USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2 > Part 45
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" How far did you have to carry it ?"
" The whole length of the mine, and to where it could be de- posited ; and every night I had to get the pioneers of my regi- ment to cut bushes and cover it up, where it had been deposited ; otherwise the enemy could have climbed up the trees in their lines and seen the pile of newly excavated earth."
" What was the length of the mine ?"
" The main gallery was five hundred and ten and eight-tenths feet in length; the left lateral gallery was thirty-seven feet in length, and the right lateral gallery was thirty-eight feet. The magazines were to be placed in the lateral galleries."
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" What were the dimensions of the galleries ?"
" They varied at different places. I suppose the average was four and a half feet by four and a half feet."
" Did the enemy discover that you were mining them ?"
" Deserters came into our lines from the enemy, who stated that they had found out where the mine was, and were trying to countermine. They said that some deserters from the Fifth corps in our army had told them about it. General Burnside ordered me to stop all work on a certain day on that account, and to listen for one day ; but not hearing anything of the enemy, we resumed our work. I did not hear the enemy until I got right under the fort. They did a great deal of hammering. While I was propping up the mine that we had dug I made no noise. I had the timber all framed and notched outside of the mine, and it was put together by hand, without any blows."
" Was the mine placed directly under the fortification, or close by it ?"
" It was exactly under it, except that the right lateral gallery made a little circular direction on account of avoiding a shaft which we supposed the enemy were making near by. It did not move out of line much, so that when the explosion took place it would tear up all around there."
" What amount of powder was used ?"
"I called for twelve thousand pounds; they gave me eight thousand."
" What means did you take to consume the powder so that it would have the proper effect ?"
"I had bags of sand interspersed with logs. There was no tamping between the magazines; it was left all open there so that there might be oxygen enough for the combustion of the powder. Outside the lateral galleries, in the main gallery, it was tamped."
" What means did you use to insure the explosion of the powder ?"
"I used three lines of fuze called the blasting fuze. I asked for fuze, and they sent me the common blasting fuze. There were troughs running from one magazine to the other, half filled with powder; and then from where the two lateral galleries joined there were two troughs with fuzes in them. The troughs were
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half filled with fine powder; then from a certain distance out was nothing but three fuzes without any powder. The fuze I received was cut in short pieces ; some of them were only ten feet long."
" Was there any danger that it would not communicate at those parts where it was joined ?"
" It did not, and had to be relighted."
" Who had the courage to go down into the mine and relight it ?"
" I had a Lieutenant and a Sergeant with me in the mine.when I lighted it the first time."
" How far did it go out ?"
" I had a fuze about ninety feet long, and it burned about forty feet-the whole three fuzes."
" How long did you wait to find out whether it would explode?"
"I waited from a quarter after three, the time it was first lighted, until quarter after four, when it was relighted, and ex- ploded at sixteen minutes to five."
"Could you not procure fuzes that were not spliced ?"
" It was too late after the fuzes came. The mine was prepared and ready for the powder to be put in on the 23d of July, and the enemy was trying to find me out all this time; but I could not get powder to put in, or permission to put it in, until the 28th or 29th."
" What reason was given for that ?"
" No reason at all ; they were not ready, that was all. General Burnside told me he had not permission yet to explode it. I was afraid the enemy would find me out that week."
" You state that you prepared three fuzes and laid them ?"
" Yes, sir."
" Why was that ?"
"I wanted to make a certain thing of it; but all three of the lines were spliced, and all three went out. The whole of the tamping, putting in the powder, and everything, was completed at six p. M. on the 28th of July, and remained there until it was exploded on the morning of the 30th of July ; and the powder, remaining there a day and a half in the mine, of course became damp."
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" Did it not require some nerve to go in there and relight those fuzes ?. "
"At first it did; but afterwards we felt certain that the reason the mine did not explode was that the fuzes had gone out."
".Who went in to relight them ?"
"Lieutenant Jacob Douty, First Lieutenant of Company K, Forty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and Sergeant Henry Rees, now Second Lieutenant of Company F, of the same regi- . ment."
