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Davis, James B.

Among the wounded men [of the Sixth Vermont Infantry] captured [on June 29, 1862, at Savage's Station Va.] was Corporal Alexander W. Davis, of Company D. While confined in Libby Prison, a few days later, he learned through one of the guards, a private of the 7th Louisiana, that his cousin Dr. James B. Davis, (a son of Hon. Bliss N. Davis, of Danville, Vt.,) who was residing in Louisiana when the war broke out, was the surgeon of the Seventh Louisiana regiment, then stationed near Richmond. He wrote to Dr. Davis, and as a result of the latter's kind offices, was not only soon exchanged but furnished with a horse to ride from Richmond to Aiken's Landing, where the prisoners were transferred to transports-being the only man in a cartel of 1100& exchanged prisoners who was so favored. After the battle of Antietam, Dr. Davis was left in charge of the Confederate wounded within the Union lines, and there met Colonel Geo. P. Foster of the Fourth Vermont, and others of his former school mates. General Truman Seymour gave Dr. Davis a guard at that time and showed him kindnesses, which Dr. Davis was subsequently able to reciprocate, when General Seymour was a prisoner, after the battle of the Wilderness.

Source: George G. Benedict, "Vermont in the Civil War," (Free Press Association, Burlington, 1888), i:216.


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