At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated.
When we arrived at Salisbury early in October, we found there a brave
and sagacious officer, Lieut. Wm. C. Manning of the 2d Massachusetts
Cavalry. He told us he had been held as a hostage in solitary
confinement, and would have starved but for the rats he caught and ate.
He had been notified that his own life depended upon the fate of a
person held in federal hands as a spy. He determined to attempt an
escape. He was assigned to my house. Taking up a part of the floor, he
commenced digging a tunnel. He wrote a solemn pledge which all the
officers in the house signed, binding them not to divulge the scheme.
The tunnel would have had to be about eight rods long, and its outlet
would necessarily have been near a group of rebel tents. Of course it
would have been discovered on the morning after its completion, and not
all could hope to find egress that way. But he believed that his life
was still in special danger, and he at once began excavating. The house
had no cellar, but there was plenty of room under it for stowing away
the loose earth. The ground was not hard, yet it was quite firm, and on
the whole favorable for such operations. The work was progressing
finely, till the officers were suddenly removed from Salisbury in
consequence of the discovery of a great plot.
I had become a good deal interested in Manning and his tunnel plan, and
on the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, I introduced him to General
Hayes, our senior officer. He told us he had for several days been
considering the possibility of organizing the three or four hundred
officers, and the five to ten thousand soldiers. He believed that by a
simultaneous assault at many points we could seize the artillery, break
the fence, capture the three rebel camps, then arm and ration this
extemporized army, and march away. He showed us a good map of North
Carolina. He invited all of the field officers to meet that evening in
the garret of house number two. All of them accordingly, about thirty in
number, were present. Posting sentinels to keep out intruders, and
stopping the open windows so that the faint light of a tallow candle
might not betray us or create suspicion, we sat down in the gloom.
The general had modestly absented himself, in order that we might be
uninfluenced by him in reaching a decision; but our first step was to
send for him, and then insist on his taking the chair--_the_ chair, for
we had but one! As he had made a careful study of the subject, we
pressed him to give his views. He proceeded to state the grounds of his
belief that it was practicable to strike an effective blow for our
liberation. He told us that he had communicated with a Union man
outside, and had learned the number and location of the Confederate
troops we should be likely to encounter on our march to East Tennessee.
He explained at some length the details of his plan, the obstacles we
should encounter, and how to overcome them. I shall never forget the
conclusion of his speech. These were almost exactly his words:
We must organize; organize victory. The sooner we act the better,
provided we have a well-arranged plan. We can capture this town,
ration our men, provide them with shoes, clothing, and muskets, and
have a formidable army right here at once. It need not take more
than half a day. Certainly we can march off within twenty-four hours
after the first blow is struck, if we begin right. The enemy have a
few guns on the hill, but they are not "in battery". We can take
these and take the artillery here right along with us. The
principal obstacle is here; make the beginning right; master these
prisons and these camps, and we are safe. Organize is the word;
_organize_. If any one shall betray us, or aid the rebels, or be
guilty of robbery or other outrage, I am in favor of a drumhead
court martial and a summary execution. Now, gentlemen, I am ready to
serve in any capacity, whether to lead or to follow.
Colonel Ralston of the 24th N. Y. "dismounted cavalry," as they were
called, spoke next. He was an energetic and dashing officer who fell
near me in an attempt to break out of Danville prison on the tenth of
the following December. He entered into the particulars of a plan of
action, showing how easy it would be, with the probable loss of but few
lives, to capture the three camps with the Salisbury arsenal and the
artillery. As his particular share in the work, he said he would
undertake with a small company to disarm the twenty or thirty sentinels
inside the enclosure, and instantly thereupon to capture the
headquarters of Major Gee.
Other officers gave valuable suggestions. Being called upon for my
opinion, I spoke of the duty we owed our enlisted men to extricate them
from their shocking condition, for they were beginning to die every
night on the bare ground, and would soon be perishing by scores. I urged
the effect the escape of some eight thousand prisoners would have upon
the nation, being equivalent to a great victory; and, better than
victory, it would add so many thousands of trained soldiers at once to
our armies in the field. I insisted that this success would be cheaply
bought, even if it cost, as it probably would, a hundred lives.
