Soon after January 1 a chance was opened to get a little money. A man named Potter, claiming to belong to Rhode Island and to be a Union man, made arrangements with the rebel officers to let us have six for one in gold or two for one in greenbacks. At that time outside the walls gold was fifty for one confederate, and greenbacks, twenty-five. We gave this noble-hearted (?) man bills of exchange on friends at home, and were obliged to endorse them as follows: “This money was loaned me while a prisoner of war, and I desire it paid.”
The arrangements were made through a rebel officer and done on the sly. We did not get the money, but an order on the rebel sutlers, who put up a tent inside and did a thriving business. The bills of exchange were sent north—how, we never knew—and in nearly every instance paid by our friends, who believed they were repaying a friend for kindness to us. We were obliged to obtain the money to keep from starving, and our necessities were such that we would have given twice the amount charged, but it was a grand swindle nevertheless, and persons both north and south were engaged in it. I managed to get into the ring and gave a draft of fifty dollars, receiving three hundred dollars in Confederate money. One not acquainted with the prices and value of the money would think that I was quite well off, but in two weeks it was all gone, and yet we were as prudent as possible. We first purchased some coarse cloth, paying fifteen dollars per yard. Then bought some cotton and made a quilt; we paid at the rate of a dollar and a half per pound for the thread to make it with. Pork was seven dollars per pound, tea one hundred and twenty dollars per pound, shoes one hundred dollars per pair, lead pencils three dollars each, fools-cap paper two hundred and twenty-five dollars per ream, envelopes twenty-five cents each, other things in the same proportion; but the money put new life into the prisoners, and many a man came home who would have died without it.
I was always blessed with friends, and am indebted to many old comrades for favors. Frank and I had slept (or tried to) on the ground, without shelter, for two weeks. One day Capt. Louis R. Fortescue of the signal corps said, “Jack, I believe we can make room for you and Frank in our shebang.” He was with a party of officers of the 18th Pennsylvania cavalry, and they said by packing snugly we could come in. It was snug quarters, but neither they nor we growled. My ham fat was a fortune; our new mess owned a piece of iron—I think it was the side of an old stove—and it was used to cook corn-meal cakes on. If any one outside the mess wanted to cook on it they paid one cake in ten for the privilege, but it was a hard job unless it was well greased, as the cakes would stick. It was soon known that I had the fat, because when we cooked we greased the griddle with a rag soaked in ham fat. Outsiders would say, “Jack, lend me your grease,” but I had an eye to business, and would ask, “How many cakes will you give me?” We fixed the tariff at one cake in ten, so that when we had plenty of business for the griddle and greaser our mess fared well.
We were very discontented and were bound to escape the first possible chance; many tunnels were planned and one nearly completed when the rebels came in and, driving the prisoners out of the tent where the shaft was sunk, with little trouble discovered it. We were confident we had been betrayed, and suspicion fell on a lieutenant who was quite intimate with the rebel officers. A committee was appointed to investigate. Before night a notice was posted on the bulletin board that “General Winder has ordered that unless tunnelling is stopped all buildings, tents, lumber and shelter of any kind will be removed from the yard, and that he will use force for force if any attempt is made to punish prisoners who report tunnelling to these headquarters,” signed by Major Griswold, commanding prison. I will not give the name of the lieutenant, because I may do him injustice, but, while our committee could not obtain information enough to try him, all believed that he was the man, and we did not see him after we left Columbia.
February 8 was a day of thanksgiving. News was received that General Winder was dead. He was commander of all the prisoners and largely responsible for our treatment. Before the war he was a citizen of Baltimore, and was selected for the position he held by Jeff. Davis because no suffering could touch his heart.
The information was given us in this way. The prison was calm and still, when the voice of Lieut. David Garbett was heard: “Hell has received reinforcements; Winder is dead.” A cheer went up from every man in the prison. If the guards knew the cause of our joy they made no effort to stop it.
February 13 a meeting was held to organize the National Legion. It was proposed to have it take the form that was afterward adopted by the Grand Army of the Republic, and I have always believed that the men who organized the Grand Army were some of them members of our prison association, for when I joined the order in 1867 the grip was the same as our old Council of Ten.
Tunnelling began in earnest, and several tunnels were well under way. The plan of operation was to sink a shaft from four to five feet deep, then dig from that. The digging was done with a knife, spoon or half of a canteen. Our squad began one from house No. 1. We were more fortunate than some, for we had secured a shovel, cut it down with a railroad spike and sawed off the handle. With this we could lie on our bellies and work with both hands. The digger had a bag,—usually made out of an old coat sleeve—and when he had filled it he pulled a string and it was withdrawn by comrades at the opening. They would empty it into their coat sleeves, and with their coats thrown over their shoulders would walk about the prison, dropping the dirt wherever they could. Usually when digging a tunnel we made holes in various places during the day, so that new dirt would not attract attention. The man inside had to be relieved often, as the air was so bad one could not remain over fifteen minutes.
We were obliged to dig fifty-six feet before we were outside of the wall. As work could only be done at night, our progress was very slow. Fifty feet had been excavated, and it began to look as though we should be free again, but on February 14 the order came to move, and half the officers were taken out, marched to the depot, fooled around nearly all night in a drenching rain, then marched back to prison again, as they had no cars to take us out of the city. We renewed our work in the tunnel, continuing all night and the next day, but before we could get it beyond the wall they moved us. We covered up three of the officers in the dirt at the mouth of the tunnel, but when the rebels were making their last round through the prison to see if all were out they were discovered.