My great-grand-father, a French-Canadian, fought on the side of the Union during the Civil War. He was captured and, at one point, was sent from Camp Sumter to Charleston Race Track and then to Florence. He arrived there sometime in September 1864 before the stockade was completed.

According to him, hundreds of Union detainees managed to escape while they were held in an open area. He managed to get to the railway bridge over the Great Pee Dee River which was North-East of Florence, where he was captured and held on the North-Eastern side of that river near the bridge.

He managed to escape again and was only recaptured about ten days later in a small village in North Carolina about 30 miles from Marion. He was taken to Marion and held in the common Jail for a few days with quite a few other recaptured fugitives. He spent the rest of the war at the Florence Stockade, which, it seems, had been completed by the first Sunday in October 1864.

The local militias were involved in the hunting down of all these fugitives. Surely all this must have been reported in the local papers of the time. After all, there were all these small bands of hungry and desperate Union soldiers running free in the countryside, quite a danger for the local population.

I would like to know how it could be possible to get local information about such events as such escapes and such captures by the local militia.

Yours sincerely,

Jacques Beaulieu
7933 Tellier,
Montreal H1L 6N9
Canada
(514)-354-0632
jacqbeau@sympatico.ca