Biography
John Shanks, of Norfolk, Virginia, was a Norfolk 'underground' mail carrier condemned to imprisonment after a summary trial. He was held as a civilian political prisoner at Fort Delaware during the U.S. Civil War, detained without trial under the wartime suspension of habeas corpus, and is named among the fellow prisoners in the Rev. Isaac W. K. Handy's 1863–1864 prison diary, 'United States Bonds; or, Duress by Federal Authority.'
Case
Fort Delaware
