Lt. John Sheahan to Lizzie Shriver, 1864
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Description
1st Lt. John Sheahan of the 31st Maine Infantry, wrote to Lizzie M. Shriver of Westminster, Maryland, most likely the woman to whom he was engaged, to tell her he had been taken prisoner. "At last I am a prisoner but far better treated than I expected," he wrote. Sheahan was held at Danville, Virginia. He was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Crater, part of the seige of Petersburg. It was an ill-fated Union attempt to blow a hole in Confederate defenses.