any remaining traces of a tunnel, and when night came again it was
expected that all would be ready for the escape between eight and nine
o'clock. In the mean time, the two men were to enter and make careful
examination of the main sewer and its adjacent outlets. The party, which
was now in readiness for its march to the Federal camps, waited tidings
from these two men all next day in tormenting anxiety, and the weary
hours went by on leaden wings. At last the sickening word came that the
planks yet to be removed before they could enter the main sewer were of
seasoned oak--hard as bone, and three inches thick. Their feeble tools
were now worn out or broken; they could no longer get air to work, or
keep a light in the horrible pit, which was reeking with cold mud; in
short, any attempt at further progress with the utensils at hand was
foolish.
Most of the party were now really ill from the foul stench in which they
had lived so long. The visions of liberty that had first lured them to
desperate efforts under the inspiration of Rose and Hamilton had at last
faded, and one by one they lost heart and hope, and frankly told Colonel
Rose that they could do no more. The party was therefore disbanded, and
the yet sanguine leader, with Hamilton for his sole helper, continued
the work alone. Up to this time thirty-nine nights had been spent in the
work of excavation. The two men now made a careful examination of the
northeast corner of the cellar, at which point the earth's surface
outside the prison wall, being eight or nine feet higher than at the
canal or south side, afforded a better place to dig than the latter,
being free from water and with clay-top enough to support itself. The
unfavorable feature of this point was that the only possible terminus of
a tunnel was a yard between the buildings beyond the vacant lot on the
east of Libby. Another objection was that, even when the tunnel should
be made to that point, the exit of any escaping party must be made
through an arched wagon-way under the building that faced the street on
the canal side, and every man must emerge on the sidewalk in sight of
the sentinel on the south side of the prison, the intervening space
being in the full glare of the gas-lamp. It was carefully noted, however
by Rose, long before this, that the west end of the beat of the nearest
sentinel was between fifty and sixty feet from the point of egress, and
it was concluded that by walking away at the moment the sentinel
commenced his pace westward, one would be far enough into the shadow to
make it improbable that the color of his clothing could be made out by
the sentinel when he faced about to return toward the eastern end of his
beat, which terminated ten to fifteen feet east of the prison wall. It
was further considered that as these sentinels had for their special
duty the guarding of the prison, they would not be eager to burden
themselves with the duty of molesting persons seen in the vicinity
outside of their jurisdiction, provided, of course, that the retreating
forms--many of which they must certainly see--were not recognized as
Yankees. All others they might properly leave for the challenge and
usual examination of the provost guard who patrolled the streets of
Richmond.
The wall of that east cellar had to be broken in three places before a
place was found where the earth was firm enough to support a tunnel. The
two men worked on with stubborn patience, but their progress was
painfully slow. Rose dug assiduously, and Hamilton alternately fanned
air to his comrade and dragged out and hid the excavated dirt, but the
old difficulty confronted him. The candle would not burn, the air could
not be fanned fast enough with a hat, and the dirt hidden, without
better contrivances or additional help.
Rose now reassembled the party, and selected from them a number who were
willing to renew the attempt.[12] Against the east wall stood a series
of stone fenders abutting inward, and these, being at uniform intervals
of about twenty feet, cast deep shadows that fell toward the prison
front. In one of these dark recesses the wall was pierced, well up
toward the Carey street end. The earth here has very densely compressed
sand, that offered a strong resistance to the broad-bladed chisel, which
was their only effective implement, and it was clear that a long turn of
hard work must be done to penetrate under the fifty-foot lot to the
objective point. The lower part of the tunnel was about six inches above
the level of the cellar floor, and its top about two and a half feet.
Absolute accuracy was of course impossible, either in giving the hole a
perfectly horizontal direction or in preserving uniform dimensions; but
a fair level was preserved, and the average diameter of the tunnel was a
little over two feet. Usually one man would dig, and fill the spittoon
with earth; upon the signal of a gentle pull, an assistant would drag
the load into the cellar by the clothes-lines fastened to each side of
this box and then hide it under the straw; a third constantly fanned air
into the tunnel with a rubber blanket stretched across a frame, the
invention of the ingenious Hamilton; a fourth would give occasional
relief to the last two; while a fifth would keep a lookout.
