The Libby Prison Minstrel! ... Thursday eve’g, Dec. 24th, 1863. Programme.

Printed for Gunther’s Libby Prison War Museum in Chicago during the Chicago World’s Fair.

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A circa 1890s facsimile of a rare 1863 handbill, advertising a Christmas Eve theatrical and musical performance organized by captured Union officers imprisoned at Libby Prison in Richmond. Confederate guards allowed the use of the prison printing press to make a program, and the event became a highlight for inmates and staff, with local residents gathering outside to listen.

Calling themselves the “Libby Prison Minstrels,” the prisoners divided the program into three parts, listing performers, instruments, songs, and dances. The entertainment included three short plays—Rival Lovers, Countryman in a Photograph Gallery, and Masquerade Ball—and concluded with a “Grand Walk-Around.” Attendance was free, but “Children in Arms [were] Not Admitted.”

The handbill identifies many imprisoned Union officers by name. These include Lt. G.W. Chandler, who fought under General Farnsworth at Gettysburg before capture; Capt. Henry W. Sawyer, wounded and captured at Brandy Station; and Lt. Frank T. Bennett, who escaped in the February 1864 Libby Prison tunnel breakout.

Libby Prison, opened in March 1862, primarily held Union officers but also processed enlisted prisoners bound for other camps such as Belle Isle on the James River. The prison offered harsh conditions, including overcrowding, exposure, and food shortages. After the mass escape of February 1864, Confederate officials mined the building, and threatened to explode it, to discourage further breakout attempts. Later that year, most prisoners were transferred to facilities in Georgia. After the fall of Richmond in April 1865, former Confederate staff themselves were imprisoned there.

At the foot, the handbill is signed “Adjt. R. C. Knaggs, Business Agent.” Robert Clark Knaggs, a Michigan officer imprisoned at Libby, later managed Gunther’s Libby Prison War Museum in Chicago. The present example’s type and layout differ from those of other facsimile printings of this broadside attributed to the 1880s. It is backed with ticket fragments from New York’s 1893–94 Constitutional Convention and we suggest that it was printed and sold at Gunther’s museum during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Price: $250.00