Dr. John J. Dickey Diary, Fleming County, Ky. Recorded in the 1870's. 
Reprinted in Kentucky Explorer, Vol 11, Number 7 - January 1997. pp
104-105. By permission.  Breathitt County.

William Landsaw Hurst
    Harvey Burns had located at West Liberty.  My father had employed him in
some cases, and in passing from West Liberty to Breathitt Court, he would
stop at my father's house on Frozen.  He told me that he would take me to
his house and prepare me for the bar, and I might pay him when I became a
lawyer.  I west to West Liberty in 1851 and began the study of law.  I
continued with him about two years.  John W. Kendall, Wesley May, and Harry
G. Burns, his son, were in the class.  I got licensed first.  Judge William
Moore of Mt. Sterling examined me.  Afterward, Judge Green Adams at
Breathitt Circuit Court signed it.  I then located at Jackson, Breathitt
County, and at once began the practice until the war of the rebellion.  The
Breathitt Bar, at that time, was composed of John Hargis, Sr., and I. N.
Cardwell, a young attorney whose parents lived there.  James Hannah had
recently left.
    In 1847-48, I acted as deputy sheriff under Alex Herald.  In 1841-45, I
wrote in the clerk's offices in Irvine under Robert Clarke, a relative of
Governor Clarke.  These experiences were helpful to me in learning forms. 
Litigation was very small at that time.  The bulk of the practice was done
by the visiting lawyers.  The Breathitt Court was visited at that time by
William Harvey Burns and Newton P. Reed of West Liberty; Kenax Farrow;
Richard Apperson of Mt. Sterling, Judge Daniel Freck of Richmond; Samuel
Ensworth and D. Y. Lyttle of Manchester; Sydney M. Banies of Irvine whom
Harvey Burns said was the heaviest lawyer that he had met in the mountain
bars. Just before the war, the legislature formed the county of Wolfe and
the commissioners established the county seat where Campton now stands. 
The people of Hazel Green were striving to get it removed to that place. 
The people of Campton or that part of the county employed me to go to
Frankfort and watch their interests in the legislature.  I succeeded in
preventing the removal.  While there 200 Federal soldiers came into
Frankfort.  These were the first soldiers I saw during the war.  I did not
return to Breathitt to live after the beginning of the war.  Pete Everett
burnt my house where the Haddix Hotel now stands, and I determined not to
try Jackson again.  I had some rough experiences while I lived there and
did not wish to renew them.  In the spring, May 5, 1862, while I was
recruiting a company of Federal soldiers I fell in with a band of rebels
going to join John Morgan, near the head of Red River.  We had an
engagement, and in it I lost my right eye.  Some of my men took me to my
uncle Andrew Wilson's and put me to bed.  Captain Scott of Carroll County
commanding a squad of Confederates going to join Morgan in Virginia took me
prisoner.  They put me on a horse and took me night and day to Abingdon,
Virginia.  My suffering was intense.  We stopped a day at Old Billy
Richmond's at Big Stone Gap.  Colonel Lec Day's wife was there, a young
lady waiting on the table.  Thence by Scott Court House of Briston, thence
to Abingdon whre they put me in jail.  Caleb May, Thomas Ward, Al. Neff,
Colin Griffin, and others were with me.  My father was attending me at my
uncle Wilson's, and, at the approach of Scott's men and friends about me,
my aunt urged me and him to run.  He went reluctantly, and as he fled they
shot at him.  They took him along.  He was stunned but not wounded.  There
were 20 or 30 of us in the jail.  We had stayed at Abingdon a month when
news came of some Federal forces coming to Bristol to rescue us, and they
took us from the jail and put us on board the train and took us to
Lynchburg, thence to Richmond where they put us into prison on Carry
Street.  We stayed there 7 days, fed on bread and water.  I got but little
bread as the stronger ones pressed in ahead of me.  They then offered to
release us if we could join the rebel army.  Two of our member became
insane from the severe treatment, but they were restored to sanity and got
home safely.  They were Thomas Waller and Reynolds.
    They took us across to Manchester on the opposite side of the river and
put us into a tobacco house.  We stayed there several months.  When the
guard became negligent 7 or 8 of our men escaped but two of them were
afterwards recaptured.  Wash Johnson of Letcher escaped home traveling by
night and eating roasting ears.  Others had various hair-breadth escapes
and finally reached home.  I was taken from Manchester to Libby Prison
where I stayed about two months.  I had some hard experiences there.  The
pea soup was covered with bugs with wings.  The weavil had deposited the
egg in the pea and when they were boiled the bugs would swell up with wings
and make the soup black.  At first I tried to pick them out, but I was so
hungry that this process was too slow.  So then I shut my eyes and paid no
further attention to the intruders.  The vermin ate all the skin off my
breast and neck.  I kept fighting them but in vain.  I had but one suit of
clothes.  The prison was a brick building.  I wrote frequently to Greene
Adams who had an appointment in the P. O. Department; also the Secretary of
War, of my condition and urged them to get me out.  I sent these letters,
which were small book leaves, by Federal soldiers who would be in Libby and
would be exchanged.  Several of these reached their destination.  Major
George Blight Halstead was one of these prisoners who talked with me
through the prison walls.  He also gave my father a blanket, for my father
was with me in all this experience.  I asked him if he knew Green Clay
Smith.  He said he did.  I told him when he got to Washington to see him
and ask him to get me out of this prison.  He said he would do so.  I was
exchanged a short time after that, but I did not know who my deliverer was
until I received a letter from Major Halstead dated April 27, 1895,
Excelsior P. O., Lake Minatonka, Minnesota.  He told me in this letter
that he had carried my message to Green Clay Smith, Major Halstead, his
brother, and General Smith called on President Lincoln and laid the cases
before him.  Major Halstead recommended that the rebel sympathizers be
arrested and held for exchange of citizen prisoners or Union sympathizers
in prison.  This was done, and this is the way I escaped with my father
from Libby Prison.  Major Halstead visited with me in October of 1895, when
he attended the grand army meeting in Louisville.  He lives in Minnesota. 
He fought through the war and was honorably discharged at the close of the
war.  He was present at the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.

Hurst Burns Kendall May Moore Adams Hargis Cardwell Hannah Herald Clarke
Reed Farrow Apperson Freck Ensworth Lyttle Banies Everett Morgan Wilson
Scott Richmond Day May Ward Neff Griffin Waller Reynolds Johnson Smith
Halstead Lincoln Lee
=
Wolfe-KY Frankfort-Franklin-KY Carroll-KY VA Letcher-KY MN
Louisville-Jefferson-KY

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/breathitt/hurst.wl.txt