[Footnote 12: The party now consisted of Colonel Thomas E. Rose, 77th
Pennsylvania; Major A.G. Hamilton, 12th Kentucky; Captain Terrance
Clark, 79th Illinois; Major George H. Fitzsimmons, 30th Indiana; Captain
John F. Gallagher, 2d Ohio: Captain W.S.B. Randall, 2d Ohio; Captain
John Lucas, 5th Kentucky; Captain I.N. Johnson, 6th Kentucky; Major B.B.
McDonald, 101st Ohio; Lieutenant N.S. McKean, 21st Illinois; Lieutenant
David Garbett, 77th Pennsylvania; Lieutenant J.C. Fislar, 7th Indiana
Artillery; Lieutenant John D. Simpson, 10th Indiana; Lieutenant John
Mitchell, 79th Illinois; and Lieutenant Eli Foster, 30th Indiana. This
party was divided into three reliefs, as before, and the work of
breaking the cellar wall was successfully done the first night by
McDonald and Clark.]
The danger of discovery was continual, for the guards were under
instructions from the prison commandant to make occasional visits to
every accessible part of the building; so that it was not unusual for a
sergeant and several men to enter the south door of Rat Hell in the
daytime, while the diggers were at labor in the dark north end. During
these visits the digger would watch the intruders with his head sticking
out of the tunnel, while the others would crouch behind the low stone
fenders, or crawl quickly under the straw. This was, however, so
uninviting a place that the Confederates made this visit as brief as a
nominal compliance with their orders permitted, and they did not often
venture into the dark north end. The work was fearfully monotonous, and
the more so because absolute silence was commanded, the men moving about
mutely in the dark. The darkness caused them frequently to become
bewildered and lost; and as Rose could not call out for them, he had
often to hunt all over the big dungeon to gather them up and pilot them
to their places.
The difficulty of forcing air to the digger, whose body nearly filled
the tunnel, increased as the hole was extended, and compelled the
operator to back often into the cellar for air, and for air that was
itself foul enough to sicken a strong man.
But they were no longer harassed with the water and timbers that had
impeded their progress at the south end. Moreover, experience was daily
making each man more proficient in the work. Rose urged them on with
cheery enthusiasm, and their hopes rose high, for already they had
penetrated beyond the sentinel's beat and were nearing the goal.
The party off duty kept a cautious lookout from the upper east windows
for any indications of suspicion on the part of the Confederates. In
this extreme caution was necessary, both to avert the curiosity of
prisoners in those east rooms, and to keep out of the range of bullets
from the guards, who were under a standing order to fire at a head if
seen at a window, or at a hand if placed on the bars that secured them.
A sentinel's bullet one day cut a hole in the ear of Lieutenant Hammond;
another officer was wounded in the face by a bullet, which fortunately
first splintered against one of the window-bars; and a captain of an
Ohio regiment was shot through the head and instantly killed while
reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot
was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet
came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly
miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north
sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in
fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their posts below, pretty much
after the fashion of boys after squirrels; and the whizz of a bullet
through the windows became too common an occurrence to occasion remark
unless some one was shot.
Under a standing rule, the twelve hundred prisoners were counted twice
each day, the first count being made about nine in the morning, and the
last about four in the afternoon. This duty was habitually done by the
clerk of the prison, E.W. Ross, a civilian employed by the commandant.
He was christened "Little Ross"[13] by the prisoners, because of his
diminutive size. Ross was generally attended by either "Dick" Turner,
Adjutant Latouche, or Sergeant George Stansil, of the 18th Georgia, with
a small guard to keep the prisoners in four closed ranks during the
count. The commandant of the prison, Major Thomas P. Turner (no relative
of Dick's), seldom came up-stairs.
[Footnote 13: "Little Ross" was burned to death, with other guests, at
the Spotswood House, Richmond, in 1873.]
