You probably should have placed this query in "The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board" in this same series, but I occasionally check this forum just in case somebody needs help with one of the Missouri area military prisons.

Actually, the capture took place on 26 January 1862 as part of a large migration of southern men from the several counties of NE MO still known today as "Little Dixie" trying to infiltrate through Union patrols to get south to Arkansas to the Confederate army there. One such travelling group of 11 men from Scotland County led by Major Ben Shacklett was captured in Novelty, south-central Knox County, by a patrol of the Union 7th Missouri Cavalry out from their Macon City garrison. (Source: Broadfoot Publishing Company, "Supplement to the 'Official Records,' Part 2, vol. 35, 7th Missouri Cavalry [Union], p. 385. There is a brief mention of this event on page 19 of Bruce Nichols' 2004 "Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missorui, vol. I, 1862" published by McFarland and Company.)

The Union patrol evidently took the prisoners with them to their Macon City post where they were shipped under guard on the Hannibal to St. Joseph Railroad to the North Missouri Railroad to St. Louis. There the prisoners were transferred by boat to the Alton Military Prison across the Mississippi River to Alton, IL to the former condemned Illinois State Penitentiary that the Federals leased to handle and house POWs and other prisoners taken in the West.

Joanne Chiles Eakin's 1995 book "Missouri Prisoners of War" (short version of very long title) is actually an alphabetical listing from the POW microfilm of the National Archives and Records Administration of the Union general ledgers of POWs and other prisoners they held, and Eakin has entries both for Andrew J. Dewitt and his commander Major Benjamin Schacklett and probably several of the other of the 11 men captured 26 January 1862 at Novelty. The entry she shows for Dewitt states in effect Private Andrew j. Dewitt of Scotland County captured at Novelty, Mo on 28 Janauary 1862 (the Union clerk made the error on the date), sent to Alton Il prison, where the remarks column shows Dewitt escaped 25 July 1862. (Source: The 1860 Missouri census shows a household for Andrew J. Dewitt on the census-taker's page 949 in Harrison Township of the southeast corner of Scotland County not far from the Clark County line.)

Private Dewitt was part of the largest escape from any of the Missouri area military prisons on the night of 25 and 26 July 1862 when 35 Confederate POWs (including several facing death sentences for violation of oaths given earlier than their capture to Union troops at a previous time) dug a tunnel close to one of the prison's exterior walls and bribed a Union guard to look the other way while they climbed out and walked away. Actually, the POWs spent many days digging the tunnel from the wash building, and one of the diggers spent so much time on his back digging with prison steel spoons that his hair rubbed off the back of his head. The escapees had such a good head start that Union pursuers were only able to recapture a few of them. (Source: There are several sources for this great escape, but they are listed in the endnote for the account of this in Nichols' book cited above on pages 126-7 in the endnote number 49 found in the Notes section at the back on page 224. This book is still available for sale, or you could view it for a small fee through your local library via Interlibrary Loan. Yes, I am the author.)

I have no record of what became of Dewitt after his escape from the Alton Military Prison. Can you fill me in on what happened to him next? Did he go back into the Confederate Army? Did he attempt to go home to Scotland County, or did he leave Missouri and start anew someplace else?

Bruce Nichols