John P. Sheahan from POW prison, 1864
Click on the image to zoom. Click and drag your mouse over the image to move it left or right. Use the small navigation window to select the area you wish to zoom on.
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.