Gordon and his men marched their captives to the prison armory. Under threat of death the warden ordered the guard in charge to open it. Taking all the arms and ammunition they could carry they destroyed the balance and still using the officers as shields marched them off the prison grounds and into the woods. Here some of the escapes demanded Dirty Dick’s life for the things he had done to them, but Gordon had his way. “No murder” was his order and he enforced it. At sundown the captives were released. The escapes scattered. Gordon went his way alone and, though hunted for years, was never taken.
Five others of the twelve are still at liberty. The other six were captured here and there. Three of them were hanged, and the remaining three sentenced to life imprisonment, paroled after many years, and are living within the law.
When things cooled down the people of California wanted to know how men could be driven to such desperation that they captured and cut down officers and guards, rushed and took a gatling-gun tower with nothing but crude knives made in the prison blacksmith shop. This bloody affair called attention to the terrible conditions and proved the beginning of the end of prison cruelty in California.
After the break Folsom was a hell. The warden and Captain Murphy began taking revenge on friends of the escapes. We were brought into the office and questioned. I answered all questions respectfully, disclaimed any knowledge of the break, and avoided punishment at that time. Warden Wilkinson was removed and Archibald Yell of Sacramento took his place. He had no experience and was forced to feel his way slowly. He had to depend on Murphy. This put him in virtual control of the convicts and his lust for revenge went unchecked. I was on his list and he soon got me. I had but three months to serve when I was slated for the strait-jacket. I knew the captain wanted to get my credits, which amounted to two years and eight months. Murphy had me brought into his office, where he said he had information that I was holding opium. If I had admitted this they could have taken away my entire good time. I denied it.
“Take him to the doctor,” the captain ordered. That meant I was to be examined as to my physical condition before they put me in the jacket. This worried me; I was not sure whether I would snitch on myself and give up the hop. Some stanch men had weakened in the jacket. I thought I could stick it out and made up my mind to. I had been flogged and starved and third-degreed before going to Folsom and had taken them all with a grin, but I was not sure of myself in the jacket. Many prisoners claimed they gave up information on themselves and friends while delirious or semiconscious in the jacket, and that was what alarmed me. I preferred death to the loss of my credits.
While waiting for the doctor I got word to a friend who was holding my hop to throw it in the canal at once. In this way I figured I was protecting my credits even from myself. The doctor OK-ed me and I was taken into the dungeon, where Cochrane, now recovered from his terrible wounds, was waiting with the jacket. I saw it was a piece of heavy canvas about four feet long and wide enough to go around a man’s body. There were long pockets sewed to the inner side of it into which my arms were thrust. I was then thrown on the floor face down and the jacket was laced up the back. The edges of the jacket were fitted with eyeholes and the thing was tightened up with a soft, stout rope just as a lady’s shoe is laced. It can be drawn tight enough to stop the circulation of blood, or the breath.
While Cochrane was tightening the jacket he said: “You fellows tried to kill me; now it’s my time.” When he had me squeezed tight enough he turned me over on my back and went to the cell door. “When you’re ready to snitch on yourself, Blacky, just sing out,” he said as he locked me in.
I will not harrow the reader with a description of the torture. The jacket is no longer in use and no purpose would be served by living over those three days in the “bag.” Every hour Cochrane came in and asked if I was ready to give up the hop. When I denied having it, he tightened me up some more and went away. The torture became maddening. Some time during the second day I rolled over to the wall and beat my forehead against it trying to knock myself “out.” Cochrane came in, saw what I was doing, and dragged me back to the middle of the cell. I hadn’t strength enough left to roll back to the wall, so I stayed there and suffered. A guard looked in and there was real sympathy in his voice. He said: “Why don’t you scream, make a noise? They might let you out; they don’t want to kill anybody any more.” I didn’t want my friends to hear me screaming; I kept still. It wouldn’t have done any good, anyway.
On the evening of the second day the doctor came and felt the pulse in my temple. He then ordered me taken out for the night. They took the thing off and I collapsed in one corner. There was a wooden cup of water on the cell floor and I took a small mouthful only, because it would make the jacket so much worse when I was put back in it. My fear of snitching was gone now. The very ferocity of the punishment had made me a wild beast.
I crawled around the cell looking for something I could use to open a vein or artery; I wanted to die. All I found was my shoes. I tried to dig a nail out of one of the heels, but only broke my finger nails. At last I loosened one of the small metal eyes where the shoe is laced and with the heel of my shoe beat it out flat on the cement floor. After rubbing the metal on the floor for an hour I got an edge on it sharp enough to open the skin but it would not cut the vein. Every time I touched the vein it jumped out from under my crude blade. The sensation was something like touching a live wire, like an electric shock. Finally I gave it up and lay down to wait for morning.