Stedman is a captain in the Union Army when misunderstood or misleading orders leads him and his friend, Captain Pitler to being captured by the rebels and locked up in a building in Richmond, Virginia, called the Libby. It used to be general purpose building but was designated a prison for Union officers.
Like most prisons for enemy soldiers, life was not easy in Libby. Food was inadequate and disease was common and medical care lacking. And the guards were trigger happy. However, during a fire, Stedman and Pitler managed to escape and set out to find their way back to the Union forces to continue the fight.
This required seeking out sympathizers who would supply them with shelter, food, and clothes and a guide to lead them on to the next stop and, hopefully to rejoin the Union forces in Tennessee.
This story was a bit of a bust for me. The first part goes into great detail about the night Stedman, Pitler and the rest made their way toward Richmond only to be captured. This is detail that I cared nothing about. I skipped reading most of that. I picked the book because I thought it would be about their flight from captivity to freedom. Details of battles don't interest me at all.
The story of their time in prison wasn't all that interesting either. I had already read Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor which was published a couple years before Lancaster's novel. So there was nothing new in the author's descriptions of the prisoners' suffering. And I found their escape a bit unbelievable. Anyways, I was glad they were finally on the road only to have a poorly written romance thrown in. Most stilted and ridiculous dialogue between two lovers I think I have ever read. I don't know though. Maybe people in love back in the 1860s talked that way. The author was certainly closer to that era than I am so maybe he is correct.
Even though this book was published in the late 1950s, there is a review of it online at Kirkus Reviews.
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