Libby Life: Experiences of a Prisoner of War (Annotated)

Long considered one of the best Civil War POW memoirs, Frederico (Frederick) Cavada's searing, funny, eloquent account based on his prison diary is a must read for all fans of the period. Captured near the Peach Orchard on the second day at Gettysburg, Lieutenant-Colonel Cavada kept an accurate and detailed journal of the men and activities at Richmond's ghastly Libby Prison. The well-educated, Cuban-born Cavada tells the tale with a generous helping of gallows humor as well as poignant vignettes of suffering and death. After the Civil War, Cavada was a U.S. consul in Cuba and resigned to join the Cuban liberation movement. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever.