From the Richmond Examiner, 8/4/1862, p. 2, c. 4
ESCAPE OF YANKEE PRISONERS. – We learn that, by some unexplained negligence of the guard, five of the Yankee officers confined in the officers’ prison, on Eighteenth street, between Main and Cary streets, have escaped – two on Friday night and three on Saturday night, or yesterday morning. Their names and rank are W. B. Hatch, lieutenant-colonel; William Riddle, second lieutenant; G. M. Oakley, captain; F. A. Murphey, second lieutenant, and H. B. Marsters, first lieutenant.
How the prisoners escaped is a mystery as much to the guard as to the public, but it is enough to know that they are non est. Yesterday the Provost Marshal detailed a number of detectives to follow and ferret them out, but nothing had been heard of them.
We know nothing of the guard about the prison, who, on consecutive nights, allowed prisoners to escape in their face; but that they must have either been asleep or treacherous is too palpable to admit of dispute.
Yesterday two women, named Miss Mucher and Mrs. Catherine McCort, were arrested by the Assistant Provost Marshal’s guard on a charge of being in complicity with the escaping Yankees. Others were suspected, but have not yet been arrested.