Escape by Playing Negro.
One prisoner, procuring from the negroes a suit of old clothing, a slouched hat, and a piece of burnt cork, assumed the garments, and blackened his face. With a bucket in his hand, he followed the negroes down three flights of stairs and past four sentinels. Hiding in the negro quarters until after dark, he then leaped from a window in the very face of a sentinel, but disappeared around a corner before the soldier could fire.
Another was sent to General Winder's office for examination. On the way he told his stolid guard that he was clerk of the Castle, and ordered him:
"Go up this street to the next corner and wait there for me. I am compelled to visit the Provost-Marshal's office. Be sure and wait. I will meet you in fifteen minutes."
The unsuspecting guard obeyed the order, and the prisoner leisurely walked off.
Captain Lafayette Jones, of Carter County, Tennessee, was held on the charge of bushwhacking and recruiting for the Federal army within the Rebel lines. If brought to trial, he would undoubtedly have been convicted and shot. He succeeded in deluding the officers of the prison about his own identity, and was released upon enlisting in the Rebel army, under the name of Leander Johannes.
Escape by Forging a Release.
George W. Hudson, of New York, had been caught in Louisiana, while acting as a spy in the Union service. Returning to the prison from a preliminary examination before General Winder, he said:
"They have found all my papers, which were sewn in the lining of my valise. There is evidence enough to hang me twenty times over. I have no hope unless I can escape."