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426

THE TUNNELERS INGENIOUSLY BAFFLED.

[1864

progressing four or five feet in twelve hours, and a second filled his haversack with dirt and removed it (of course backing out, and crawling in on his return, as the tunnel was a single track, and had no turn-table), a third sat at the mouth pumping vigorously, and thus supplied the workers with fresh air.

At Salisbury this was impracticable. I suppose a paper of tacks could not have been purchased there for a thousand dollars. There were none to be had. Of course we could not pierce holes up to the surface of the ground for ventilation, as that would expose every thing.

Originally there was but one line of guards-posted some twenty-five feet apart, upon the fence which surrounded the garrison, and constantly walking to and fro, meeting each other and turning back at the limits of each post. Under this arrangement it was necessary to tunnel about forty feet to go under the fence, and come up far enough beyond it to emerge from the earth on a dark night without being seen or heard by the sentinels.

When the Commandant learned (through prisoners actually suffering for food, and ready to do almost any thing for bread) that tunneling was going on, he tried to ascertain where the excavations were located; but in vain, because none of the shaky Unionists had been informed. Therefore he established a second line of guards, one hundred feet outside of those on the fence, who also paced back and forth in the same manner until they met, forming a second line impervious to Yankees. This necessitated tunneling at least one hundred and forty feet, which, without ventilation, was just as much out of the question as to tunnel a hundred and forty miles.

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A good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity."

KING HENRY IV.

WE were constantly trying to escape. During the last fifteen months of our imprisonment, I think there was no day when we had not some plan which we hoped soon to put in execution. We were always talking and theorizing about the subject.

Indeed, we theorized too much. We magnified obstacles. We gave our keepers credit for greater shrewdness and closer observation than they were capable of. We would not start until all things combined to promise success. Therefore, as the slow months wore away, again and again we saw men of less capacity, but greater daring, escape by modes which had appeared to us utterly chimerical and impracticable.

Fortune, too, persistently baffled us. At the vital moment when freedom seemed just within our grasp, some unforeseen obstacle always intervened to foil our plans. Still, assuming a confidence we did not feel, we daily promised each other to persist until we gained our liberty or lost our lives. After the malignity which the Richmond authorities had manifested toward us, escape seemed a thousand-fold preferable to release by exchange.

I should hardly dare to estimate the combined length of tunnels in which we were concerned; they were

428

A FEARFUL JOURNEY IN PROSPECT.

[1864.

always discovered, usually on the eve of completion. My associate was wont to declare that we should never escape in that way, unless we constructed an underground road to Knoxville-two hundred miles as the bird flies!

Even if we passed the prison walls, the chance of reaching our lines seemed almost hopeless. We were in the heart of the Confederacy. During the ten months we spent in Salisbury, at least seventy persons escaped; but nearly all were brought back, though a few were shot in the mountains. We knew of only five who

had reached the North.

"Junius," certain to see the gloomy side of every picture, frequently said: "To walk the same distance in Ohio or Massachusetts, where we could travel by daylight upon public thoroughfares, stop at each village for rest and refreshments, and sleep in warm beds every night, we should consider a severe hardship. Think of this terrible tramp of two hundred miles, by night, in mid-winter, over two ranges of mountains, creeping stealthily through the enemy's country, weak, hungry, shelterless! Can any of us live to accomplish it ?""

When at last we did essay it, the journey proved nearly twice as long and infinitely severer than even he had conceived.

Among the officers of the prison, were three stanch Union men-a lieutenant, a surgeon, and Lieutenant John R. Welborn. They were our devoted friends. Their homes, families, and interests, were in the South. Attempting to escape, they were likely to be captured and imprisoned. Remaining, they must enter the army in some capacity, and they preferred wearing swords to carrying muskets. Hundreds of Loyalists were in the same predicament, and adopted the same course.

1864.]

A FRIENDLY CONFEDERATE OFFICER.

429

These gentlemen were of service to us in a thousand ways. They supplied us with money, books, and provisions; bore messages between us and other friends in the village; and kept us constantly advised of military and political events known to the officials, but concealed from the public.

Lieutenant Welborn came to the garrison only about a month before our departure. He belonged to a secret organization known as the Sons of America, instituted expressly to assist Union men, whether prisoners or refugees, in escaping to the North. Its members were bound, by solemn oath, to aid brothers in distress. They recognized each other by the signs, grips, and passwords, common to all secret societies.

We soon discovered that Welborn was not only of the Order, but a very earnest and self-sacrificing member. He was singularly daring. At our first stolen interview he said: "You shall be out very soon, at all hazards." Had he been detected in aiding us, it would have cost him his life; but he was quite ready to peril it.

Beyond the inner line of sentinels, which was much the more difficult one to pass, stood a Rebel hospital, where all medicines for the garrison were stored. When we were placed in charge of the Union hospitals, Mr. Davis was furnished with a pass to go out for medical supplies. It was the inflexible rule of the prison that all persons having such passes should give paroles not to escape. Davis would have assumed no such obligation. But in the confusion incident to the great influx of prisoners of war, and because it was the business of several Rebel officers-the Commandant, the Medical Director, and the Post-Adjutant-instead of the duty of one man to see it done, he was never asked for the parole.

A few days later, the prison authorities gave similar

430

EFFECTS OF HUNGER AND COLD.

[1864.

passes to "Junius" and to Captain Thomas E. Wolfe, of Connecticut, master of a merchant-vessel, who had been a prisoner nearly as long as we. We attempted to convince them, through several deluded Rebel attachés, that it was essential to the proper conduct of the medical department that I too should be supplied with a pass. Doubtless we should have succeeded in time, had not an incident occurred to hasten our movements.

On Sunday, December 18th, we learned that General Bradley T. Johnson, of Maryland, had arrived, and on the following day would supersede Major Gee as Commandant of the prison. Johnson was a soldier who knew how business should be done, and would doubtless put a stop to this loose arrangement about passes. Not a moment was to be lost, and we determined to escape that very night.

I engaged several prisoners, without informing them for what purpose, in copying from my hospital books the names of the dead. I felt that, to relieve friends at home, we ought to make an effort to carry through this information, as long as there was the slightest possibility of success.

My own books only contained the names of prisoners who died in the hospitals. "Out-door patients"-those deceased in their own quarters, or in no quarters whatever, were recorded in a separate book, by the Rebel clerk in the outside hospital. I dared not send to him for their names on Sunday, lest it should excite his suspicion. But the list from my own records was appalling. It comprised over fourteen hundred prisoners deceased within sixty days, and showed that they were now dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month on the entire number-a rate of mortality which would depopulate any city in the world in forty-eight hours, and send the

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