To conceal the absence of the five men who were daily at work at the
tunnel, their comrades of the party off digging duty resorted, under
Rose's supervision, to a device of "repeating." This scheme, which was
of vital importance to hoodwink the Confederates and avert mischievous
curiosity among the uninformed prisoners, was a hazardous business that
severely taxed the ingenuity and strained the nerve of the leader and
his coadjutors. The manner of the fraud varied with circumstances, but
in general it was worked by five of Rose's men, after being counted at
or near the head of the line, stooping down and running toward the foot
of the ranks, where a few moments later they were counted a second time,
thus making Ross's book balance. The whole five, however, could not
always do this undiscovered, and perhaps but three of the number could
repeat. These occasional mishaps threatened to dethrone the reason of
the puzzled clerk; but in the next count the "repeaters" would succeed
in their game, and for the time all went well, until one day some of the
prisoners took it into their heads, "just for the fun of the thing," to
imitate the repeaters. Unconscious of the curses that the party were
mentally hurling at them, the meddlers' sole purpose was to make "Little
Ross" mad. In this they certainly met with signal success, for the
reason of the mystified clerk seemed to totter as he repeated the count
over and over in the hope of finding out how one careful count would
show that three prisoners were missing and the next an excess of
fifteen. Finally Ross, lashed into uncontrollable fury by the sarcastic
remarks of his employers and the heartless merriment of the grinning
Yanks before him, poured forth his goaded soul as follows:
"Now, gentlemen, look yere. I can count a hundred as good as any blank
man in this yere town, but I'll be blank blanked if I can count a
hundred of you blanked Yankees. Now, gentlemen, there's one thing sho:
there's eight or ten of you-uns yere that ain't yere!"
This extraordinary accusation "brought down the house," and the
Confederate officers and guards, and finally Ross himself, were caught
by the resistless contagion of laughter that shook the rafters of Libby.
The officials somehow found a balance that day on the books, and the
danger was for this once over, to the infinite relief of Rose and his
anxious comrades. But the Confederates appeared dissatisfied with
something, and came up-stairs next morning with more officers and with
double the usual number of guards; and some of these were now stationed
about the room so as to make it next to impossible to work the repeating
device successfully. On this day, for some reason, there were but two
men in the cellar, and these were Major B.B. McDonald and Captain I.N.
Johnson.
The count began as usual, and despite the guard in rear, two of the
party attempted the repeating device by forcing their way through the
center of the ranks toward the left; but the "fun of the thing" had now
worn out with the unsuspecting meddlers, who resisted the passage of the
two men. This drew the attention of the Confederate officers, and the
repeaters were threatened with punishment. The result was inevitable:
the count showed two missing. It was carefully repeated, with the same
result. To the dismay of Rose and his little band, the prison register
was now brought up-stairs and a long, tedious roll-call by name was
endured, each man passing through a narrow door as his name was called,
and between a line of guards.
No stratagem that Rose could now invent could avert the discovery by the
Confederates that McDonald and Johnson had disappeared, and the mystery
of their departure would be almost certain to cause an inquiry and
investigation that would put their plot in peril and probably reveal it.
At last the "J's" were reached, and the name of I.N. Johnson was lustily
shouted and repeated, with no response. The roll-call proceeded until
the name of B.B. McDonald was reached. To the increasing amazement of
everybody but the conspirators, he also had vanished. A careful note was
taken of these two names by the Confederates, and a thousand tongues
were now busy with the names of the missing men and their singular
disappearance.
The conspirators were in a tight place, and must choose between two
things. One was for the men in the cellar to return that night and face
the Confederates with the most plausible explanation of their absence
that they could invent, and the other alternative was the revolting one
of remaining in their horrible abode until the completion of the tunnel.
When night came the fireplace was opened, and the unlucky pair were
informed of the situation of affairs and asked to choose between the
alternatives presented. McDonald decided to return and face the music;
but Johnson, doubtful if the Confederates would be hoodwinked by any
explanation, voted to remain where he was and wait for the finish of the
tunnel.