Of all our thirty field officers, only one opposed the scheme
(Lieut.-Col. G----). He was acknowledged to be brave,[5] but seemingly
lacking in enterprise. He said in substance, "I have carefully examined
the situation, and have come to the conclusion that it is utterly
useless to attempt to escape by force. It can't be done at present. We
should be slaughtered by the hundred. If you all vote to try it, I will
join you; but in my opinion it is perfect madness."
With but one dissenting voice it was resolved to go ahead. A committee
of five was immediately appointed to prepare and present a plan of
action. This committee were Colonel Ralston; Col. W. Ross Hartshorne,
190th Pa. (the famous "Bucktail Regiment," whose first colonel, O'Neil,
my Yale classmate, was killed at Antietam); Col. James Carle, 191st Pa.;
Major John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; and myself, Lieutenant-Colonel of the
13th Conn. We were supposed to be fighting men, and had all been wounded
in battle.
A similar meeting of field officers was held the following evening. For
two days the committee was almost continually in consultation with
General Hayes. Great pains was taken to have the plans fully understood
by all the officers and to secure their hearty coöperation. By ingenious
methods frequent communication was had with the enlisted men across the
"dead line"; sometimes by hurling written communications ballasted with
stone; several times by Lieutenant Manning and others running swiftly
past the sentinels in the dark; best of all, because least liable to
discovery, by the use of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. We were suffering
for want of water, and several officers got permission to go outside the
enclosure ostensibly to procure it, but really to reconnoitre.
The committee reported the following plan, which was unanimously
adopted:
The first object in the movement being to get into a hand-to-hand fight
as soon as possible; seven columns, each several hundred strong, were to
make simultaneous assaults upon six or seven different points. The fence
being the first impediment, every man's haversack and pockets were to
be filled with stones to keep down the sentinels who would fire on us
from the top. Some got levers to wrench off boards, others logs to serve
as rude battering rams, others sharpened stakes which Ralston called
"Irish pikes," others clubs, or any possible weapon. I had a rusty old
bayonet.
Major David Sadler, 2d Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, with his battalion
was to rush and seize the cannon and muskets at the angle on the right;
Major John Byrne and his column at the same instant were to pounce upon
the big gun and muskets at the angle on our left; simultaneously Colonel
Ralston and his men are to dash upon the nine sentinels on the "dead
line" in front of the officers' houses, in a moment disarming them and
the nine of the relief just arriving; then spring to the assistance of
Major August Haurand of the 4th N. Y. Cavalry and his battalion who are
capturing Major Gee's headquarters and guards and camp on our right.
Col. James Carle, 191st Pa., with his hundreds is breaking through the
fence and capturing the rebel camp in rear of the officers' quarters.
Colonel, afterwards General, W. Ross Hartshorne and his 330 men of the
190th Pa. are to break the fence just above the main rebel camp which is
on our left. My own column of about three hundred men of the Nineteenth
Corps are to break the fence just below the rebel camp; then Hartshorne
and I are to leap from opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These
seven battalions were to some extent organized with field, staff, and
company officers. Every officer and soldier was to be on the _qui vive_
a little before five o'clock in the morning, watching intently for the
signal. This was to be the waving of a fire-brand by General Hayes in
front of house number two.
Quite a number of officers had no faith in the plot, and they regarded
it with indifference. A few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who
had been a prisoner before and seemed glad to have been captured again,
a bloated, overgrown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward,
formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said to have been commissioned for
political reasons, was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in the
hearing of rebel sentries, "_Some of our officers have got escape on the
brain_," with other words to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally
stopped such traitorous language by saying with tremendous emphasis:
"Captain D----, I've heard a good deal of your attempts to discourage
officers from escaping, and your loud talk about officers having 'escape
on the brain.' Now, sir, I give you notice that if you're again guilty of
anything of the sort, I'LL--BREAK--YOUR--HEAD--WITH--A--CLUB!"
The time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous attacks was about an
hour before sunrise the morning of October 15th.
As we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether through suspected
treachery or otherwise, got wind of our purpose. Towards evening of
October 14th extraordinary vigilance on their part became apparent.
