SAVANNAH--DEVICES TO OBTAIN MATERIALS FOR A TENT--THEIR ULTIMATE
SUCCESS --RESUMPTION OF TUNNELING--ESCAPING BY WHOLESALE AND BEING
RECAPTURED EN MASSE--THE OBSTACLES THAT LAY BETWEEN US AND OUR LINES.
Andrews and I did not let the fate of the boy who was killed, nor my
own narrow escape from losing the top of my head, deter us from farther
efforts to secure possession of those coveted boards. My readers
remember the story of the boy who, digging vigorously at a hole,
replied to the remark of a passing traveler that there was probably no
ground-hog there, and, even if there was, “ground-hog was mighty poor
eatin’, any way,” with:
“Mister, there’s got to be a ground-hog there; our family’s out o’
meat!”
That was what actuated us: we were out of material for a tent. Our
solitary blanket had rotted and worn full of holes by its long double
duty, as bed-clothes and tent at Andersonville, and there was an
imperative call for a substitute.
Andrews and I flattered ourselves that when we matched our collective
or individual wits against those of a Johnny his defeat was pretty
certain, and with this cheerful estimate of our own powers to animate
us, we set to work to steal the boards from under the guard’s nose. The
Johnny had malice in his heart and buck-and-ball in his musket, but his
eyes were not sufficiently numerous to adequately discharge all the
duties laid upon him. He had too many different things to watch at the
same time. I would approach a gap in the fence not yet closed as if
I intended making a dash through it for liberty, and when the Johnny
had concentrated all his attention on letting me have the contents of
his gun just as soon as he could have a reasonable excuse for doing
so, Andrews would pick u a couple of boards and slip away with them.
Then I would fall back in pretended (and some real) alarm, and--Andrew
would come up and draw his attention by a similar feint, while I made
off with a couple more pieces. After a few hours c this strategy, we
found ourselves the possessors of some dozen planks, with which we made
a lean-to, that formed a tolerable shelter for our heads and the upper
portion of our bodies. As the boards were not over five feet long,
and the slope reduce the sheltered space to about four-and-one-half
feet, it left the lower part of our naked feet and legs to project
out-of-doors. Andrews used to lament very touchingly the sunburning his
toe-nails were receiving. He knew that his complexion was being ruined
for life, and all the Balm of a Thousand Flowers in the world would
not restore his comely ankles to that condition of pristine loveliness
which would admit of their introduction into good society again.
Another defect was that, like the fun in a practical joke, it was all
on one side; there was not enough of it to go clear round. It was very
unpleasant, when a storm came up in a direction different from that we
had calculated upon, to be compelled to get out in the midst of it, and
build our house over to face the other way.
Still we had a tent, and were that much better off than three-fourths
of our comrades who had no shelter at all. We were owners of a brown
stone front on Fifth Avenue compared to the other fellows.
Our tent erected, we began a general survey of our new abiding place.
The ground was a sandy common in the outskirts of Savannah. The sand
was covered with a light sod. The Rebels, who knew nothing of our
burrowing propensities, had neglected to make the plank forming the
walls of the Prison project any distance below the surface of the
ground, and had put up no Dead Line around the inside; so that it
looked as if everything was arranged expressly to invite us to tunnel
out. We were not the boys to neglect such an invitation. By night about
three thousand had been received from Andersonville, and placed inside.
When morning came it looked as if a colony of gigantic rats had been at
work. There was a tunnel every ten or fifteen feet, and at least twelve
hundred of us had gone out through them during the night. I never
understood why all in the pen did not follow our example, and leave the
guards watching a forsaken Prison. There was nothing to prevent it. An
hour’s industrious work with a half-canteen would take any one outside,
or if a boy was too lazy to dig his own tunnel, he could have the use
of one of the hundred others that had been dug.
But escaping was only begun when the Stockade was passed. The site of
Savannah is virtually an island. On the north is the Savannah River;
to the east, southeast and south, are the two Ogeechee rivers, and a
chain of sounds and lagoons connecting with the Atlantic Ocean. To
the west is a canal connecting the Savannah and Big Ogeechee Rivers.
We found ourselves headed off by water whichever way we went. All the
bridges were guarded, and all the boats destroyed. Early in the morning
the Rebels discovered our absence, and the whole garrison of Savannah
was sent out on patrol after us. They picked up the boys in squads of
from ten to thirty, lurking around the shores of the streams waiting
for night to come, to get across, or engaged in building rafts for
transportation. By evening the whole mob of us were back in the pen
again. As nobody was punished for running away, we treated the whole
affair as a lark, and those brought back first stood around the gate
and yelled derisively as the others came in.
