John P. Sheahan from POW prison, 1864
Item 64611
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Description
On August 2, 1864, 1st Lt. John P. Sheahan of the 31st Maine Infantry wrote a one-page letter to his father in Dennysville telling him that he was being "well used by the Confederates" while being held as a prisoner in Danville, Virginia. He was captured, along with some 1,400 other Union soldiers, at the Battle of the Crater, a disastrous Union attempt to blow up part of the Confederate defenses of Petersburg.