FRANK REVERSTOCK’S ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE--PASSING OFF AS REBEL BOY HE
REACHES GRISWOLDVILLE BY RAIL, AND THEN STRIKES ACROSS THE COUNTRY FOR
SHERMAN, BUT IS CAUGHT WITHIN TWENTY MILES OF OUR LINES.
One of the shrewdest and nearest successful attempts to escape that
came under my notice was that of my friend Sergeant Frank Reverstock,
of the Third West Virginia Cavalry, of whom I have before spoken.
Frank, who was quite small, with a smooth boyish face, had converted
to his own use a citizen’s coat, belonging to a young boy, a Sutler’s
assistant, who had died in Andersonville. He had made himself a pair
of bag pantaloons and a shirt from pieces of meal sacks which he had
appropriated from day to day. He had also the Sutler’s assistant’s
shoes, and, to crown all, he wore on his head one of those hideous
looking hats of quilted calico which the Rebels had taken to wearing
in the lack of felt hats, which they could neither make nor buy.
Altogether Frank looked enough like a Rebel to be dangerous to trust
near a country store or a stable full of horses. When we first arrived
in the prison quite a crowd of the Savannahians rushed in to inspect
us. The guards had some difficulty in keeping them and us separate.
While perplexed with this annoyance, one of them saw Frank standing
in our crowd, and, touching him with his bayonet, said, with some
sharpness:
“See heah; you must stand back; you musn’t crowd on them prisoners so.”
Frank stood back. He did it promptly but calmly, and then, as if his
curiosity as to Yankees was fully satisfied, he walked slowly away up
the street, deliberating as he went on a plan for getting out of the
City. He hit upon an excellent one. Going to the engineer of a freight
train making ready to start back to Macon, he told him that his father
was working in the Confederate machine shops at Griswoldville, near
Macon; that he himself was also one of the machinists employed there,
and desired to go thither but lacked the necessary means to pay his
passage. If the engineer would let him ride up on the engine he would
do work enough to pay the fare. Frank told the story ingeniously, the
engineer and firemen were won over, and gave their consent.
No more zealous assistant ever climbed upon a tender than Frank
proved to be. He loaded wood with a nervous industry, that stood him
in place of great strength. He kept the tender in perfect order, and
anticipated, as far as possible, every want of the engineer and his
assistant. They were delighted with him, and treated him with the
greatest kindness, dividing their food with him, and insisting that
he should share their bed when they “laid by” for the night. Frank
would have gladly declined this latter kindness with thanks, as he was
conscious that the quantity of “graybacks” his clothing contained did
not make him a very desirable sleeping companion for any one, but his
friends were so pressing that he was compelled to accede.
His greatest trouble was a fear of recognition by some one of the
prisoners that were continually passing by the train load, on their
way from Andersonville to other prisons. He was one of the best known
of the prisoners in Andersonville; bright, active, always cheerful,
and forever in motion during waking hours,--every one in the Prison
speedily became familiar with him, and all addressed him as “Sergeant
Frankie.” If any one on the passing trains had caught a glimpse of him,
that glimpse would have been followed almost inevitably with a shout of:
“Hello, Sergeant Frankie! What are you doing there?”
Then the whole game would have been up. Frank escaped this by
persistent watchfulness, and by busying himself on the opposite side of
the engine, with his back turned to the other trains.
At last when nearing Griswoldville, Frank, pointing to a large white
house at some distance across the fields, said:
“Now, right over there is where my uncle lives, and I believe I’ll just
run over and see him, and then walk into Griswoldville.”
He thanked his friends fervently for their kindness, promised to call
and see them frequently, bade them good by, and jumped off the train.
He walked towards the white house as long as he thought he could be
seen, and then entered a large corn field and concealed himself in a
thicket in the center of it until dark, when he made his way to the
neighboring woods, and began journeying northward as fast as his legs
could carry him. When morning broke he had made good progress, but
was terribly tired. It was not prudent to travel by daylight, so he
gathered himself some ears of corn and some berries, of which he made
his breakfast, and finding a suitable thicket he crawled into it, fell
asleep, and did not wake up until late in the afternoon.
After another meal of raw corn and berries he resumed his journey, and
that night made still better progress.
He repeated this for several days and nights--lying in the woods in
the day time, traveling by night through woods, fields, and by-paths
avoiding all the fords, bridges and main roads, and living on what he
could glean from the fields, that he might not take even so much risk
as was involved in going to the negro cabins for food.
But there are always flaws in every man’s armor of caution--even in so
perfect a one as Frank’s. His complete success so far had the natural
effect of inducing a growing carelessness, which wrought his ruin. One
evening he started off briskly, after a refreshing rest and sleep. He
knew that he must be very near Sherman’s lines, and hope cheered him up
with the belief that his freedom would soon be won.
Descending from the hill, in whose dense brushwood he had made his
bed all day, he entered a large field full of standing corn, and made
his way between the rows until he reached, on the other side, the
fence that separated it from the main road, across which was another
corn-field, that Frank intended entering.
But he neglected his usual precautions on approaching a road, and
instead of coming up cautiously and carefully reconnoitering in all
directions before he left cover, he sprang boldly over the fence and
strode out for the other side. As he reached the middle of the road,
his ears were assailed with the sharp click of a musket being cocked,
and the harsh command:
“Halt! halt, dah, I say!”