That night big fires were built all around the Stockade, and a line
of guards placed on the ground inside of these. In spite of this
precaution, quite a number escaped. The next day a Dead Line was put
up inside of the Prison, twenty feet from the Stockade. This only
increased the labor of burrowing, by making us go farther. Instead of
being able to tunnel out in an hour, it now took three or four hours.
That night several hundred of us, rested from our previous performance,
and hopeful of better luck, brought our faithful half canteens--now
scoured very bright by constant use-into requisition again, and before
the morning. dawned we had gained the high reeds of the swamps, where
we lay concealed until night.
In this way we managed to evade the recapture that came to most of
those who went out, but it was a fearful experience. Having been raised
in a country where venomous snakes abounded, I had that fear and horror
of them that inhabitants of those districts feel, and of which people
living in sections free from such a scourge know little. I fancied
that the Southern swamps were filled with all forms of loathsome and
poisonous reptiles, and it required all my courage to venture into
them barefooted. Besides, the snags and roots hurt our feet fearfully.
Our hope was to find a boat somewhere, in which we could float out to
sea, and trust to being picked up by some of the blockading fleet. But
no boat could we find, with all our painful and diligent search. We
learned afterward that the Rebels made a practice of breaking up all
the boats along the shore to prevent negros and their own deserters
from escaping to the blockading fleet. We thought of making a raft
of logs, but had we had the strength to do this, we would doubtless
have thought it too risky, since we dreaded missing the vessels, and
being carried out to sea to perish of hunger. During the night we came
to the railroad bridge across the Ogeechee. We had some slender hope
that, if we could reach this we might perhaps get across the river,
and find better opportunities for escape. But these last expectations
were blasted by the discovery that it was guarded. There was a post
and a fire on the shore next us, and a single guard with a lantern was
stationed on one of the middle spans. Almost famished with hunger, and
so weary and footsore that we could scarcely move another step, we went
back to a cleared place on the high ground, and laid down to sleep,
entirely reckless as to what became of us. Late in the morning we were
awakened by the Rebel patrol and taken back to the prison. Lieutenant
Davis, disgusted with the perpetual attempts to escape, moved the
Dead Line out forty feet from the Stockade; but this restricted our
room greatly, since the number of prisoners in the pen had now risen
to about six thousand, and, besides, it offered little additional
protection against tunneling.
It was not much more difficult to dig fifty feet than it had been to
dig thirty feet. Davis soon realized this, and put the Dead Line back
to twenty feet. His next device was a much more sensible one. A crowd
of one hundred and fifty negros dug a trench twenty feet wide and five
feet deep around the whole prison on the outside, and this ditch was
filled with water from the City Water Works. No one could cross this
without attracting the attention of the guards.
Still we were not discouraged, and Andrews and I joined a crowd that
was constructing a large tunnel from near our quarters on the east side
of the pen. We finished the burrow to within a few inches of the edge
of the ditch, and then ceased operations, to await some stormy night,
when we could hope to get across the ditch unnoticed.
Orders were issued to guards to fire without warning on men who were
observed to be digging or carrying out dirt after nightfall. They
occasionally did so, but the risk did not keep anyone from tunneling.
Our tunnel ran directly under a sentry box. When carrying dirt away
the bearer of the bucket had to turn his back on the guard and walk
directly down the street in front of him, two hundred or three hundred
feet, to the center of the camp, where he scattered the sand around--so
as to give no indication of where it came from. Though we always
waited till the moon went down, it seemed as if, unless the guard were
a fool, both by nature and training, he could not help taking notice
of what was going on under his eyes. I do not recall any more nervous
promenades in my life, than those when, taking my turn, I received my
bucket of sand at the mouth of the tunnel, and walked slowly away with
it. The most disagreeable part was in turning my back to the guard.
Could I have faced him, I had sufficient confidence in my quickness of
perception, and talents as a dodger, to imagine that I could make it
difficult for him to hit me. But in walling with my back to him I was
wholly at his mercy. Fortune, however, favored us, and we were allowed
to go on with our work--night after night--without a shot.
In the meanwhile another happy thought slowly gestated in Davis’s
alleged intellect. How he came to give birth to two ideas with no more
than a week between them, puzzled all who knew him, and still more
that he survived this extraordinary strain upon the gray matter of the
cerebrum. His new idea was to have driven a heavily-laden mule cart
around the inside of the Dead Line at least once a day. The wheels or
the mule’s feet broke through the thin sod covering the tunnels and
exposed them. Our tunnel went with the rest, and those of our crowd
who wore shoes had humiliation added to sorrow by being compelled to
go in and spade the hole full of dirt. This put an end to subterranean
engineering.
One day one of the boys watched his opportunity, got under the ration
wagon, and clinging close to the coupling pole with hands and feet, was
carried outside. He was detected, however, as he came from under the
wagon, and brought back.