USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2 > Part 46
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" He was a powerful man, and grasped my left wrist with both his hands; while with my right hand I endeavored to help my- self. He pulled with the strength of a giant, but it was of no use. I could not be budged an inch. He then left me sticking in the hole and ran up-stairs, awakened Major Fitzsimmons of the Thirtieth Indiana infantry, conducted him to the place, and they two after several vigorous efforts managed to pull me out. As
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soon as they had forced me a little over the angle of the wall, I came out very easily, and as they gave another tremendous pull, I came up so light that we all three fell upon the floor with a prodigious noise. The sentinel who walked in front of the door, and the next one to him, seemed startled and confused. The prisoners up-stairs awoke and called to each other to inquire the cause of the crash. We all three lay where we fell perfectly motionless and almost breathless, for fear we would be discovered. The corporal of the guard did not come into the room; and as soon as all was quiet again, we rose, replaced the bricks, dirt, and stove as quickly as possible, slipped up-stairs and went to bed, very much fatigued and considerably discouraged. The next day I went down into the cooking-room, and while pretending to cook at the stove so as not to attract the attention of the prisoners to my real object, examined the fireplace very minutely, and finally came to the conclusion that it could be deepened considerably and perhaps a very little widened, so that by entering the hole side- wise it could be easily passed. I did not get much reputation as a cook while I was making these observations, but when they were ended, I went up-stairs and communicated my conclusions to Hamilton. That night as soon as darkness came on we prepared ourselves for the work, and by twelve o'clock, by the call of the sentinel, the aperture was enlarged so that by passing down with my shoulders in a vertical instead of horizontal direction, as I had attempted the night before, I reached the ground-floor room of the eastern division. The darkness therein was perfect, but I examined every part of the room by feeling, then climbed up the rope and pulled myself through the hole in the wall without assistance. It was then that the problem was solved and the escape, with reasonable prudence, only a question of time.
" Here then the work commenced. The rope was now made into a ladder with wooden braces, and fixed in such a manner that any one could go up and down into the cellar-as we called that room-without incurring the risks that I had run in being obliged to climb the single rope. It was also rolled up and placed in the interior of the aperture to build the wall upon instead of a large number of the bricks, and answered even a better purpose than to have used all every day. The next day I organized a
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working party, consisting of the following named persons : Major Fitzsimmons, of the Thirtieth Indiana; Captains Gallaher, of the Second Ohio; Lucas, of the Fifth Kentucky; Clarke, of the Seventy-ninth Illinois; Johnson, of the Sixth Kentucky; Major McDonald, of the One Hundred and First Ohio infantry; Lieu- tenants Fistler, of the Twelfth Indiana artillery; Mitchell, of the Seventy-ninth Illinois infantry; Garbet, of the Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania infantry; Ludlow, of the United States artillery; Clifford, of the United States infantry; Costin, of the United States infantry; Wallack, of the Fifty-first Indiana infantry; with Captain A. J. Hamilton, Twelfth Kentucky cavalry, and myself, to superintend and direct the work.
" My first plan was to go under the foundation of the prison building by digging alongside the wall, and then into a large sewer that we knew ran parallel with the canal, and about thirty feet south of the prison building. We had often seen laborers go down into this sewer, and I judged it to be about seven feet in diameter on the inside. We commenced digging just behind the partitioned corner in the southeast side of the room. The stone pavement in the floor of the room was raised and relaid in places every night to conceal the dirt. We soon got to the bottom of the stone work of the building, but found that it rested on piles. To cut through these piles with the tools we had to work with was a tremendous undertaking; but we toiled at it night after night until at last we got entirely through, and began digging towards the large sewer already mentioned.
" From the time we had commenced cutting through the piles, we had been very much interrupted by the water running into our tunnel. We managed to bail it out, but as we dug farther into the sand the water accumulated until at last a very heavy stream rushed in so as to completly drive us out of the tunnel. Long before this time one after another of the party had quit the work, and a few others whose names I have lost took their places, only to work a short time, and then give up as the others had done, thinking the object hopeless. Finally, Hamilton and myself were left alone. We two then tried another plan. At the southeast corner of the building was a trough that came down from above on the inside to carry off the prison filth. By examination we found
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that it went into the ground, and of course it must reach the main sewer somewhere. We first dug down to the end of this trough, and found a small sewer leading through the wall. This was too small, however, to admit the passage of a man. It was made of wood, and we tore it out and endeavored to get through the wall. .. While we were removing the dirt from the aperture, the pavement on the outside of the prison building, where the sentinel walked, caved in. This of course was caused by our having taken away the plank sewer. We heard the rattling of the bricks and the call of the sentinel for the corporal of the guard. .. Of course we got away from there as quickly and quietly as possible. The next day we looked through the gratings of the windows .from above, and saw the prison officers inspecting the place on the outside, and some negro laborers repairing the damage we had done. How it was that they did not discover anything wrong I never could imagine. We listened intently and overheard them saying something about rats, but could not hear enough of the conversation to make out whether they had any suspicion of the true cause or not. We had secreted the planks of the sewer where they could not easily find them. The next night I went down into the ground-floor room of the eastern division very cautiously, knowing that if the rebels had made any discoveries they would set a trap to catch me when I came into this room; but I found it as silent and tenantless as ever. We had now been working more than two months, and many interest- ing events had taken place during that time; many have passed from my memory and those that I do recall are too numerous to mention in this narrative.
;" It was at this time that my friend Hamilton gave up all hope of final success. It did seem to be hopeless on account of the difficulty of getting men to work. I did not despair, but resolved, if possible, to organize another party and dig straight through from near the northeast corner of the room to a yard, enclosed by a high board fence directly across the unpaved street or alley that bounded the east end of the building. This point being near Cary street, we would of course have plenty of earth between us and the surface so that the tunnel would not cave in, and at the same time be several feet more elevated than we were while
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working in the former tunnel. Besides, it was a dryer locality, so that we would not be troubled with water. The only objec- tion that I had to this plan was, that when we made our exit from the tunnel we would not be perfectly safe from being seen by the sentinels. Still the yard where the exit would be. was closed on three sides by tenantless buildings, and on one side by a very high board fence, so that a dozen men would not . be seen in the yard unless by accident. Through the building that stood on the south side of this yard was a gateway for carriages, and this gateway was about twenty feet from the end of the beat of the nearest sentinel, at a point that he was not required to guard; besides the other end of his beat was full sixty or seventy feet from this gateway. A man therefore could watch when the sentinel's back was turned, then slip out at the gate, and get some distance away before the sentinel would turn to come back to- wards the gate. In fact he could turn the corner of the building on the east end of the yard and be out of sight by walking quickly.
"This plan therefore was the best that I could adopt, if not the only one that had any promise of success. Accordingly the next day I had a consultation with some of the prisoners. None of them seemed to have much hope, but several of them said they would work if for no other purpose than to 'pass away the time,' as ex- change was despaired of and prison life had become exceedingly irksome. I therefore organized a party composed as follows : Major Fitzsimmons, of the Thirtieth Indiana; Captains Clarke, of the Seventy-ninth Illinois; Gallaher, of the Second Ohio; Randall, of the Second Ohio; Lucas, of the Fifth Kentucky; Johnson, of the Sixth Kentucky; Major McDonald, of the One Hundred and First Ohio; Lieutenants Fistler, of the Twelfth Indiana ; Mitchell, of the Seventy-ninth Illinois; Simpson, of the Tenth Indiana; Garbet, of the Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania; Foster, of the Twenty-ninth Indiana artillery; and Mckeon, of the Forty-fourth Illinois infantry; with Captain A. J. Hamilton and myself to superintend and direct the work.
" The first thing was to cut a hole through the wall of the prison. This task was assigned to McDonald and Clarke. As already mentioned this room was seldom visited by the rebels
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either day or night-at night I may say never. When they did come in during the day, which sometimes was not once in a week, it would be to stay but for a few moments. To a person coming in from out-doors it was very dark even in the middle of a bright day, so that he could see but a few feet in any direction, and as the room was 100 feet in length, a person standing in the north end was secure from being seen by the person entering from with- out. To a person entering this room in the night, however, and staying there all day, as Hamilton or I often did, and sometimes both of us together, it was light enough to see to do any kind of work. Many a time I have seen the rebels come in there and stand and look directly at us, and frequently look exactly in my direction. To my accustomed eyes it was nearly as light as day, but to them it was dark as night, especially towards the north end of the room, where I always took care to stand when any one came in. If they stayed too long, or came too far into the room, I would lie down behind the straw, a bale of hay, or whatever happened to be at hand. It was therefore resolved that the cut- ting of the wall should be done in the daytime, for two reasons : if we worked at night we would be obliged to use a candle, which might be seen through the cracks of the door which opened towards the canal; again if we worked in the daytime we could make as much noise with our tools as we pleased, and it would not be noticed by the rebels or by the other prisoners, on account of the noise throughout the building and in the streets.
" This last consideration was of immense importance, because we could cut through the wall in one-tenth part of the time by not being obliged to do it without noise. It was on this account, and being obliged to take the bricks out without fracture, that Hamilton and I were so long in cutting through the first wall. Another consideration in favor of working in the daytime was, that we could work the whole day through without interruption ; whereas at night we could only work from three to four hours, as already explained. Accordingly, that night McDonald and Clarke were provided with the tools used in cutting the first wall, and as soon as the prisoners had retired to sleep, I went down with them into the cooking-room, opened the hole in the fire- place, and we three descended to the ground-floor room. I
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showed them the point I had selected to commence operations, and after remaining and conversing a little time went up the ladder to the cooking-room, drew it up after me, put it in its place, rebuilt the wall in the fireplace, replaced the dirt and the stove, and left McDonald and Clarke to their fate as had been done to Hamilton and myself on many an occasion before.
" The next morning I was up early and went to the windows where I could see whether any of the rebels would enter the ground-floor room of the eastern division. Either Hamilton or myself were on watch all day, and as night came on we had the satisfaction of knowing that the workmen had not been disturbed in their labors. As soon as the prisoners had all retired, Hamil- ton and myself went down into the cooking-room, took the dirt from the hearth, opened the wall and let down the ladder, when McDonald and Clarke came up and reported that they had been successful.
"I then went down and found that they had cut a hole entirely through the wall of sufficient size to admit a very large man easily. Going up into the lower middle room I gave a pre- concerted signal, that would not be noticed by any of the prison- ers except my own party. It was for the first relief of the work- ing party to turn out. I preceded them and directed them to the aperture in the wall which had been cut by McDonald and Clarke. A blanket was now spread in the form of a screen so that the light of the candle could not be seen through the cracks of the door in the south end of the room, outside of which a sentinel walked his beat. We then took one of the chisels, a pretty broad one, and commenced digging.
" The earth we dug through was composed of compact sand, nearly as hard as a rock. There was therefore no danger of caving in ; and the tunnel was dry as I had supposed. We made very rapid progress until we had proceeded about fifteen feet, when the air became so vitiated as to support life but a very short time. The flame of the candle would then expire, and the digger would be obliged to crawl out of the tunnel; notwithstand- ing, one man stood constantly at the mouth driving fresh air into it with a rude fan, constructed for the purpose. Still we made comparatively rapid progress. One night I dug six feet with my
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own hands. In order to draw the dirt out of the tunnel as it was dug, we used a wooden spittoon with a clothes-line tied to it so that the digger could pull it in to him while at work, and the man at the mouth of the tunnel could pull it out when filled, a double line being continuous. My whole party was divided into reliefs of five men each, so that the same set of men went down to work every third night.
" Of the five men who composed a relief, it was the duty of one of them to stand guard in the cooking-room. It was his duty to draw up the ladder, build up the wall, replace the dirt after the others came up, also to open the hole and let down the ladder before the others came down to the cooking-room. It was also his duty, when any of the relief were working in the daytime, to stand guard at one of the windows in the prison above, and notice whether any of the rebels entered where they were at work, and see if they were discovered and captured; and to make his report to me, so that I should know whether I could send down the next relief with safety. The other four men of the relief went down to the tunnel. Of these one man dug in the tunnel and filled the spittoon. Another pulled the spittoon out, emptied it into a second and notified the digger to pull it back. A third man took the second spittoon and placed the dirt under the straw. The remaining man of the relief fanned fresh air into the tunnel. They were allowed to take turns at the different kinds of work, except the man who stood guard in the cooking-room; but they did not generally do it, each man being most expert at his own part.
"They went to work generally about ten o'clock P. M. Taps were always sounded at nine, when, of course, the lights went . out; but the prisoners did not generally all retire until ten o'clock. As soon as they retired, I sent the relief down. They always worked until four o'clock A. M., by the call of the senti- nels, when they would come up and go to bed. The guard then performed his duty as explained. Sometimes the whole four would remain down and work all day, in which case the guard in the cooking-room would draw up the ladder, rebuild the wall, replace the dirt and stove, and go to bed, but as soon as it was light he would go to the window and watch all day.
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" This was considered extremely hazardous, however, and was not often donc. It more frequently happened that one or two of the four would stay down all day and do what work they could, in which case the others would go up at four o'clock A. M., and the guard would perform the same duty as when the whole relief stayed down. We proceeded in this manner for some time, when an event occurred which effectually put a stop to our work in the daytime, and which greatly embarrassed all our operations. It was always the custom of the prison officers to count off or call the roll of the prisoners every day. The manner up to this time had been to cause the prisoners to stand up in four ranks exactly covering their files; then Ross, the clerk, would pass down the front rank from the right of the line to the left and count the files. As long as they pursued this method we had no difficulty in accounting for absentees; because if a man belonged to a file that had been counted, all he had to do, if he was in the rear rank, was to stoop and run quickly to the left of the line before Ross got there, and stand up in another file, when he would be counted by Ross a second time. Thus, almost any number of men could be accounted for, and thus our party used at first to do when any of them were below. Other prisoners used to see us doing this thing, and thought we were doing it for fun-devil- ment they called it; and they got to doing the same thing-for devilment sure enough. The consequence was that Ross could not make the same count by from twenty to thirty, two days alike, and towards the last we did not take the trouble to account for our men at all, Ross seemed so careless about it. All of a sudden one day, without the slightest previous intimation, the prison officers changed their plan. It was to cause all the prison- ers to go into the eastern division of the building, place guards at the doors, and then call the roll. As soon as a prisoner answered to his name he was obliged to pass through the door into one of the other divisions. There was therefore no possible chance of accounting for an absentee.
"On the day that the rebels adopted this plan, Johnson and McDonald were down below at the tunnel. The day before I was down myself. Dick Turner was calling the roll. Every- thing went well until he called out I. N. Johnson, I. N. Johnson,
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I. N. Johnson, I. N. Johnson ; but nobody answered. The next name was then called, answered, and the man passed out, and so on everything went smoothly as before, until the name of B. B. McDonald was called, when the same result followed as in the case of I. N. Johnson. The remaining names of the prisoners were then called and answered, and the eastern division was cleared. Turner then went through the rooms calling the names of the missing prisoners for some time, but of course he could not find the absentees.
This affair caused me considerable concern, as it awakened not only a great curiosity among the prison officials, but also among the prisoners themselves. One of the prisoners told Turner that he had seen Johnson the day before. This gave me additional uneasiness. The next night as soon as it was safe I went down and opened the aperture in the wall. Johnson and McDonald came up, and the facts were immediately communicated to them. They asked my advice as to what they had better do. There were only two plans for them to pursue. One was to face the music, and tell the prison officials the most ingenious story they could invent. The other was to remain concealed every day down below. McDonald immediately chose the former course ; but Johnson chose the latter. I was not in favor of this, because the excitement would be continually kept up, while in the former it would soon die away; besides it was extremely dangerous to the whole enterprise for Johnson to remain below; but he insisted upon it. Thenceforward Johnson came up-stairs every night, and went below and remained concealed every day. The next day McDonald was called to account. He told the prison officials that he had been concealed in the upper west room, where he had been asleep, and was afraid to come down to answer to his name. He was dismissed without punishment, and we tried to prevail upon Johnson to do the same thing; but he refused. The consequence was, that he was obliged to remain concealed until the final escape was made. There was no more work done during the daytime after this; still we made considerable pro- gress.
" When we had extended the tunnel about thirty-eight or forty feet, some of the workmen got it into their heads that we had
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reached the desired point inside the enclosure across the alley. I tried to convince them of the absurdity of the notion. They, however, insisted upon it, and among the most positive was McDonald. Hamilton, I believe, was also of this opinion. To ascertain the space we had to pass under was not an easy matter. We could only see this street or vacant lot from the windows of the third and fourth stories at the east end of the building, and as these windows were closed with iron bars, we could not see the whole width of the street. It therefore looked much narrower than it really was. I had, however, taken observation of this street some months before, when there were no bars in any of the windows. Besides, even yet, there were one or two points from which I could trace the beats of the sentinels from the corners of the yard opposite to near the corners of the prison building. It was seldom that any sentinel would walk entirely to the corner of the yard opposite: they generally turned within about ten feet of it ; but they did occasionally do so; particularly the one at the southeast corner. When any sentinel did walk the whole distance, I counted his paces as far as I could see him approach the prison building. By placing my head close against the bars, I could see the sentinel on the northeast corner make generally eighteen paces; and the sentinel at the southeast corner fifteen to sixteen paces. The latter being so much lower than the former, I could not see him, from my point of observation, ap- proach so near the building. By sitting in the window and making a great many careful observations, I came to the conclu- sion that one walked about ten feet more than I could see, and the other about fifteen feet. I had no other instrument than the carpenter's square, but by measuring the height of the stories I soon determined the distance from the window to each of the sentinel's beats, and finally arrived at a pretty accurate estimate of the distance we had to dig, and I knew very well we had not dug far enough yet. The principal cause of their belief that we had extended the tunnel far enough was this: there was a point in the tunnel where the tread of the sentinel appeared to all of us to be directly overhead; and this point was much nearer the prison building or mouth of the tunnel than to the point reached. We all supposed that the path of the sentinel was in the middle of the street. Hence their conclusion.
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" By this time our progress had become much slower than at first, principally from the fact that the digger had to crawl so far every time he came out for fresh air, and had to come out so much oftener; for, as the tunnel extended, the flame of the candle expired quicker. I knew that if an aperture was made to the surface, however small, the difference of temperature between the atmosphere outside and that in the room, where the mouth of the tunnel was, would cause a current to pass through it, and thus obviate the necessity for the digger to crawl out so often for fresh air. I therefore took the matter pretty easy when they talked about digging upward to the surface. I did not agree to it, how- ever, for I feared the sentinel might discover it by the noise, though I did not apprehend much danger, for I remembered too well the affair of the caving in of the pavement on the south side of the building. One night the second relief was going to work ; of this relief McDonald was the digger. I had dug the night before and had worked hard to extend the tunnel as far as possi- ble. McDonald insisted on striking at once towards the surface. I told him that I wanted it distinctly understood that they were not far enough by at least fifteen or twenty feet; but he might go cautiously to the surface to let fresh air into the tunnel, and to satisfy himself of the fact. I then went up-stairs and retired.
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