We did not like our capture, but we took it good-naturedly, though it seemed rather hard that, after escaping shot, shell, steam, fire, and water, we should have the bad luck to fall into the enemy’s hands.
The old pilot had proved a prophet. There was not a single Yankee left to tell the tale. The expedition was reported a total loss, with all on board, and some of us had the pleasure, long after, of reading our own obituaries in the northern journals. They were very kind; so kind, indeed, that we had some hesitation in declaring ourselves alive, lest, when we should really shuffle off this mortal coil, we might not be spoken of so generously. General Sherman, who then had, and may still have, a tender affection for war journalists, expressed his sympathy that night with our reported death by saying, “We shall have despatches from h—l now before breakfast.”
Even we correspondents, who had had glowing visions of the highly rhetorical accounts that we had intended to furnish to the New York journals, were deprived of the privilege of putting a word on paper. Our career of imprisonment began, and a very dreary career it was. We were thrust into two places of incarceration in Vicksburg; were then transferred to Jackson; then to Selma; then to Atlanta; then to Richmond, and finally to Salisbury; having in that time been the inmates, as I have said, of eight different prisons, each one of which was, if possible, more repulsive than that immediately preceding.
PLANS FOR ESCAPING.
At the famous Libby Prison we made our earliest efforts to escape; for at the other places we had not remained long enough to perfect any plans for freedom. We all had more faith in tunnelling than in anything else; but being kept on the upper floors of the old tobacco house in Richmond, we had no opportunity to put our faith into the form of works. If we could only have tunnelled the air, we should have come out in the camp of the army of the Potomac before we had spent a month in the Libby.
Numerous efforts were made by the Union officers, while we were with them, to have their quarters changed to the ground floor, on the score of comfort; but their southern keepers were too shrewd to put them there, knowing full well that the prospect of escape by tunnelling would be vastly increased. The northern invaders, as they were denominated, could get down to one of the lower floors, a few at a time; but these were not enough to do the digging, and the other hard work required, within any safe period. They did not, however, surrender their plans, and frequently at night we used to discuss at length the most available means for securing our freedom.
Months after, when one of my fellow-scribes and myself (the second had been duly exchanged at Richmond) had been sent farther south as “hostages for the good conduct of the Washington government,” we were delighted to learn that the gallant officers we had left behind in Libby had at last succeeded in digging the long-contemplated tunnel, and, what was better, getting their liberty once more.
The ground floor in the most western of the three adjoining warehouses composing the Libby Prison was devoted, during the winter of 1863-4, to storage and lumber, and was seldom visited by the rebel officials. This was very fortunate for the Yankees, who had been prevented before from commencing operations in that quarter, in consequence of the occupation of the floor by some of the southern subordinates. As soon as the prisoners learned that they could operate to advantage, they sawed a hole through the floor of the second story, carefully concealing it by the piece of plank they had sawed out. This story was part of their quarters, and they could readily determine when the coast was clear, and let down some of their number, who were not long in removing enough of the first floor to begin their digging. They worked like beavers, relieving each other every two hours, and performing all their labor at night. They began their tunnel just inside of the outer wall, went below the foundation of the building, and then dug laterally to a point where they deemed it safe to come up.
WORKING IN A TUNNEL.
I have had so much experience in tunnels that I regard myself as an authority thereon. They are generally only large enough to admit the body of a good-sized man, who creeps into them, and, lying nearly flat, digs as hard as he can with any instrument he may procure. After the tunnel has been extended thirty or forty feet, lack of ventilation prevents the burning of lights, and anything like freedom of breathing. The Libby tunnel was some seventy feet long; and to remedy this defect, the officers made a large pair of bellows, much resembling those used by blacksmiths, with tacks, blankets, and boards. With this rude but ingenious instrument, they supplied with oxygen the two men employed in the tunnel, one in advance digging, and the other behind, carrying out, or rather backing out, with the dirt in a haversack. Progress, under such adverse circumstances, is necessarily slow, the digging generally being done with a pocket or case knife. Sometimes not more than two feet is made by twelve hours of hard labor, and no one works more than an hour at a time, as the foul air is very exhausting.