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Writing from the St. John's College Hospital in Annapolis, Maryland, Cyrus M. Baker asked the Maine State Agent of the Sanitary Commission to help him get a furlough of 60 days to go back to Maine.

Baker, of the 9th Maine Volunteers, was taken prisoner by the Confederate Army at Morris Island, S.C., sent to Bell Island prison where he "starved there four months," and then was paroled and sent to the hospital in Annapolis.

Because of the inability to care for the large numbers of prisoners taken, the Confederate and Union armies often exchanged prisoners for others of equal rank or paroled them. Under parole, the prisoners agreed not to engage in hostilities until they were exchanged.

Baker wrote that he was "paroled, and no prospect of an exchange" and therefore would like a furlough to Maine.

Baker, of Moscow, was 20 when he enlisted as a private in Co. D of the 9th Maine on September 22, 1861. He was promoted to corporal on October 17, 1861 and was mustered out on September 27, 1864.

After the war, Baker returned to Maine and worked as a blacksmith in Bingham.

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