A HOSPITABLE HOST--FRANKLIN JAIL--CHARITABLE WOMEN--A THOUGHTFUL, MOTHERLY
GIFT--A GENEROUS GUARD--ASHVILLE JAIL--ATTEMPT TO BREAK OUT.
Upon our arrival at Franklin we were taken to the jail, but before we were
locked up, Doctor Moore, of the village, invited us to his house to
dinner, and upon his agreeing to be responsible for our safe return, we
were allowed to go with him unattended by any guard. Although no promise
had been exacted from us not to escape, we would not have attempted to
leave, had an outlet presented itself. We would have considered it a base
betrayal of his confidence, as much so as the violation of a parole, to
have taken advantage of so kind and generous a host. We were received at
his house with all the cordiality of distinguished guests, and nothing was
said or done, by any member of the family, that could be construed into a
hint that we were other than welcome visitors.
Dr. Moore was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy, but was too much of
a gentleman to allude to any thing during our visit, that would be
offensive to our ears. Books and papers were on the parlor table,
photographs of the family and friends were shown us; a stereoscope was
also on the table, supplied with views of scenes both in the North and
South. I was looking at some of the views, when I, without knowing what it
was, put one into the stereoscope and looking at it, almost imagined that
I was in New York. It was a view of Broadway from the Battery up. Oh! how
this picture reminded me of home. It seemed as though I could call a stage
by raising my hand. I looked at it long and earnestly, so long that I
almost forgot my surroundings, forgot everything, and was again among
friends at home.
Altogether, we passed a very pleasant afternoon with the genial doctor and
his interesting family.
As we were leaving, Mrs. Moore and a neighbor, Mrs. Siler, having noticed
our stockingless feet, presented us each with a pair of nice, warm, woolen
socks, that they had knitted for some member of their own family, and
filling a basket with choice apples and potatoes, sent them with us to the
jail, which was to be our quarters that night. Arriving at the jail, we
found that the doctor, thoughtful of our comfort, had caused a fire to be
built in the wide fireplace, the cheerful glow of which made our
imprisonment more tolerable. These little acts of kindness left a green
spot in our memory of prison life, that still remains as an oasis in the
otherwise cheerless desert we passed through. When God makes up his
rewards and punishments, I am sure he will say to the kind-hearted doctor
and his family, "I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me."
The next day a Mr. Johnson was detailed as our guard, and instead of
staying with us at the jail, he invited us to his house, where he kept us
over night, giving us a good clean bed and a good supper and breakfast,
and treating us as had Doctor Moore, more as guests than as prisoners.
The next day we were started for Ashville, N. C., with a guard, under
Lieutenant Ammon. The Lieutenant, sympathizing with me in my enfeebled
condition, furnished me with a mule to ride, and showed me every kindness
possible.
One of our guard on this trip was Hon. Thomas S. Siler, ex-member of
Assembly of Macon county. He was a very agreeable gentleman, who still had
a strong attachment for the Union. He was intelligent and well posted on
every subject, and my conversation with him during the march, seemed to
lessen the tediousness of the journey.
We arrived at Ashville, N. C., on the 7th of November, and were crowded
into an upper room in the jail, about twelve feet square, in which there
were besides us, twenty-seven rebel deserters, two of them sick with the
measles. I had not been able up to this time, to do anything for my
swollen and inflamed legs, and they were in a most frightful condition,
causing me intense pain and suffering, so much so that I was fearful of
losing them entirely, as they had been neglected so long. A surgeon
visited me in the jail, and recommended my removal to the hospital, but
although I offered to give my parole for that purpose, Colonel Lowe, who
was in command, refused to allow me to be sent there.
The room was so full, that it was impossible for all of us to lie down at
once, and we were obliged to take turns standing up. Our water closet
consisted of a wooden pail in one corner of the room, which was twice a
day carried out and emptied by the guard; as we were none of us allowed to
leave the room for any purpose. The intolerable stench from this pail, and
the filthy slops around it, was enough to create an epidemic.
The atmosphere of the room was simply insufferable, and we were obliged to
keep the windows raised, notwithstanding the cold weather, in order to get
ventilation. We had one old stove in the room, but our supply of wood was
quite insufficient to keep the temperature anything like comfortable,
although the village was surrounded by good timber.
