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GUARDING CONFEDERATE PRISONERS. (From a War Department photograph.) |
Of the thousands of prisoners held by either side during the four years of the war, those who escaped and succeeded in reaching their own lines were exceedingly few, although the attempts at escape were numerous, and a good many got away from the prisons only to be brought back captives again in a few days. The most notable adventure of this kind was an escape from Libby Prison by a hundred and eight officers in February, 1864. In that crowded prison, which was an old tobacco warehouse, the prisoners had little to do but play checkers on squares of the floor marked out with their pocket knives, play cards, tell stories, and devise plans for escape. One of them discovered a way of getting into the basement, and, by removing stones, making a hole through the eastern foundation wall. With a few assistants he then proceeded to dig a tunnel across the breadth of the yard. The earth that was taken out was dumped in a dark corner of the cellar where it never attracted attention. The work had to be carried on very secretly, not only to escape the notice of the guards, but even to prevent the knowledge of it from reaching any prisoner who might not be trustworthy. When the tunnel was about ten yards long a slight opening was made to the surface of the ground for light and ventilation; and an old shoe thrown out at this opening in the night, and resting near it upon the surface, enabled the tunnellers, looking from the windows of the prison in the daytime, to get their bearings and determine how much farther they must dig in order to pass under the fence. When all was done the night of February 9th was fixed for the escape. One of the officers who passed through the tunnel says of himself and two companions: "Each man had an entire suit of clothes, a double suit of underclothes, the pair of boots in which he stood on entering the prison, an overcoat, and a cap. In common we possessed a coil of rope, a diminutive hatchet, one pint of brandy, a half pint of extract of Jamaica ginger, two days' scant rations of dried meat and hard bread, one pipe, and a bit of tobacco. The tunnel was about fifty-three feet long, and so small in diameter that in order to pass through it was necessary to lie flat on one's face, propelling with one hand and the feet, the other hand being thrown over the back to diminish the breadth of the shoulders and carry overcoat, rations, etc. Early in the evening, as I was seated at the card table, Randolph tapped me on the shoulder. 'The work is finished,' he said. 'The first party went through soon after dark; there is no time to lose.' Every one knew it then. We possessed only the advantage of being perfectly cool and having a plan agreed upon. The excitement in the prison was of the wildest kind. Parties were formed, plans arranged, farewells exchanged, all in less time than one can describe. We dropped one by one into the cellar. I remember well the instructions: 'Feet first; back to the wall; get down on your knees; make a half face to the right, and grasp the spike in the wall below with your right hand; lower yourself down; feel for the knotted rope below with your legs.' Then one had but to drop in the loose straw shaken from hospital beds to be in the cellar. To walk across that foul pit in the dark was no easy matter; but it was soon accomplished, and together we crouched at the entrance of the tunnel. Only one at a time; and as about three minutes were consumed in effecting the passage, progress was quite slow. Of our party Randolph was the first to enter. 'I'm going. Wait till I get through before you start.' It seemed that his long legs would never disappear; but a parting kick in the face, as he wriggled desperately in, quite reassured me. When a cool blast of air drawing through the tunnel gave the welcome assurance that the passage was clear, in I went. So well did the garment of earth fit, that at moments my movements corresponded somewhat to those of a bolt forcing its way through a rifled gun. Breath failed when I was about two-thirds through, but a score or more of vigorous kicks brought me to the earth's surface where Randolph awaited my coming. With sundry whispered instructions about getting out without making undue noise and without breaking my skull against the bottom of a board fence, he then crept away toward the street, keeping in the shadow of a high brick wall, leaving me to assist in turn and instruct the colonel, who could now be heard thundering through the tunnel. Dirty but jubilant, we were soon standing in the shadow of a low brick arch, outside of which a sentinel paced backward and forward, coming sometimes within two yards of our position. One after another stole out of the archway, and we met, as agreed, at the corner of the second street below. Arm in arm, whistling and singing, we turned and struck out, strong and hopeful, for home and liberty." The one hundred and eight men who escaped through this tunnel followed different plans and routes for getting within the National lines, but the greater part of them were recaptured. The party of which the officer just quoted was one, after twelve days of journeying through swamps and by-ways, fed and guided by the friendly negroes, at length reached the National lines on the Pamunkey.
| RUINS OF CHARLESTON, S. C. |
A LEAP FOR LIBERTY1
1 Rewritten (by permission) from Captain Drake's narrative as printed in the private history of the Ninth New Jersey Volunteers.
On the morning of October 6, 1864, a party of six hundred captive Union officers were put on board of a train of box-cars to be transported from the jail yard at Charleston to prison quarters at Columbia. Among the number was Capt. J. Madison Drake, of the Ninth New Jersey volunteers, who had been a prisoner of war five months and an inmate during that time of three different prisons—Libby, Macon, Ga., and Charleston. Although he had been foiled in many attempts to escape, he resolved on one more effort, and, having received warning of the trip to Columbia, induced three fellow-prisoners to join him: Capt. H. H. Todd, Eighth New Jersey; Capt. J. E. Lewis, Eleventh Connecticut; and Capt. Alfred Grant, Nineteenth Wisconsin. While the train was crawling slowly on toward Columbia, the bold projector of the scheme managed to remove the gun-caps from the nipples of the muskets of several guards on the car where the four friends were; and as soon as dusk came on, the party at a signal took their daring leap. They landed in a cypress swamp on Congaree River, and found themselves waist deep in water and mud. A volley of shots from all the guards followed the fugitives, but no one was hurt, as the train was running under good headway. A night and a day were passed in the swamp, and although the barking of dogs and shouting of men indicated that pursuers had been sent out, the runaways were not disturbed. The second night a bright new moon arose, and they started on a systematic journey toward the Union lines in Tennessee.
Before leaving Charleston, one of the party had found a school map of South Carolina, and with this guide a course had been studied out. They decided to hug the swamps and woods by day, and at night use the fields and roads, and spend as little time as possible in sleep until the mountains of North Carolina were reached. Their chief guide-mark in South Carolina was the Wateree River.
At the end of a week their rations had all been consumed, and in desperation the wanderers began to think of food to the exclusion of all else. Captain Drake says that in these times they heartily yearned for the government "hard tack" and the contractor's beef they had so often anathematized on the march and in camp.
But fortune will favor the bold, and one night, as they halted on a roadside to debate whether it should be a quest for bread or for a road to liberty, a dark form came shambling along the road, and in the moonlight they saw at a distance that it was an old negro with a basket on his arm. Without ceremony the famished men crowded around the old man, and finding that he had in his basket a "pone" of corn-bread, they seized it and began to devour it ravenously. After a time the situation was explained, and when the negro learned who the highwaymen were, he supplied a quantity of meal and salt, and sent them on their way mentally resolved to cultivate acquaintance with colored folks as often as possible.