From Colonel Pleasants' official report, the following additional particulars are given : "The charge consisted of three hundred and twenty kegs of powder, each containing about twenty-five pounds. It was placed, in eight magazines, connected with each other by troughs half filled with powder.
" The mine was ventilated at first by having the fresh air go in along the main gallery as far as it was excavated, and to re- turn charged with the gases generated by the breathing and ex- halation of the workmen, by the burning of the candles, and by those liberated from the ground, along and in a square tube made of boards, and whose area was sixty inches. This tube led to a perpendicular shaft twenty-two feet high, out of which this viti- ated air escaped. At the bottom of this shaft was placed a grating, in which a large fire was kept burning continually, which, by heating the air, rarefied it, and increased its current. Afterwards I caused the fresh air to be let in the above mentioned wooden tube to the end of the work, and the vitiated air to return by the gallery and out of the shaft, placing a partition with a door in the main gallery a little out of the shaft, to prevent its exit by the entrance of the mine. The latter plan was more advantageous, because the gases had to travel a less distance in the mine than before.
" The great difficulty to surmount was to ascertain the exact distance from the entrance of the mine to the enemy's works, and the course of these works. This was accomplished by making five separate triangulations, which differed but slightly in their result. These triangulations were made in our most advanced line, and within one hundred and thirty-three yards of the enemy's line of sharpshooters.
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PETERSBURG MINE.
"The size of the crater formed by the explosion was at least two hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and twenty-five feet deep.
"I stood on top of our breastworks and witnessed the effect of the explosion on the enemy. It so completely paralyzed them that the breach was practically four or five hundred yards in breadth. The rebels in the forts, both on the right and left of the explosion, left their works, and for over an hour not a shot was fired by their artillery. There was no fire of infantry from . the front for at least half an hour; none from the left for twenty minutes, and but few shots from the right."
A writer in the New York Herald, in speaking of the secrecy with which the work was executed, says: "For a long time the project was unknown, even to those at whose side it was going on. It is true that reports were in circulation of a mine, but nobody could speak certainly of the matter. So much doubt was there, indeed, that for a time it was disbelieved that any such undertaking was on foot. One soldier in the breastworks, by whose side a ventilating shaft emerged, told his comrades in the most surprised manner that 'there was a lot of fellows under him a doing something ; he knew there was, for he could hear 'em talk.' To guard against indiscretion on the part of the pickets. to prevent any meeting of our soldiers with the rebels, whereat the secret of the mine might be boastingly or imprudently dis- closed, our pickets were ordered to fire continually. Hence the never ending fusilade on the front of the Ninth Corps, so incom- prehensible to the other corps, and which was often referred to in newspaper paragraphs. The enemy, doubtless, suspected at first that the undermining was going on; but when several weeks elapsed without any demonstration, their suspicions began to vanish, especially as their engineers must have thought the plan unfeasible."
It was with feelings of the deepest anxiety that Colonel Pleas- ants took his place upon the parapet of the works and watched for the result of the explosion. Darkness was over and around all. Thirty thousand troops were assembled in close proximity, and were still noiselessly moving up. The time calculated for burning of the fuze came, but no explosion. For an hour the anticipated shock was awaited. The mine was entered, the
.
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defect in the fuze discovered, it was relighted, and now the word passes from the lips of Colonel Pleasants, and it speeds on the telegraphic wires, that in a certain number of minutes and seconds the powder will be reached. At the precise second fore- told, the fort rose and quickly settled away, leaving a vast col- umn of smoke and dust, which for some time obscured all about the crater. The division of troops assigned to lead went forward, and were followed by others; but with feeble stroke. Failing ยท to push on beyond the crater, confusion ensucd, more troops being crowded into the rebel works than could be used. The terror in- spired by the upheaval passed away, and being reassured, the enemy pushed up on all sides with great energy, and rendered all possibility of gaining an advantage futile. On the day previous to the assault, General Meade modified the plan of General Burnside, directing that the colored troops which he had specially trained for many days in the evolutions necessary for entering and turning the rebel works, and who had not been exposed to sharpshooting at the front, and consequently had not acquired the habit of seeking shelter at every opportunity, should not be employed, and that one of the white divisions should be taken in its place. This derangement of plan, upon the very eve of so im- portant an undertaking, apparently had a disastrous effect. Added to this, there was a lack of energy in pushing forward the leading division. But, for this failure, neither Colonel Pleasants nor his intrepid regiment were in any way answerable. The mine which he had planned and had seen executed under his eye, and by his ceaseless care, was entirely successful, and with marvellous exactness had produced the result which he had predicted.
