THE ESCAPE FROM COLUMBIA—CROSSING THE DEAD LINE.
When Glazier rejoined his comrade, he described this man, and the friends agreed that they would boldly cross the "dead-line" immediately in front of him, be ready to answer promptly his challenge, and, by the audacity of their movement, attempt to deceive him in regard to their real character and purpose. With such a man as they had to deal with, this scheme was certain to result in one of two things: he would let them pass, or he would kill them both; therefore, courage and sang-froid were matters of first necessity.
Accordingly, with the utmost coolness, and laughing and chatting together, they sauntered up to and upon the fatal line. The sentinel looked at them in amazement. He then brought his piece to bear upon Glazier completely covering his person, and, with the usual order to "Halt!" added: "Whar in hell are you going, Yanks?" As if his dignity was seriously offended by this demand, our hero answered this question by asking another: "Do you halt paroled prisoners here?" "His meek 'No, sir!'" Glazier relates, "was not yet lost in the distance when I boldly crossed the dreaded line, adding: 'Then let my friend in the rear follow me;' and so we passed, while the sentinel murmured 'All right!' And right it was, for now we were free, breathing the fresh air, untainted by the breath of hundreds of famishing, diseased and dying men."
They could not proceed very far without falling in with numbers of the paroled prisoners. This they did, but their presence excited no suspicion or comment, as they assumed to belong to the party. They applied themselves to gathering wood and piling it apparently for transportation, and gradually crept on and on until they reached a point beyond the vision of the gray-jackets, when off they started at the top of their speed; and although before long they were compelled to reduce their pace, they put several miles behind them in a space of time that at any other period of their lives, or under any other circumstances, would have seemed impossible. Pausing to regain breath, they turned, and Columbia was no longer within sight. This, in itself, was a relief, for the place was associated in their minds with the intense misery they had suffered within its boundaries.
Could these men have foreseen the not very distant future, they would have known that every sigh and groan that cruelty had wrung from them in that place of torture would be avenged; they would have seen loyal soldiers swarming in its streets, their old comrades in misery torn from the grasp of their merciless jailers, and the soulless "Southern Chivalry" thrust into their place; they would have seen red-handed vengeance doom that city of blood to destruction, and the glaring tongues of fire lap up the costly goods and edifices of its vile and relentless citizens; and those who had no mercy for them in their wretchedness and famine, now awe-struck on finding that the men they had so barbarously trampled upon had now the power and the will to retort upon them with interest; they would have seen brothers in arms, who until now had been merciful to their enemies when in their power, suddenly transformed into ravenous wolves, fierce and terrible in their righteous wrath at the treatment their less fortunate brothers had met with in this city of blood. The Avenger had come! and not one house but would fall a smouldering heap of ruins. They would have foreseen this city ablaze with burning homes for its sins against humanity; its men, so lately drunk with pride and satiated with cruelty to their countrymen; its women divested of all womanly attributes, and invested with those of demons, now all cowed and humbled in the dust! They would have seen one noted instance of the interference of a just Providence that occurred amid all this dreadful saturnalia—a woman, pale, but beautiful of feature, delicate of form, madly rushing to and fro in front of her blazing house, crying for her child that lay within it. They would have seen a poor, emaciated prisoner, roused to exhibit strength and courage by the hope of saving life, rush in and drag the cradle and its innocent living freight from the very jaws of death, while burning rafters crashed and fell upon him; they would have seen him place the babe in its mother's arms, and they would have seen that mother turn with streaming eyes to thank the saviour of her child, and then start back conscience-smitten, and scream and fall, seeing in her child's preserver a man who in the prison had once implored her for a piece of bread because he was starving, and she spat upon him because he was of Northern race!! Could they have seen the future of the coming months, they would have seen all this and more. But no such prevision was vouchsafed them. Their thoughts were now of themselves. They felt that the shade of a deadly peril encompassed them. Columbia and its prison were hidden from their sight, but still they were so near that at any moment the hounds might scent them, and if recaptured, all the horrors they had undergone would be light compared with the fate they must submit to in the future.
Fortunately for the purpose of our fugitives, the settlements, whether towns or villages, in that part of the country, were "few and far between." The residences of the planters were also distant from each other and few in number, and the ravines and swamps which abound there, while in many respects disagreeable and dangerous lurking spots, were still the safest refuges for hunted men. The wilder the country, the better it promised to Glazier and his comrade fleeing for their lives. Their greatest fear was the dreaded blood-hound. Our friends knew they could defeat most of the devices of human ingenuity in tracking them, but they were apprehensive that the instinct of the brutes, which a depraved humanity had enlisted in its service, might render abortive all their plans and precautions. They did their best, however, to baffle their canine foes, and nightfall found them hurrying forward on the Lexington Court-house Road.