As was anticipated, McDonald's return awakened almost as much curiosity
among the inhabitants of Libby as his disappearance, and he was soon
called to account by the Confederates. He told them he had fallen asleep
in an out-of-the-way place in the upper west room, where the guards must
have overlooked him during the roll-call of the day before. McDonald was
not further molested. The garrulous busybodies, who were Rose's chief
dread, told the Confederate officials that they had certainly slept near
Johnson the night before the day he was missed. Lieutenant J.C. Fislar
(of the working party), who also slept next to Johnson, boldly declared
this a case of mistaken identity, and confidently expressed his belief
to both Confederates and Federals who gathered around him that Johnson
had escaped, and was by this time, no doubt, safe in the Union lines. To
this he added the positive statement that Johnson had not been in his
accustomed sleeping-place for a good many nights. The busybodies, who
had indeed told the truth, looked at the speaker in speechless
amazement, but reiterated their statements. Others of the conspirators,
however, took Fislar's bold cue and stoutly corroborated him.
Johnson, was, of course, nightly fed by his companions, and gave them
such assistance as he could at the work; but it soon became apparent
that a man could not long exist in such a pestilential atmosphere. No
tongue can tell how long were the days and nights the poor fellow passed
among the squealing rats,--enduring the sickening air, the deathly
chill, the horrible, interminable darkness. One day out of three was an
ordeal for the workers, who at least had a rest of two days afterward.
As a desperate measure of relief, it was arranged, with the utmost
caution, that late each night Johnson should come up-stairs, when all
was dark and the prison in slumber, and sleep among the prisoners until
just before the time for closing the fireplace opening, about four
o'clock each morning. As he spoke to no one and the room was dark, his
presence was never known, even to those who lay next to him; and indeed
he listened to many earnest conversations between his neighbors
regarding his wonderful disappearance.[14]
[Footnote 14: In a volume entitled "Four Months in Libby," Captain
Johnson has related his experience at this time, and his subsequent
escape.]
As a matter of course, the incidents above narrated made day-work on the
tunnel too hazardous to be indulged in, on account of the increased
difficulty of accounting for absentees; but the party continued the
night-work with unabated industry.
When the opening had been extended nearly across the lot, some of the
party believed they had entered under the yard which was the intended
terminus; and one night, when McDonald was the digger, so confident was
he that the desired distance had been made, that he turned his direction
upward, and soon broke through to the surface. A glance showed him his
nearly fatal blunder, against which, indeed, he had been earnestly
warned by Rose, who from the first had carefully estimated the
intervening distance between the east wall of Libby and the terminus. In
fact, McDonald saw that he had broken through in the open lot which was
all in full view of a sentinel who was dangerously close. Appalled by
what he had done, he retreated to the cellar and reported the disaster
to his companions. Believing that discovery was now certain, the party
sent one of their number up the rope to report to Rose, who was asleep.
The hour was about midnight when the leader learned of the mischief. He
quickly got up, went down cellar, entered the tunnel, and examined the
break. It was not so near the sentinel's path as McDonald's excited
report indicated, and fortunately the breach was at a point whence the
surface sloped downward toward the east. He took off his blouse and
stuffed it into the opening, pulling the dirt over it noiselessly, and
in a few minutes there was little surface evidence of the hole. He then
backed into the cellar in the usual crab fashion, and gave directions
for the required depression of the tunnel and vigorous resumption of
the work. The hole made in the roof of the tunnel was not much larger
than a rat-hole and could not be seen from the prison. But the next
night Rose shoved an old shoe out of the hole, and the day afterward he
looked down through the prison bars and saw the shoe lying where he had
placed it, and judged from its position that he had better incline the
direction of the tunnel slightly to the left.