Though having little faith in the project, and giving little countenance to its execution, when the explosion had taken place and had accomplished all that the most sanguine could have wished, General Meade hastened to make recognition of the service rendered by Colonel Pleasants, in the following general order: "The Commanding General takes great pleasure in ac- knowledging the valuable services rendered by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants, Forty-eighth regiment Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, and the officers and men of his command, in the ex-
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PETERSBURG MINE.
cavation of the mine which was successfully exploded on the morning of the 30th ultimo, under one of the enemy's batteries in front of the Second division of the Ninth Army Corps. The skill displayed in the laying out and construction of the mine reflects great credit upon Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasants, the officer in charge, and the willing endurance, by the officers and men of the regiment, of the extraordinary labor and fatigue involved in the prosecution of the work to completion, is worthy of the highest praise."
After the failure in the assault, the army settled down to the varied duty of siege operations, in which Colonel Pleasants participated with his accustomed fidelity and skill, till the end of his term in December following, when he was mustered out of service. Immediately after the successful result of the mine was known, President Lincoln, desirous of showing him a mark of esteem, ordered that the brevet rank of Colonel be bestowed upon him : but this he declined. In October following he was commissioned Colonel of the Forty-eighth regiment; but on ac- count of insufficiency of men in his command, he was not mustered. On the 13th of March, 1865, he was brevetted Brigadier-General by the President, for distinguished services at the Petersburg mine, in which he was confirmed by the Senate, and this distinction he accepted. General Pleasants, from lead- ing an active out-door life, has always enjoyed excellent health. He is a little above the medium height, and well preserved. He was married on the 6th of June, 1866, to Miss Annie E. Shaw, of Lexington, Kentucky.
For two years past he has occupied the position of Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Com- pany, which he still continues to hold. He is at present engaged in one of the most important engineering projects ever under- taken in this country-the excavation of two vertical shafts through rock, to the mammoth coal vein. The drilling is done by machinery driven by compressed air, and applied by diamonds attached to the drilling bits. These are the first shafts ever made in this way in the world. One of them has already attained a depth of seven hundred feet.
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
IBBY PRISON TUNNEL. An exploit which gained great noto- riety at the time of its occurrence, both North and South, was the opening of the Libby Tunnel, which offered to the in- mates of that loathsome and detested place free egress to the streets of Richmond, at a point beyond the path of the sentinel's tread. At the writer's request, Brevet Brigadier-General Thomas E. Rose, of the Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania regiment, the originator and moving spirit in its execution prepared a full and circumstantial account, which is given below substantially as he wrote it. No correct history of this thrilling event- which presented the novel spectacle of the inmates of a great prison, in the midst of a populous city, with keepers watchful and sentinels marching, walking off unchallenged -- has ever been published; only the merest outlines mingled with many entirely erroneous statements having ever been given :
"I was captured at the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, on the 20th of September, 1863, and taken to Richmond, Virginia. On my way thither, I escaped at Weldon, North Carolina, and after wandering about for a day, seeking a route to the nearest post of Union troops, I was recaptured by some rebel cavalry that came upon me accidentally. I was suffering at the time from the effects of a broken foot, which caused me to be too slow in reach- ing a place of concealment. I was taken thence to Libby, arriv- ing about the 1st of October, 1863, and received my first greeting of 'fresh fish,' that being the cry of the prisoners upon the notice of the latest arrival. I soon set about devising means of escape. At that time there were about two thousand prisoners in Libby. The windows were without bars, and the prison was insufficiently guarded. The officers consisted of the two Turners, Ross the clerk, the Adjutant, three Sergeants, one overseer of negro laborers, one officer of the guard, and sixteen enlisted men, making in all only twenty-five men. I thought that the whole party could be captured without alarm, and for this purpose organized a society among the prisoners, called the COUNCIL OF FIVE. The whole number who joined in the league was 420.
" Before the plan was fairly perfected, a notice was published in the Richmond papers, that a plot had been discovered among the prisoners to overpower the guard and prison officers, burn the
AP
SAMUEL B. M. YOUNG, Col.4th Cav 64+ Reg Brev Brig Gen.
JAMES A. BEAVER. Col.146" Peg Brev. Brug Gen.
EDMUND L. DANA. Co: 1434 Reg Brev Brug Gen
JOHN S LITTELL. . Col 76th Peg Brev Brug Gen
THOMAS E ROSE Co17h Beg Prey Brug Gen
Engiby Geo & Perine New York
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LIBBY PRISON TUNNEL.
city of Richmond, and escape to the Yankee lines. Whether this publication had allusion to our league or not, I do not know. Our organization was carried on with strict secrecy, and unless some one of our number divulged the plan, it was impossible for the prison officers to have found it out. My opinion is, and was then, that the publication alluded to was the result of a mere suspicion ; and the fact that our league was in existence was only a coincidence. At any rate the measures taken by the rebels, immediately after, prevented us from making the attempt. The doors were made more secure, the windows were closed with iron grating, and the guard was largely reinforced. I then attempted to escape by way of the carpenter shop, a room on the ground- floor of the prison, supposed to be inaccessible to the prisoners. This room I reached by tearing up a plank in the floor, and lowering a rope into the shop from the room above. I was assisted in this by Captain A. J. Hamilton, a native of Pennsyl- vania, but who belonged to the Twelfth Kentucky cavalry. The rope used was given to me by Major Harry White, of the Sixty- seventh Pennsylvania infantry. The rope was first obtained from General Neal Dow. About that time the Union govern- ment sent a quantity of clothing to our prisoners at Richmond, and this rope came around one of the bales. General Neal Dow, Colonel Von Schrader, and Captain Boyd, Assistant Quarter- master, prisoners, had been selected by the rebels to issue this clothing, and they had by this means secured the rope. This rope was of immense importance in all our subsequent operations. It was an inch rope and nearly one hundred feet in length. The door of the carpenter shop was always open, and the plan was, when once down there, to stand by the door on the inside of the shop, and when the sentinel had just passed the door, to slip out while his back was in that direction, and walk off. There were several in the plot, but of course we could only escape singly, and I was to make the first attempt. I made the venture one very dark and stormy night. I easily passed the first sentinel, but unfortunately was seen by the second, who happened just at that moment to be facing towards me. He seemed to suppose that something was wrong and called out to the first, who, on hearing his name, faced about and saw me. My only chance to
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
escape being shot or captured, was to run back into the shop, which was as dark as Erebus, and climb the rope into the room above. The sentinel called for the corporal of the guard, but before he could enter the carpenter shop and strike a light, I had drawn up the rope and replaced the plank. As there were some workmen sleeping in one end of the shop, the corporal must have supposed that one of them had tried to pass, as he soon gave up the search and did not enter the room above.
"I went down into the shop several times afterwards, but found it impossible to escape in that direction. Once while down there I was discovered by one of the workmen. I seized a broad- axe with the intention of braining him if he attempted to call the guard, but he went to bed, blew out his light, and begged me not to come in there again. I was fearful that he would afterwards expose me, but if he ever attempted to do so, the guards paid no attention to his report, as I never observed any additional vigi- lance.
" During my visits to the carpenter shop I secured some tools. They consisted of two chisels, some files, a kind of crow-bar, a hatchet, an auger, a hand-saw, a ripping-saw, and a carpenter's square. The rebels allowed us to send out and buy case-knives to cut our food, and clothes-lines to hang our clothes on to dry. All these things were more or less used in subsequent operations. The carpenter tools were kept secreted in blankets whenever the inspector of the prison was about. . My next plan was to escape from the room under the hospital. This also was a ground-floor room.
