THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ON THE TRACK.
IN one week from the day on which Somers made the acquaintance of
Colonel Roman, he was inside of the stockade at Andersonville. It so
happened that the general officer with whom rested the decision in the
case of the prisoner, was a personal and political opponent of the
planter, and the colonel had no influence with him. An appeal was made
to higher authority, but it was unavailing; and Somers was hurried away
to that miserable place, where officers and soldiers died by thousands,
of sheer inhumanity.
Colonel Roman promised to continue his exertions for the release of his
friend, or, if he could not obtain that, for better treatment than had
usually been accorded to prisoners of war by the Confederacy. It is
quite probable that he did so, but the subject of his intercession
obtained no favor on account of it. His experience at Andersonville was
that of thousands of others. It would require a volume to narrate it;
and the sad story has been so often told, that it needs not a repetition
here. The whole civilized world condemns the barbarous treatment of
prisoners by the Confederacy.
Week after week, and month after month, dragged away amid suffering and
privation, until Sherman’s grand march to the sea filled the rebels with
terror; and a portion of the prisoners remaining in their hands were
sent to Columbia, South Carolina. Somers was among the number. He had
been a prisoner for nearly five months, and his health was already much
impaired by his sufferings; by the scanty and mean food, but quite as
much by being compelled to witness the misery and death which prevailed
in the horrid slaughter-pen in which he had been confined. Once he had
made an attempt to escape, but had been hunted down and recaptured.
He arrived at Columbia; but he had made up his mind not to stay there.
It was sure death to one of his temperament to live such a dog’s life as
that to which he had been doomed. It was better to be shot down by the
sentinels, or even to be torn in pieces by the fangs of the merciless
blood-hounds, than to die by inches within the camp of the prisoners.
Every day a certain number of prisoners, paroled for the purpose, were
allowed to go out after wood, for two hours. Those who were thus favored
were obliged to sign a parole, and their names were handed to the
officer of the day, who was authorized to permit them to pass. When
Somers found an opportunity to join one of these parties, he gave his
parole, as others did; and even his sufferings had not so far
demoralized him that he could violate the solemn pledge. He went out
with the others, but immediately returned with his load of wood.
Hastening to the officer of the day, he told him he had done his share
of the work, and requested to be released from his parole, which was
then given back to him. He was now free from his obligation, and having
destroyed the paper, if he should happen to be recaptured in his attempt
to escape, it could not be brought against him to subject him to the
penalty of its violation.
Others were bringing in wood and timber, and passing out again for more.
Somers walked out with the rest. When they came to the guard they were
carefully examined again, to see that none but paroled officers passed
out. They gave their names, and the sentinel referred to the list of
those paroled for that day, and if it was all right, they were allowed
to pass.
“Your name?” said the guard to Somers.
The prisoner gave it.
“All right,” replied the sentinel, who, of course, found the name in the
list.
Somers was now outside of the camp, and discharged from his parole; but
his difficulties had only just commenced, for a guard of eighty men was
stretched around the tract of woods in which the prisoners were at work.
He walked away from the stockade animated by a hope, though it was but a
dim one, of breathing once more the air of freedom. Intent upon the
object before him, he passed a group of emaciated forms, whose
constitutions were strong enough to enable them to overcome the horrors
of the hospital, in which they were still patients.
“Somers!” exclaimed one of them, rushing towards him.
The young officer turned, and in the tall, pale, attenuated person who
addressed him, he recognized his friend De Banyan. He looked like a
wreck, and there was little to remind him of the manly and noble form of
the major, as he had known him five months before.
“De Banyan!” cried Somers, rushing into the arms of his friend, and
weeping like a child with the joy he could not conceal.
It was a tender and a touching reunion, and even the rebel sentinels did
not interpose to separate them.
“How came you here?” demanded De Banyan, when the first emotions of the
happy meeting had subsided.
“I was captured at the time you were shot; but I have been at
Andersonville till a week ago,” replied Somers.
“I have been in the hospital; that’s the reason I did not see you.”
“That must be the reason,” replied Somers, in a loud tone; and then,
dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, “I am going to escape
to-day.”
“I have been quite sick,” continued the major, aloud. “I am on
parole”—in a whisper.
“Are you better?”
“Much better; I feel pretty well now,” said the major. “Wait half an
hour for me in the woods.”
“I will,” replied Somers, as he moved on.
De Banyan soon joined him. At his own request the surgeon had discharged
him, and he had taken up his parole. With a basket of vials, which he
found in an ante-room of the hospital, he walked boldly through the
guards, who, believing him still to be a paroled prisoner, permitted him
to pass. During his convalescence, he had been employed in various light
duties connected with the hospital, and had had frequent occasion to
pass the sentries, so that no suspicion attached to him after he had
been relieved from his parole.
With Somers he walked to the woods, and with him chopped and gathered
sticks. At a point near the centre of the space surrounded by the
sentinels, they found a pine tree, whose dense foliage promised to
afford them the shelter they required. At a favorable moment Somers
sprang up into the tree, and the major followed him a few minutes later.
Of course they were seen by their fellow-prisoners, and they were
obliged to run the risk of being exposed by any one of them who was vile
enough to do such a mean act. Men have been known at Andersonville,
Columbia, and other prison camps, to stoop to the contemptible and
cowardly meanness of betraying a comrade under such circumstances; but
with only a few rare exceptions, the prisoners were too manly and noble
to be guilty of such a base act.
They had escaped the observation of the soldiers, who were too indolent,
or too far off, to notice what took place within their line. The only
duty they were called upon to perform, as they seemed to regard it, was
to prevent any of the prisoners from passing beyond the bounds allotted
to them. The two hours in which the men were allowed to gather wood
expired soon after Somers and De Banyan ascended the tree.
“Good by, Captain; report me at home, if you get through,” said a
Massachusetts officer, who stood at the foot of the tree when the
prisoners were ordered back to the camp.
“I will,” replied Somers, who knew the officer’s address.
The prisoners, laden with their sticks of timber and bundles of wood,
were driven back to the camp, to endure other weeks and months of
suffering, or to die there, as many had done before. Somers and the
major kept perfectly still until the guard had passed the tree, and
disappeared from their view.
“We shall be missed before long,” said Somers.
“We will not stop here,” replied De Banyan, as he descended the tree and
lay down on the ground at the foot of it.
Somers followed him, lying down by his side. Having satisfied themselves
that they had not been observed, they crawled away until the slope of a
hill concealed them from the view of the camp, when they ventured to
stand upright, like men, and press forward for life and liberty. They
continued to walk in a southerly direction till they came to a creek,
over which they swam, in the hope that the water would interrupt the
scent of the blood-hounds which would be put on their track as soon as
their absence was discovered.
It was a vain hope. They were in a kind of swampy jungle, not more than
half a mile from the creek, when they heard the fearful cry of the dogs.
“We are lost!” exclaimed Somers, appalled at the horrible sounds.
“No!” replied De Banyan, with his old energy. “Don’t give it up!”
“I won’t, if you do not,” added Somers, inspired with courage by the
firmness and self-possession of his friend.
“Find a club, if you can!”
They were fortunate enough to find a couple of sticks, soaked full of
water, with which they hoped to make a good fight.
“Shall we climb a tree?” asked Somers.
“You are lost if you do,” replied De Banyan, as he took from his pocket
a roll of cord, which he had appropriated in the hospital for another
purpose.
Unrolling it, he cut it into two pieces, with one of which he made a
slip-noose, and directed Somers to do the same with the other. The dogs
were still some distance from the spot, and the men in pursuit seemed to
be unable to follow them on their horses, which explained the major’s
policy in choosing a swamp for his flight. Selecting a narrow pass
between two clumps of bushes, which had been beaten into a path, he
stretched the slip-noose over it, just as boys in the country set snares
for foxes and rabbits. Somers did precisely the same thing in another
locality.
De Banyan then bent down a small sapling, so that the top of it came
over the snare, and attached the end of the cord to it. The little tree
was held down by weaving the branches into the bushes, just strong
enough to hold it down, but so that any force beyond its own elasticity
would disengage it. The contrivance formed what is sometimes called a
“twitch-up snare.” Somers knew all about it, and set his own in the same
manner.
By this time the dogs were upon them, and each of them stepped behind
the trap he had set. The hounds made directly towards them, two by one
path and one by the other.
“Come on, doggy,” said De Banyan, as he stood coolly waiting the issue
of the enterprise. “Stand by with your club, Somers, if it fails.”
“I am all ready,” replied Somers, as he nerved his arm for the conflict,
if one should be necessary.
On rushed the blood-hounds, with their fiendish yelp the one that
approached De Banyan being a few feet in advance of the others. He
dashed into the narrow path, thrusting his head through the noose,
drawing it tight around his neck, and detaching the tree. The elasticity
of the sapling gave him a tremendous twitch, and lifted his fore legs
from the ground. The spring was not strong enough to hold his whole
weight, and the hound hung by the neck, partially supported by his hind
legs.
Somers’s snare was not quite so successful; but the spring choked the
dog, and held him fast. The third hound, dodging the obstruction in his
path, rushed towards him from another direction; but De Banyan was at
his side by this time, and with a few heavy blows, they killed the ugly
beast. Of the other two, one was nearly choked to death, but both were
quickly despatched with the clubs.
“That job is done,” said De Banyan.
“And well done,” replied Somers, as they resumed their flight.
------------------------------------------------------------------------