Meantime Captain Johnson was dragging out a wretched existence in Rat
Hell, and for safety was obliged to confine himself by day to the dark
north end, for the Confederates often came into the place very suddenly
through the south entrance. When they ventured too close, Johnson would
get into a pit that he had dug under the straw as a hiding-hole both for
himself and the tunnelers' tools, and quickly cover himself with a huge
heap of short packing-straw. A score of times he came near being stepped
upon by the Confederates, and more than once the dust of the straw
compelled him to sneeze in their very presence.
On Saturday, February 6, a larger party than usual of the Confederates
came into the cellar, walked by the very mouth, of the tunnel, and
seemed to be making a critical survey of the entire place. They remained
an unusually long time and conversed in low tones; several of them even
kicked the loose straw about; and in fact everything seemed to indicate
to Johnson--who was the only one of the working party now in the
cellar--that the long-averted discovery had been made. That night he
reported matters fully to Rose at the fireplace opening.
The tunnel was now nearly completed, and when Rose conveyed Johnson's
message to the party it caused dismay. Even the stout-hearted Hamilton
was for once excited, and the leader whose unflinching fortitude had
thus far inspired his little band had his brave spirits dashed. But his
buoyant courage rose quickly to its high and natural level. He could not
longer doubt that the suspicions of the Confederates were aroused, but
he felt convinced that these suspicions had not as yet assumed such a
definite shape as most of his companions thought; still, he had abundant
reason to believe that the success of the tunnel absolutely demanded its
speedy completion, and he now firmly resolved that a desperate effort
should be made to that end. Remembering that the next day was Sunday,
and that it was not customary for the Confederates to visit the
operating-cellar on that day, he determined to make the most in his
power of the now precious time. He therefore caused all the party to
remain up-stairs, directing them to keep a close watch upon the
Confederates from all available points of observation, to avoid being
seen in whispering groups,--in short, to avoid all things calculated to
excite the curiosity of friends or the suspicion of enemies,--and to
await his return.
Taking McDonald with him, he went down through the fireplace before
daylight on Sunday morning, and, bidding Johnson to keep a vigilant
watch for intruders and McDonald to fan air into him, he entered the
tunnel and began the forlorn hope. From this time forward he never once
turned over the chisel to a relief.
All day long he worked with the tireless patience of a beaver. When
night came, even his single helper, who performed the double duty of
fanning air and hiding the excavated earth, was ill from his hard, long
task and the deadly air of the cellar. Yet this was as nothing compared
with the fatigue of the duty that Rose had performed; and when at last,
far into the night, he backed into the cellar, he had scarcely strength
enough to stagger across to the rope-ladder.
He had made more than double the distance that had been accomplished
under the system of reliefs on any previous day, and the non-appearance
of the Confederates encouraged the hope that another day, without
interruption, would see the work completed. He therefore determined to
refresh himself by a night's sleep for the finish. The drooping spirits
of his party were revived by the report of his progress and his
unalterable confidence.
Monday morning dawned, and the great prison with its twelve hundred
captives was again astir. The general crowd did not suspect the
suppressed excitement and anxiety of the little party that waited
through that interminable day, which they felt must determine the fate
of their project.
Rose had repeated the instructions of the day before, and again
descended to Rat Hell with McDonald for his only helper. Johnson
reported all quiet, and McDonald taking up his former duties at the
tunnel's mouth, Rose once more entered with his chisel. It was now the
seventeenth day since the present tunnel was begun, and he resolved it
should be the last. Hour after hour passed, and still the busy chisel
was plied, and still the little wooden box with its freight of earth
made its monotonous trips from the digger to his comrade and back again.
From the early morning of Monday, February 8, 1864, until an hour after
midnight the next morning his work went on. As midnight approached, Rose
was nearly a physical wreck: the perspiration dripped from every pore of
his exhausted body; food he could not have eaten, if he had had it. His
labors thus far had given him a somewhat exaggerated estimate of his
physical powers. The sensation of fainting was strange to him, but his
staggering senses warned him that to faint where he was meant at once
his death and burial. He could scarcely inflate his lungs with the
poisonous air of the pit; his muscles quivered with increasing weakness
and the warning spasmodic tremor which their unnatural strain induced;
his head swam like that of a drowning person.