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Impossible Escapes: Civil War

6 episodes 95%4KCC

Firsthand Civil War escapes, from prison tunnels to raids behind enemy lines.

Rare firsthand accounts place you inside some of the boldest escape stories of the American Civil War. Explore prison breaks, covert missions, and desperate bids for freedom as each episode reveals how ordinary people faced impossible odds. Sign up to experience the tension, ingenuity, and human stakes that make these true stories hard to leave unfinished.

Episode guide

6 episodes
1
1Breaking 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.
32 min
2
2Rebel 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.
31 min
3
3Into 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.
36 min
4
4Robert 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.
42 min
5
5John 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.
31 min
6
6Pauline 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?
40 min
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