He's one of the fellows I'm researching for a book on Gratiot Street Prison but I haven't found too much on him yet. If you have any family tales, I'd love to hear them. Here's what I do have:

Leddy, Joseph J. 8th MO Inf. Co.A Capt. (also listed as Joseph Ledford) (this is from Ancestry.com)

But, Gratiot records says he was a resident of St. Louis, Capt. 5th Mo. Co. A, captured 15 Jan 1864 in Lawrence Co. MO, held for trial. Yet another source says he was in the 2nd Mo.

Other Leddys I found listed in the St. Louis census (1870) included a Joseph, but the others had been Union soliders--don't know for sure if they were relatives or not. The name is just a bit too common to be sure if I've found the right guy.

A diary by Griffin Frost says:

March 18, 1864: Had last night some fine music on the guitar, by Joe Leddy, who sometime since at Batesville, Ark., was sentenced to be hung, but the sentence being commuted, he was sent from there here, and is now locked up night and day.

He also wrote a song that's quoted in full in Frost's diary but it's really racist. If you want to see it I can email you the text (Frost's whole book was recently reprinted--it's "Camp and Prison Journal" by Griffin Frost; Amazon.com carries it--Leddy is only mentioned a couple times, the above quote, the song, and a mention of the escape attempt that you've already seen in Grimes' book).

Do you know if he married? had kids? what he did for a living after the war? (those are the sort of tidbits of making-a-name-into-a-person for the book I'm looking for)

Deb
debrule@citlink.net