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Libby Prison
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{{Short description|Military prison in Richmond, Virginia, during the US Civil War}} [[Image:Civiloldcapitol.jpg|thumb|upright=1|1865 photograph of Libby Prison]] '''Libby Prison''' was a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[prison]] at [[Richmond, Virginia]], during the [[American Civil War]]. In 1862 it was designated to hold officer prisoners from the [[Union Army]], taking in numbers from the nearby [[Seven Days battles]] (in which nearly 16,000 Union men and officers had been killed, wounded, or captured between June 25 and July 1 alone) and other conflicts of the Union's [[Peninsular campaign]] to take Richmond and end the war only a year after it had begun. As the conflict wore on the prison gained an infamous reputation for the overcrowded and harsh conditions. Prisoners suffered high mortality from disease and malnutrition. By 1863, one thousand prisoners were crowded into large open rooms on two floors, with open, barred windows leaving them exposed to weather and temperature extremes. The building was built before the war as a tobacco warehouse and then used for food and groceries before being converted to a prison. In 1889, [[Charles F. Gunther]] moved the structure to [[Chicago]] and renovated it as a war museum. In 1899 the building was torn down and sold for scrap.<ref>{{cite book|editor=David Heidler |display-editors=etal|title=Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SdrYv7S60fgC&pg=PA1180|year=2002|publisher=W.W. Norton|page=1180|isbn=9780393047585|access-date=2016-10-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231201534/http://books.google.com/books?id=SdrYv7S60fgC&pg=PA1180|archive-date=2013-12-31|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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