"A thoroughly engaging account of trauma and resilience during the Civil War."
- Kirkus Reviews
2025 Independent Press Award Winner.
Captured Freedom
is the epic true story of nine Union prisoners-of-war who escaped from a Confederate Prison known as Camp Sorghum in Columbia, South Carolina in November 1864. They scrambled north on foot in rags that had once been uniforms of blue. Traveling in brutal winter conditions more than 300 miles with search parties and bloodhounds hot on their trail. On the difficult journey they relied on the help of enslaved men and women, as well as Southerners who sympathized with the North, before finally reaching Union lines on New Years Day 1865.
After arriving in Knoxville, Tennessee, and checking in with Union authorities, one of the men had a wonderful idea. The nine officers and their three mountain guides found a local photographer, hoping to commemorate what they had accomplished by posing together for a photograph. The instant, frozen in time, showed twelve ragged men with determination strong on their faces. It was a Civil War selfie. A moment that Captured Freedom.
Author Steve Procko, an Emmy-award winning documentarian, received a copy of the more than 150-year-old photograph from a descendant of one of the mountain guides. Upon identifying and researching the men in the photograph, he realized their remarkable story had never been told.
They say every picture tells a story. This one tells many.