The following POW letter was written by Lt. John P. Seabrook (1835-1927) of Co. I (“Alabama Grey’s”), 38th Alabama Infantry. Seabrook’s regiment was organized at Mobile in May 1862 and took an active role in the campaigns of the Army of Tennessee from Chickamauga to Nashville. Seabrook was taken prisoner in the fighting at Missionary Ridge on 25 November 1863. He was first taken to Louisville, then Camp Chase in Ohio, and finally to Fort Delaware. According to muster rolls, Seabrook had most of his right arm amputated at the US Hospital in Nashville before being released into the prisoner system in mid-February 1864. Seabrook was finally paroled at Fort Delaware on 14 September 1864 and forwarded for exchange to Aiken’s Landing, Virginia. He returned to duty on 27 September 1864 and was with his regiment at Fort Blakely when it was surrendered on 9 April 1865. He was sent for a few weeks to Ship Island as a POW until exchanged on 6 May 1865.

Seabrook wrote the letter to Susan Lucy (Barry) Taylor (1807-1881), the wife of Col. James Jones Taylor (1802-1883) of Newport, Kentucky—located adjacent to Covington. The couple were wed in 1824 and had at least six children—three of who are mentioned in this letter; James Taylor (1833-1876), John Taylor (1836-1914), and Barry Taylor (1839-1887). Mrs. Taylor was the daughter of Hon. William T. Barry (1785-1835) who was a Kentucky Democratic politician who served as the first Cabinet level Postmaster General under President Andrew Jackson. Susan operated a benevolent society out of Newport, Kentucky, that supplied aid and comfort to Confederate prisoners of war confined in Yankee prisons.

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Fort Delaware
July 21, 1864

My dear friend,

The box of provisions forwarded to our mess was received on the 18th and gladly received. I wrote you on the 12th in answer to yours of the 30th June and hope it has reached you by this time. Having heard “Picciola” highly commended as a work specially adapted to prison reading, I am pleased to have an opportunity of reading it, and tender you my sincere thanks for your kindness in sending it. I will finish Caesar by the last of the month, being now engaged on the fifth book. I shall then begin anew and study it more critically. For some time I have been tasking myself to five pages a day—the balance of the time devoted to other reading. By so doing, my time passes away more lightly and pleasantly and thoughts of home are restrained to some extent.

We now look forward no longer to an early exchange, but have made up our minds to endure imprisonment till the close of the war or exchange of administration. But we are not dispirited. Several colds are prevalent in the prison but we enjoy better health otherwise than we were led to expect from our first impressions of the place and the representations of others.

My wound has never entirely healed and from some irritating cause within (perhaps a particle of bone) it does not seem disposed to heal. There has been no change in it for the past two months and has never for a moment been free from pain. I have become so accustomed to it, however, that I scarcely ever think of it except when perfectly idle.

Please accept my thanks for your many kindnesses and present my regards to Mrs. Abert. I have the honor to be very truly your friend, — John P. Seabrook

To Mrs. Susan L, Taylor