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Rare firsthand accounts bring us inside some of the most daring escape stories from the American Civil War.
Now playingSeason 1, Episode 1
Watching1. Breaking Out of Libby Prison
Colonel Thomas Rose is one of more than 1000 Union officers held in Richmond Virginia’s notorious Libby Prison. It’s an inescapable fortress known for its stark white walls its numbing conditions and its rats. But for POWs like Colonel Rose there is just one thing to think about: escape.
2. Rebel Raid in Vermont
The front lines of the Civil War lie hundreds of miles from Vermont but Confederate Bennett Young plans to bring the war to the North. He’ll lead a group of raiders into the town of St. Albans to rob its banks and burn its buildings then make a run for Canada. But a local posse has other plans.
3. Into the Rebel Swamp
If the POWs of Libby Prison faced "Rat Hell" you could call what Wallace Turnage endured "snake hell". Turnage was born a slave and by the time we pick up the story from the recently rediscovered autobiography he'd already made multiple escape attempts ...and been brutally beaten for them.
4. Robert Smalls: Steamboat to Freedom
Enslaved aboard the Confederate ship the CSS Planter Robert Smalls has learned the skills of a naval captain. One night when he and his enslaved crew mates are left alone on the ship during the height of the war they need to decide whether to risk it all and make a run for the nearby US Navy.
5. John Doy and the Immortal 10
Dr. John Doy is a guide on the Underground Railroad attempting to lead a group of men women and children to safety in Canada. When their party is intercepted by a notorious slave catcher Doy is thrown into a Missouri jail. All appears to be lost until his friends hatch a bold plot to free him.
6. Pauline Cushman: Tales of a Yankee Spy
Pauline Cushman is a Union war widow a stage actress… and a spy. But on a mission behind enemy lines in search of the Confederate General Braxton Bragg she is arrested and sentenced to be hanged. Can her acting skills rescue her from this life and death predicament?
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