Rare firsthand accounts bring us inside some of the most daring escape stories from the American Civil War.

Documentary · 40 min

EPISODE 1

Libby Prison Escape

Colonel Thomas Rose is one of more than 1000 officers held in the notorious Libby Prison of Richmond, Va., known for its stark white walls, numbing conditions and rats.

30 min · 4 Jul 2022
EPISODE 2

Rebel Raid in Vermont

The frontlines 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.

30 min · 2 Jun 2022
EPISODE 3

Turnage: Swamp Escape

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.

34 min · 26 May 2022
EPISODE 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 crewmates 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.

40 min · 23 Jun 2022
EPISODE 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.

29 min · 23 Jun 2022
EPISODE 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?

38 min · 16 Jun 2022

Impossible Escapes: Civil War

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