From the Richmond Dispatch, 12/22/1891, p. 2, c. 2

The New York Herald of Sunday has a page devoted to Libby-Prison history. It is illustrated with pictures of the building, Major DICK TURNER, the commandant, ERASTUS W. ROSS, the clerk, General JOHN H. WINDER, commandant of the city, and Adjutant LATOUCHE, and of two alleged scenes of prison-life.

The most remarkable thing in the account is the written confession of W. F. CRANE, of Cowikee, Barbour county, Ala., who represents that he was the sentinel on duty on the south side of the building February 9, 1864, when Colonel ROSE and his party of more than a hundred escaped, and that he (CRANE) connived at the escape.

CRANE says that he was unfaithful to his trust because he had been insulted by General WINDER and because he hated to see the prisoners suffer – “every indignity and cruelty which the ingenuity of DICK TURNER could devise” is the way he phrases it, and now after the lapse of twenty-seven years he declares that he does “not know whether his conduct was most praiseworthy or blameworthy.”

Ah, Mr. CRANE, your Alabama neighbors will set you right if you are in doubt, but why have you been silent so long and why have you not applied for a Federal pension?

[no man named Crane exists in the Barbour County 1860 census, nor does any man of this name appear in the Confederate rosters – MDG]

• Prev
• Next