Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1874-08-13
JOHN MORGAN'S ESCAPE.

Correspondence Washington Capital ]
The very quiet life at Oakland,
Maryland, has been enlivened by a
gentleman who makes this place in
beautiful cottage, a summer resort
for himself and family. He was a
Confederate officer during our late
civil war, and one of the celebrated
force under John Morgan, that inva-
ded Ohio, and after frightening the
home-guard, females and farmers, in
a march that, for audacity alone, re-
mains unparalleled, was captured
and consigned to the States prison.
Looking back now upon the stir
ring events of those bloody days,
with the impartial judgment time
alone can bring, the punishment
awarded the raiders appears an infa-
nous outrage. Morgan and his
troops were prisoners of war after
their capture, and there was moth
ing in their conduct to justify this at
tempt to disgrace and degrade them.
One finds in this some justification
of the treatment awarded Federal
prisoners subsequently by the Con-
federate government.
By order of our great Secretary of
War, all of John Morgan's command
that had been captured, and their
gallant leader, were taken to the
penitentiary at Columbus, their heads
shaven, bath administered, the dis
graceful uniforms put on, and one
and all consigned to cells among com
mon felons, of whose fair they were
to partake and to whose rules and
regulations they were to submit.
They were not ordered to hard labor.
1t would have been better for them
had this also been added to their deg
radiation, for in labor the mind
finds some relief AS it was, these
men, who believed conscientiously
that they had been doing Gods duty
in fighting for their country, were
seyerally incarcerated in cells six feet
wide and ten deep, with gloomy,
half light admitted through hole in
each door, where the sufferers lived
through the dreary hours, with no
other occupation than came of their
weary thoughts. This solitary con-
finement is hard on the average un-
educated convict, but to the cultiva-
ted, refined man it is horrible.
At first it was believed throughout
the command that they were to be ia
ken out in squads and shot. When,
after a time, this proved to be a de-
lusion, there was positively a regret
felt, for immediate death would have
been preferable to this slow torture
awarded them.
John Morgan was of course indig-
nant at the shameful treatment given
him and his command. Finding that
they were not to be shot, at least i'm
mediately, he turned his thoughts to
plan of escape. His first was a
general revolt among the convicts.
These were nearly thousand, while
the guards numbered but thirty. 1t
came to his knowledge that seventy
stands of arms were deposited in the
prison. 1t seemed easy, then, for a
daring, intelligent leader to seize on
this material and use it to his own
purpose. To organize an uprising OF
these eight hundred or thousand
convicts against their armed guard,
to give the signal, seize the arms,
turn the criminals loose and blow up
the prison seemed at first of easy
execution. But when Morgan began
to study details, two obstacles pre-
sented themselves. The first was the
difficulty of communicating with his
allies, the cOnyicts. The guards,
when it came to a hand-to-hand con-
fiict, were few enough, but there was
a sufficient number to enforce the
prison regulations, and the more i'm
portant was to prevent this very in
tercourse or communication necessa-
ry to complete the plot.
The other obstacle was yet more
difficult one. Morgan found it in
what we know the average convict to
be, and that is q weak man, not to be
trusted with a secret that is even tC
rebound to his own advantage if kept
He is as certain to betray such conf
denee as he is to commit otfenses in
sufficient number to make resi-
dence in prison lifelong.
The Ohio penitentiarys is prison
built within prison, where the cell:
are in a structure in the center o
four heavy walls, which struc
ture touches the outer shell only
at the roof. On all sides there
are open spaces, rooted over ant
lighted by windows ten feet from
the floor and heavily barred. Eacl
cell has its own entrance, from eithe
the floor or the gallery, for they ris'
| tier above tier; so that the convict i
shut in from any communication witt
his neighbor. When marched to la
/ bor. the guard unlocks the cell AM