" The Libby prison was a strong brick building extending in an easterly and westerly direction probably 160 feet, and northerly and southerly about 100 feet. It consisted of three equal divisions formed by strong walls running transversely from the ground up. The prison was four stories high. The ground-floor was on a level with the bank of the canal, on which was a wide paved street. The floor of the second story was on a level with Cary street. The prison was bounded on all sides by streets, along all of which sentinels were placed. The street or alley that bounded the cast end of the prison was not graded or paved. We generally con- sidered this a vacant lot, as no persons except guards ever passed
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through it. All the other streets were paved and graded. The three rooms on the ground-floor were not used by the prisoners, those at the two ends of the building being storerooms, and the centre one the carpenter's shop mentioned above. On the second floor the room at the west end was used by the rebels as an office, that in the middle as a cooking-room for the prisoners, and those at the east. end as a prisoners' hospital. In the third and fourth stories the prisoners were quartered.
" The cook-room, the middle one on the second floor as already mentioned, was accessible to all the prisoners at all hours. It was from this room that access was gained to the carpenter shop by raising the plank in the floor. It was also from this room that all subsequent operations were commenced and carried on. To gain the carpenter shop required but little skill; but to reach the ground-floor of the eastern division was a very delicate opera- tion. It was evident, however, that if an escape was to be made it must be from this room, as it was at all times dark therein, and it was seldom visited by the rebels either day or night.
" The plan to get into this room was to cut through the wall separating the middle from the eastern division of the building, diagonally across the plane of the floors beginning above that in the cooking-room, and ending below that in the room underneath the hospital in the eastern division of the building. To do this without the aperture being discovered was no easy task.
" Near the north end of the cooking-room in the wall separat- ing the middle from the eastern division was a small dirty fire- place, in the mouth of which was a cooking-stove of considerable size used by the prisoners. It was in this fireplace that Captain Hamilton and myself commenced operations. We first moved the stove a little away from the mouth of the fireplace; then took out the dirt and placed it carefully in a gum blanket; taking a chisel and the crow-bar we cut away the bottom of the fireplace for several inches, then worked diagonally through the wall to a point under the floor of the hospital. We were obliged to make no noise whatever in doing all this; for one of the sentinels was just outside the door within ten feet of where we were. We were obliged to take out all of the front bricks without fracture so that they could be replaced; for it was through this door that the
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prison inspector entered every day, and the first object he met on entering was this fireplace and stove. It therefore took a good many nights before we got this hole cut completely through. We could only work from about ten o'clock in the evening, when the last of the prisoners would retire, to four o'clock in the morning, when the first would begin to come down to cook.
"As the morning hour approached, we would carefully replace every brick, and then put back the dirt, making the fireplace look as if it had never been disturbed. We would then replace the stove in its proper position, go up-stairs, conceal our tools, and go to bed. Thus we worked until at length we had cut a pretty large aperture in the wall, and I prepared myself to go through to the ground-floor of the eastern division. I did not think the hole was large enough to pass without trouble; but from the narrowness of the fireplace in one direction, and of the wall it- self on the other, Hamilton was of the opinion that the hole could not be made any larger without discovery. I also thought I could squeeze through, small as it was, and see how matters looked in that room. I brought forward the rope already de- scribed, fastened it securely to one of the brace posts in the room, and lowered it through the aperture to the ground-floor. I then entered it feet foremost, at the same time seizing the rope. As soon as my feet and legs were fairly dangling below, the inevitable - law of gravitation forced my body into the hole as tight as a wedge. The fireplace was so narrow, and my body in such a position in consequence of the abruptness of the wall, that I could not use my arms, and of course I could not use my feet; so that I was perfectly helpless. Of all the tight places that I ever was in, either figuratively or literally, before or since, that took the lead. I whispered to Hamilton that I was wedged so tight that I feared the whole Southern Confederacy could not loosen me.
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