One intensely cold night our wood had given out, and so I took the large
iron poker and commenced prying off the wainscoting of the room for fuel,
and by morning I had completely stripped one side. That morning when the
Sergeant came in he raised a great row about it, threatening to punish the
one who had done it. I told him that I was the one, and that I had
considered it a military necessity, and that if we were not furnished
with wood, he would wake up some morning and find the old jail burned
down. He said I should be reported and punished for destroying government
property, but the only thing done was to give us thereafter a more liberal
supply of fuel.
We occupied a front room in the north-west corner of the jail, and in the
room back of us were twenty-nine more reb deserters and a large, powerful
negro, who had been placed there by his master as a punishment for some
alleged misdemeanor. There was only a board partition between the two
rooms, and it was not long before I had established communication with our
neighbors, by cutting a hole through the partition large enough to allow
us to carry on conversation. Upon our entrance into the jail they had
deprived us of our case knives that we had carried with us thus far, for
fear we would cut our way out with them.
But I had a screw driver to a gun which they happened to overlook in their
search. This I sharpened on the bricks on which the stove rested, and then
commenced making an outlet for our escape. I took a strong cord, and
lashed the screw driver to a round stick of stove wood, and at night
removed one of the sick men, and commenced by punching across two boards
in the floor just over the joist, to cut through the floor. It was hard
work, but by spelling each other, we had the two boards completely loose
before midnight. Upon removing the loose boards we found that there was a
ceiling of the same thickness still between us and freedom. The floor and
ceiling were both Norway pine, and very hard, and as we could not work
with our short handled chisel we adopted another plan for that.
We took the large poker which I had used to tear off the wainscoting, and
heating it red hot in the stove, commenced burning holes through the under
ceiling. We had a pail of water for drinking, and when it blazed up too
much, we would dash on a cup full of water. This was slow work, but just
at daylight we had removed the last board and then carefully swept up all
traces of our work, and placing the boards back in their place, carried
the sick men back and laid them over them. Our windows were grated, and
the room below was used as a store room and there were no grates at the
windows there.
Once down in that room after dark, and we could easily make our escape.
Everything went along smoothly that morning. The guard came in to bring
our breakfast and empty our slop pail, without any suspicion that any
thing was wrong, but about ten o'clock the Sergeant came up with a guard,
and commenced looking around as though in search of something.
I knew instinctively what was up, but as he had the stove removed and
commenced poking around the brick platform without saying a word, I could
not restrain my laughter, and asked him if he had lost something; saying
that if he had, perhaps I might tell him where to find it. He did not seem
to take kindly to my offer of assistance, nor feel in a mood to enjoy the
pleasure his frantic efforts to find the lost treasure, appeared to afford
me. In fact he seemed to take it as a piece of Yankee impertinence. After
satisfying himself that there was nothing under the stove, he had us all
take up our blankets and other traps, without deigning to tell us what it
was all for.
We all cheerfully complied with his order except the two sick rebs, who
were too weak to get up. After thoroughly searching every other part of
the room, he had the two sick men removed, and there discovered the loose
boards and seemed satisfied and pleased. Was that what you was looking for
Sergeant? said I. If you had told me what you wanted I could have told you
where to look when you first came up, and saved you all this trouble.
You'ens Yanks think you are d--d cute, don't you? was all the reply I
received. He left the guard in the room while he went and got a carpenter
to repair the floor; He soon returned with a carpenter, and told him to
nail them boards down securely. I told some of my associates, to keep him
interested, by asking him how he discovered the hole, and I would fix the
carpenter.
Carelessly lounging up to where he was working, I said in a tone that
could not be heard by anyone else: "I can get those boards up easier if
you break the nails off."
He replied in the same undertone: "I don't care a d--n how soon you get
them up when I get away."
I watched him, and saw that he followed my suggestion, breaking the nails
in two with the claw of his hammer, so that they only a little more than
went through the flooring. After he had finished the Sergeant inspected
the work, and judging from the number of nails that it was securely done,
took his guard and went away.
It seems that the family who lived in the lower part of the jail, kept a
barrel of corn in that room below us, from which they fed their chickens,
and that barrel set right under the hole we had cut; and when the old
woman went to get some corn for her chickens that morning, she found it
covered with chips and cinders, and looking up to ascertain the cause,
discovered the hole in the ceiling. She at once notified the Sergeant of
the discovery, and the result was we had our trouble and work for nothing.
Captain Alban and myself were the only Yankee prisoners in the jail, and
until our arrival there had been no attempt at escape, and to us therefore
was attributed all of the attempts to break out.
While the reb deserters were willing to share with us all the benefits to
be derived from a break, they were too shiftless and lazy to fully enter
into our plans for an escape.