Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1885 — TOOMBS AND THE UNION PRISONER. [ARTICLE]

TOOMBS AND THE UNION PRISONER.

He Secures the Helease from Libby of the Son of a Former Sweetheart. [Centralia (Ill.) special.J The approaching death of Bob Toombs inspires people to tell incidents of his public life and service. A story was told to your correspondent to-day which is worthy of the public print One day, while Toombs was in the rebel Cabinet, he drove up to Gen. Winder’s office at Libby, and asked to see a prisoner whom he named, and who turned out to be a mere boy, who had enlisted in a New England regiment and was captured and taken to Libby. Toombs was taken to the boy, and the two were left alone together. No one knew what transpired, but in a day or two the prisoner’s release was ordered, and he was sent home. In former days Bob had formed a fancy for the girl who was now the soldier boy’s mother. The tender memories of the past were not eliminated from the mind of the arch rebel by the clash of war, and a mother’s appeal was not allowed to go unheard.