mount.

No photographer's backmark. Modern pencil notations on reverse.

Libby Prison was a Confederate prison at Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. It gained an infamous reputation for the overcrowded and harsh conditions under which officer prisoners from the Union Army were kept. Prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition and a high mortality rate. By 1863, one thousand prisoners were crowded into large open rooms on two floors, with open, barred windows leaving them exposed to weather and temperature extremes.

The building was built before the war as a food warehouse. In 1889, Charles F. Gunther moved the structure to Chicago and renovated it into a war museum. A decade later, the Coliseum Company dismantled the building and sold its pieces as souvenirs. [jet] [PH:L]

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