W. H. (William Henry) Newlin

Best known as W. H. Newlin, William Henry Newlin wrote from direct experience rather than distance. His most widely known work, An Account of the Escape of Six Federal Soldiers from Prison at Danville, Va., tells the story of six Union prisoners who escaped in the winter of 1863–64 and made their way through enemy territory to Union lines. The book identifies him as a lieutenant in the Seventy-Third Illinois Volunteers, and its plain, firsthand style gives it the energy of a remembered ordeal.

Other records linked to his name connect him with the history and reunions of the 73rd Illinois Infantry, suggesting that he remained engaged with preserving the memory of the regiment and its service after the war. That makes his writing especially valuable not just as adventure narrative, but as part of the larger effort by veterans to record what they had seen.

Biographical details are limited in the sources available here, but memorial and catalog records place him in the nineteenth century and identify him with Illinois. For listeners who enjoy military memoirs and eyewitness history, Newlin offers something immediate and human: the voice of someone who lived the events he later set down on the page.