Troops were paraded, posts strengthened, guards doubled, privileges
restricted, and word was passed around in our hearing that a battalion
of Confederates had just arrived. Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed
through the night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next morning was
doubtless in obedience to orders for a more rigorous enforcement of
rules.
Our outbreak was countermanded and postponed, but preparations
continued. The delay enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our
organizations more complete. The early morning of October 20th, the 19th
being the anniversary of my birth, was now fixed upon for the
"insurrection." We essayed to disarm suspicion by an air of quiet
acquiescence in the lazy routine of prison life, or absorption in the
simplest and most innocent occupations whenever any Confederate might
be looking on.
We recognized united and instantaneous action at the signal on the part
of three hundred officers and several thousand men as the most vitally
important element of success. It was necessary that this should be
thoroughly understood and emphasized, so that every soldier should be in
perfect readiness at the critical moment.
Several of us had formed a class for oral instruction in French. Our
teacher was Captain Cook of the 9th U. S. colored troops, a graduate of
Yale. About ten o'clock in the morning of October 18th, as we were
seated on the ground near house number four, loudly imitating Professor
Cook's _parlez-vous_, Lieut. Wm. C. Gardner, adjutant of one of those
extemporized battalions of prisoners, brought me a letter he was
intending to throw across the "dead line" to Sergt. Wallace W. Smith,
requesting him to notify all enlisted men of the battalion when and
where to assemble silently next morning in the dark, how to arm
themselves, from whom to take orders, what signal to watch for, and
other important matters. I glanced through it, and immediately said:
"You'd better not entrust the communication to so hazardous a channel;
wait an hour till I've done with my French lesson, and I'll cause it to
be transmitted by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet." If I recollect rightly,
either Lieutenant Tobey or Lieutenant Morton, both of the 58th
Massachusetts, was in the class, and promised to convey the contents of
the letter safely across to the soldiers by adroit finger manipulation.
We were just finishing the French exercise, when Adjutant Gardner came
greatly excited, and this conversation followed:
"Good God, Colonel, the rebs have got that letter! I tied it to a stone
and flung it a long ways over the 'dead line' to Wallace Smith. He
appeared afraid to pick it up. A reb sentinel stepped away from his beat
and got it."
"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting French, and I told you
I'd then communicate it by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet."
"Well, Colonel, I ought to have done so; but I was anxious to have the
work done promptly, and I thought it was perfectly safe. I've tossed
letters over to Smith several times. I'm worried to death about it.
What's best to do?"
"Was your name signed to it?"
"No; but my name was on the envelope--an old letter envelope that I had
when we came here."
"Well, Gardner, this is a pretty piece of business! That letter of
course will go very soon to Major Gee's headquarters, and then--there'll
be the devil to pay!"
"The sentinel handed the letter to the officer of the guard. What had I
better say, if they send for me?"
"Say you intended the letter to fall into their hands; that you meant it
as a practical joke, wanted to get up another scare, and see the
Johnnies prick up their ears again."
"But, Colonel, like a fust-class fool I put a ten-dollar Confederate
bill in the envelope. I wanted to give it to Sergeant Smith. That don't
look as if I meant it to fall into their hands--does it?"
"Gardner, this thing has an ugly look. You've knocked our plans of
escape in the head--at least for the present. You've got yourself into a
fix. They'll haul you up to headquarters. They'll prove by the letter
that you've been deep in a plot that would have cost a good many lives.
They're feeling ugly. They may hang or shoot you before sundown, as a
warning to the rest of us to stop these plots to escape. They may send
for you at any minute."
"What had I better say or do?"
"You'd better make yourself scarce for a while, till you've got a
plausible story made up. Better disguise yourself and pass yourself off
as somebody else; so gain time."
"I have it, Colonel; I'll pass myself off as Estabrooks."
Estabrooks was an officer of the 26th Mass., who had escaped at the
crossing of the river Yadkin two weeks previously when we came from
Richmond. Gardner was a handsome man and perhaps the best-dressed
officer in prison; but he now disguised himself.[6] The transformation
was complete. In half an hour a man came to me wearing a slouched hat
and a very ragged suit of Confederate gray. He had been a play-actor
before the war and knew how to conceal his identity. By his voice I
recognized him as Gardner! "Well, Gardner," said I, "this surpasses His
Satanic Majesty; or, as you would say, beats the devil!"--"Colonel," he
replied, "I'm not Gardner. Gardner escaped; escaped at the crossing of
the Yadkin River. I'm Estabrooks, H. L. Estabrooks, 2d Lieutenant, 26th
Mass. Call me Estabrooks if you please."--"All right, Estabrooks it is."
Hardly had we had time to whisper around this change of name, when the
Confederate officer of the guard made his appearance with two or three
soldiers, inquiring for the commissary of house number four. I was
pointed out to him. In substance and almost in the exact words this
dialogue ensued:
"Colonel Sprague, are you commissary of this house?"
"I have that honor."
"I want to find Lieutenant Gardner."
"Who?"
"Lieutenant Gardner."
"Who's Lieutenant Gardner?"
"I am told he's an officer in house number four; and as you are
commissary, you can probably tell me where he is _at_."
"Where he's what?"
"Where he's _at_."
This was the first time I had ever heard the word _at_ so used at the
end of a sentence; but it expresses the meaning with admirable
precision. I had a slight qualm at lying; but I remembered that even
George Washington could tell a lie if necessary in war. Pacifying my
conscience with the fact that we were _outside_ the house at the time, I
said:
"There's no such officer in house four. But I remember an officer of
that name at Libby, handsomely dressed, a perfect dandy. I heard that he
escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin River two weeks ago. Has he been
recaptured, and is he going to be shot or hanged? Or have you a letter
for him? What's the good news about Gardner?"
"I only know," he replied, "that he's wanted at Major Gee's office, and
he's an officer in house number four."
"Estabrooks," said I to the man at my side, "do you know of a Lieutenant
Gardner?"
"I did know slightly such a man at Libby. You have described him well; a
fop, a beau, a dandy; just about my size, but he didn't wear rags like I
do."
"Come with me," said I to the Confederate. "We'll go into the house and
inquire if any one knows of a Lieutenant Gardner." We went in. There
were perhaps thirty or forty inside who had got wind of what was going
on. As we entered, I asked in a loud voice, "Does any officer in this
house know anything of a Lieutenant Gardner?" Several smiled and
declared it a very singular name. One wanted to know how it was spelled!
A number were speaking at once. One said he escaped at the Yadkin; he
knew he got away, for he "watched him till he got a long distance out of
sight." Another knew a Henry J. Gardner, "a Know-Nothing" governor of
Massachusetts, who knew enough to keep out of the army. Another affirmed
that Gardner was dead; he had heard him say "I'm a dead man," and he
wouldn't tell a lie! My memory is somewhat indistinct of all that was
said; but Gardner is alleged to have whispered the officer thus: "I have
been a gardener myself; and if Major Gee will parole me and give me good
clothes and something to eat, I wouldn't mind becoming again a gardener
in his employ." I recollect distinctly that the officer grew impatient
and he finally asked me, "Do you say on your honor, Colonel, that you
don't know a Lieut. Wm. O. Gardner in this house?" I answered, "I do";
but I left him to guess whether I meant "I do _know_" or "I do _say_!" I
quieted my conscientious scruples by remembering that the lieutenant's
true name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C.! The baffled officer left very
angry, and "_Where's Gardner at?_" passed into a conundrum.
Late that afternoon, as I was engaged in the delightful employment of
washing my fall-and-winter shirt, having for the first time since our
arrival in Salisbury obtained sufficient water for that purpose, the
order came for all officers to fall in and take the cars for Danville,
Va. The juxtaposition of three or four hundred Yankee officers with
eight thousand of their enlisted comrades-in-arms was getting
dangerous.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] He had killed three men with his sword at the time of his capture.
[6] "We run the boy into one of the houses, clipped his hair, shaved
him, and placed a new robe on him."--_Letter_ of Capt. Wesley C. Howe to
Colonel Sprague, Jan. 30, 1914.