Symposium 2026 Spotlight: Partners in Escape

Welcome back to our spotlight series, highlighting speakers and topics for our upcoming symposium. Over the coming weeks, we will continue previewing of our speaker’s presentations for the 2026 Emerging Civil War Symposium. This week we feature Dr. Angela Zombeck’s topic:

Union and Confederate soldiers perhaps dreaded imprisonment more than battlefield conflict since it meant the loss of freedom and opportunity for battlefield glory. General Order No. 100 (the Lieber Code, 1863) did not consider POW escape attempts to be a crime, so Union and Confederate prisoners partnered in mass escape attempts, identified and bribed sympathetic guards, or escaped on their own and collaborated with civilians or soldiers to reach their own lines. POWs’ thoughts of escape more often led to psychological comfort than actual emancipation from prison, but the prospect of freedom often helped them to withstand captivity.

For more information on the 2026 Emerging Civil War Symposium and to purchase tickets, click here.