The surgeon declining to assume the responsibility, White managed to take in to the prisoners, on the same imaginary account, milk and eggs to the amount of fifty dollars more.
“I told you there were only twenty-one Union men in Richmond,” said Mr. W——. “I meant white Union men. Some of the colored people were as ready to give their means and risk their lives for the cause as anybody. One poor negro woman, who did washing for Confederate officers, spent her earnings to buy flour and bake bread, which she got in to the prisoners through a hole under the jail-yard fence; knowing all the while she’d be shot, if caught at it.”
Mr. W—— assisted over twenty Union prisoners to escape. Among other adventures, he related to me the following:—
“From our windows we could look right over into the prison-yard adjoining us here. Every day we could see the dead carried out. In the evening they carried out those who had died since morning, and every morning they carried out those that had died over night. Once we counted seventeen dead men lying together in the yard, all stripped of their clothes, ready for burial; so terrible was the mortality in these prisons. The dead-house was in a corner of the yard. A negro woman occupied another house outside of the guard-line, and close to my garden fence.”
He took me to visit the premises. We entered by a heavy wooden gate from the street, and stood within the silent enclosure. It was a clear, beautiful evening, and the moonlight lay white and peaceful upon the gable of the warehouse that had served as a prison, upon the old buildings and fences, and upon the ground the weary feet of the sick prisoners had trodden, and where the outstretched corpses had lain.
“Every day some of the prisoners would be marched down to the medical department, a few blocks below, to be examined. A colored girl who lived with us, used to go out with bread hid under her apron, and slip it into their hands, if she had a chance, as she met them coming back. One morning she brought home a note, which one of them, Capt. ——, had given her. It was a letter of thanks ‘to his unknown benefactors.’ Miss H——, who was visiting us at the time, proposed to answer it. It was much less dangerous for her to do so, than it would have been for me, for I was a suspected man; I had already been six months in a Rebel prison. But if she was discovered writing to a Yankee, her family would be prepared to express great surprise and indignation at the circumstance, and denounce it as a ‘love affair.’” (The H——s are one of the Union families of Richmond; and Miss H—— was a young girl of nerve and spirit.)
“In this way we got into communication with the Captain. It wasn’t long, of course, before he made proposals to Miss H——; not of the usual sort, however, but of a kind we expected. He and another of the prisoners, a surgeon, had resolved to attempt an escape, and they wanted our assistance. After several notes on the subject had passed,—some through the hands of the colored girl, some through a crack in the fence,—everything was arranged for a certain evening.
“Citizens’ clothes were all ready for them; and I obtained a promise from G——, a good Union man, to conceal them in his house until they could be got away. To avoid the very thing that happened, he was not to tell his wife; but she suspected mischief,—for it’s hard for a man to hide what he feels, when he knows his life is at stake,—and she gave him no peace until he let her into the secret. She declared that the men should never be brought into their house.
“’We’ve just got shet of one boarder,’ says she, meaning a prisoner they had harbored, ‘and I never’ll have another.’
“I couldn’t blame her much; for we were trifling with our lives. But G—— felt terribly about it. He came down to let me know. It was the very evening the men were to come out, and too late to get word to them. If their plans succeeded, they would be sure to come out; and what was to be done with them? They would not be safe with me an hour. My house would be the first one searched. G—— went off, for he could do nothing. Then, as it grew dark, we were expecting them every moment. There was nobody here but Miss H——, my wife, and myself. The colored girl was in the kitchen. It was dangerous to make any unusual movements, for the Rebel guard in the street was marching past every three minutes, and looking in. We sat quietly talking on indifferent subjects, with such sensations inside as nobody knows anything about who hasn’t been through such a scene. My clothes were wet through with perspiration. Every time after the guard had passed, we held our breath, until—tramp, tramp!—he came round again.