Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/253

 In a Federal Prison. 237

the commissary. We had long since ceased to think simply of the provisions in the commissary. The idea of making our escape had taken possession of our minds and souls, and nerved my arm with new strength and energy day by day.

I worked through twenty-two of these walls, which let us below the guards and out of sight of the sentinels.

When I reached the trap-door opening into the commissary above, I found it covered with barrels of pork, flour, etc., which barred the entrance just then. In order to carry out our plan, as the work progressed, money was necessary, and to secure it, we had to take others into our secret, until our party numbered eight.

We watched the trap-door until we found that most of the heavy articles had been removed, and those that remained were worked off by pushing a piece of scantling against their bottom through the slats of the floor.

HOPES OF LIBERTY.

The whole of our party was now notified that after taps, which occurried at 9 o'clock every night, we would raise the door and enter the commissary. In each casemate there was a porthole about seven feet above the water in the moat.

We had planned to let ourselves down through the one in the commissary to the water by means of a rope fastened on the inside to a barrel of pork. All of the party except myself could swim. A rope nearly a hundred feet long was to be fastened around my waist and under my arms. We had secured these helps by means known to prisoners of war. I was to be the last man to crawl through the port-hole, and the seventh, or the one just ahead of me, was to hold on to the rope attached to me, and thus assist me over the moat.

Entering the commissary, we found a Federal soldier asleep in his bunk. He proved to be the commissary sergeant.

Everything having been arranged, I stood guard over the sergeant, while the others passed out^ at the port-hole. Fortunately, the sol- dier did not awake. I passed quickly through the hole when my turn came, and found that the man who was to hold the rope at- tached to me had let it slip from his hand, and I was left to get across as best I could.

I can hardly tell how I managed, but I seemed to wade a short distance under water, then spring to the surface for breath, let my- self down again, go forward, and again come to the surface, and in this way was soon across.