Rare Libby Prison Autograph Document Signed by Commandant Thomas P. Turner
This 2 ¼ x 4 ¾ inch document is printed on “brown bag” type Confederate paper and is filled out all in the hand of Turner. Dated June 14th, 1863 it reads:
“C. S. Military Prison
Richmond, June 4, 1863
Received of Jno. Hosner Received
seventy-one dollars (Greenbacks) to be returned when he is
released from this prison.
Th. P. Turner
Capt. Commanding.”
Turner had been Commander at Libby Prison since October 27th, 1862. His signature is featured in the book, Autographs of the Confederacy (see photo).
IMPORTANT: Read the following write up of Turner’s famous escape when the Yankee’s were advancing:
“Both Maj. Thomas Turner and Capt. George Washington Alexander, former commandant of Castle Thunder and Salisbury, were on the Federals’ “10-most-wanted” list. Both men would probably have met the same fate as Henry Wirz had they been captured.
The story of Turner’s escape from capture by Federal authorities is every bit as tortuous as that of any of the prisoners who fled Libby and other prisons. On the day that the Yankees entered Richmond, April 3, 1865, Thomas Turner fled. He and several others joined General Lee, and when Lee surrendered, Turner wanted to join General Johnston’s army. He made a wide detour to Augusta, Georgia, but when he could not get a ship from Florida, he traveled under an assumed name to the Mississippi River. He rowed a dugout canoe across the Mississippi. Walking across Arkansas, he finally reached Waco, and spent the summer in Texas. When Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early arrived in Texas, the pair succeeded in getting passage on the bark Liverpool bound for Nassau. From Nassau, they took the English steamer Corsica, and arrived in Cuba on December 10, 1865.
Years later, Thomas Turner returned to settle in Memphis where he practiced dentistry. Impoverished and broken in health, Turner died at the Odd Fellows Home in Clarksville, Tennessee, on December 26, 1901, just weeks after his second in command, “Dick” Turner, died.
Richard R. Turner was with Lee at the surrender. He then returned to Richmond and went with his wife and son to the Capitol to give himself up. Since Maj. Thomas P. Turner could not be found, Federal officers arrested Richard Turner, the commissary/inspector of the Libby Prison. As the Federal officers were taking him away, one of them stabbed him in the hip with his bayonet.”
An extremely rare and desirable autograph.
#A6-4-63 – Price $950
