Escape!- "If one-fourth the escaped prisoners get in it will surprise me"

Escape route- winter 1863-1864

                      FORT MAGRUDER, February 15, 1864.

Brigadier-General WISTAR,

             Commanding:

The following are the names:

1. William B. McCreery, colonel Twenty-first Michigan Infantry.

2. H.C. Hobart, lieutenant-colonel Twenty-first Wisconsin Infantry.

3. T.S. West, lieutenant-colonel Twenty-fourth Wisconsin Infantry.

4. Alexander von Mitzel, major Seventy-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry.

5. Samuel Clark, captain, Seventy-ninth Illinois Infantry.

6. Gottlieb C. Rose, captain, Fourth Missouri Cavalry.

7. Albert Wallber, adjutant Twenty-sixth Wisconsin Infantry.

8. N.S. McKeen, first lieutenant, Twenty-first Illinois Infantry.

9. George M. Welles, second lieutenant, Eighth Michigan Cavalry.

                                            ROBT. M. WEST,
                                             Colonel, Commanding.

                      [Indorsement.]

Major-General BUTLER:

The above are the 9 officers just arrived at Williamsburg.

                                    I.J. WISTAR,
                                     Brigadier-General.





                                   FEBRUARY 16, 1864.

Brigadier-General WISTAR,

                    Yorktown:

Richmond papers of 12th, received, say 109 prisoners escaped, and that 26 were recaptured, none less than 20 miles from Richmond. All of them must have crossed the Chickahominy. Have you anything further in regard to them? Many of them must still be secreted in the woods.

                                    J. W. SHAFFER,
                                 Colonel and Chief of Staff.





                               YORKTOWN, February 16, 1864.

Col. J.W. SHAFFER,

            Chief of Staff:

Probably none of these prisoners recaptured had crossed the Chickahominy. Robertson's cavalry and Holcombe's Legion cavalry are both the other side of Chickahominy for that purpose, besides the infantry. There is no enemy this side, except Hume's scouts, who keep off the main roads and know every path. My cavalry is out after the prisoners, and has been since the first came in. It must go by detachments, of course, having to come back for forage, of which the country supplies none. If one-fourth the escaped prisoners get in it will surprise me, in the face of the regularly organized and long-prepared plan to prevent it. Fifteen have already come.

                                         I.J. WISTAR,
                                           Brigadier- General.


-- The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies.; Series 1 Volume 33

 

More to come on another officer named Rose.