Turning with a start to his left he saw not ten feet from him, a
mounted patrol, the sound of whose approach had been masked by the deep
dust of the road, into which his horse’s hoofs sank noiselessly.
Frank, of course, yielded without a word, and when sent to the officer
in command he told the old story about his being an employee of the
Griswoldville shops, off on a leave of absence to make a visit to sick
relatives. But, unfortunately, his captors belonged to that section
themselves, and speedily caught him in a maze of cross-questioning from
which he could not extricate himself. It also became apparent from his
language that he was a Yankee, and it was not far from this to the
conclusion that he was a spy--a conclusion to which the proximity of
Sherman’s lines, then less than twenty miles distant-greatly assisted.
By the next morning this belief had become so firmly fixed in the minds
of the Rebels that Frank saw a halter dangling alarmingly near, and he
concluded the wisest plan was to confess who he really was.
It was not the smallest of his griefs to realize by how slight a chance
he had failed. Had he looked down the road before he climbed the fence,
or had he been ten minutes earlier or later, the patrol would not have
been there, he could have gained the next field unperceived, and two
more nights of successful progress would have taken him into Sherman’s
lines at Sand Mountain. The patrol which caught him was on the look-out
for deserters and shirking conscripts, who had become unusually
numerous since the fall of Atlanta.
He was sent back to us at Savannah. As he came into the prison gate
Lieutenant Davis was standing near. He looked sternly at Frank and his
Rebel garments, and muttering,
“By God, I’ll stop this!” caught the coat by the tails, tore it to the
collar, and took it and his hat away from Frank.
There was a strange sequel to this episode. A few weeks afterward
a special exchange for ten thousand was made, and Frank succeeded
in being included in this. He was given the usual furlough from the
paroled camp at Annapolis, and went to his home in a little town near
Mansfield, O.
One day while on the cars going--I think to Newark, O., he saw
Lieutenant Davis on the train, in citizens’ clothes. He had been sent
by the Rebel Government to Canada with dispatches relating to some of
the raids then harassing our Northern borders. Davis was the last man
in the world to successfully disguise himself. He had a large, coarse
mouth, that made him remembered by all who had ever seen him. Frank
recognized him instantly and said:
“You are Lieutenant Davis?”
Davis replied:
“You are totally mistaken, sah, I am -----.”
Frank insisted that he was right. Davis fumed and blustered, but though
Frank was small, he was as game as a bantam rooster, and he gave Davis
to understand that there had been a vast change in their relative
positions; that the one, while still the same insolent swaggerer, had
not regiments of infantry or batteries of artillery to emphasize his
insolence, and the other was no longer embarrassed in the discussion by
the immense odds in favor of his jailor opponent.
After a stormy scene Frank called in the assistance of some other
soldiers in the car, arrested Davis, and took him to Camp Chase--near
Columbus, O.,--where he was fully identified by a number of paroled
prisoners. He was searched, and documents showing the nature of his
mission beyond a doubt, were found upon his person.
A court martial was immediately convened for his trial.
This found him guilty, and sentenced him to be hanged as a spy.
At the conclusion of the trial Frank stepped up to the prisoner and
said:
“Mr. Davis, I believe we’re even on that coat, now.”
Davis was sent to Johnson’s Island for execution, but influences were
immediately set at work to secure Executive clemency. What they were
I know not, but I am informed by the Rev. Robert McCune, who was then
Chaplain of the One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Ohio Infantry and the
Post of Johnson’s Island and who was the spiritual adviser appointed to
prepare Davis for execution, that the sentence was hardly pronounced
before Davis was visited by an emissary, who told him to dismiss his
fears, that he should not suffer the punishment.
It is likely that leading Baltimore Unionists were enlisted in his
behalf through family connections, and as the Border State Unionists
were then potent at Washington, they readily secured a commutation of
his sentence to imprisonment during the war.
It seems that the justice of this world is very unevenly dispensed when
so much solicitude is shown for the life of such a man, and none at all
for the much better men whom he assisted to destroy.
The official notice of the commutation of the sentence was not
published until the day set for the execution, but the certain
knowledge that it would be forthcoming enabled Davis to display a
great deal of bravado on approaching what was supposed to be his end.
As the reader can readily imagine, from what I have heretofore said
of him, Davis was the man to improve to the utmost every opportunity
to strut his little hour, and he did it in this instance. He posed,
attitudinized and vapored, so that the camp and the country were filled
with stories of the wonderful coolness with which he contemplated his
approaching fate.
Among other things he said to his guard, as he washed himself
elaborately the night before the day announced for the execution:
“Well, you can be sure of one thing; to-morrow night there will
certainly be one clean corpse on this Island.”
Unfortunately for his braggadocio, he let it leak out in some way that
he had been well aware all the time that he would not be executed.
He was taken to Fort Delaware for confinement, and died there some time
after.
Frank Beverstock went back to his regiment, and served with it until
the close of the war. He then returned home, and, after awhile became
a banker at Bowling Green, O. He was a fine business man and became
very prosperous. But though naturally healthy and vigorous, his system
carried in it the seeds of death, sown there by the hardships of
captivity. He had been one of the victims of the Rebels’ vaccination;
the virus injected into his blood had caused a large part of his right
temple to slough off, and when it healed it left a ghastly cicatrix.
Two years ago he was taken suddenly ill, and died before his friends
had any idea that his condition was serious.