The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-14
HOW FIFTY ESCAPED.
CONFEDERATES WORKED A CLEVER
SCHEME AT CAMP BUTLER,
Disguised as Citizens in Struggled Clothes
and Armed with Forged Passports
Few at Time Passed the vigiIant
Guards on Visiting Days.

and Armed with Forged Passports a
Few at a Time Passed the vigflant
Guards on Visiting Days.
A man in prison is like man without
hands, whose brain is constantly contriv-
ing to overcome physical. deficiency. The
ingenuity of brain unrelieved by dis
traction Of employment is capable of
schemes which rival fiction. Many
thrilling tales are told by prisoners of
war about their privations and advent
ures while under the espionage Of an
alert and relentless enemy. An expert
ence worthy of record was told an Amer
lean reporter, the other night, by a man
who now stands high in public life in
Tennessee.
He was once confederate soldier. He
had the misfortune to be numbered with
the captured at Fort Donelson, and with
hundreds of his comrades was hurried
across the Ohio and incarcerated in Camp
Butler, spot which will long be remem-
bered by those who were SO unlucky as
ODE imprisoned within its battlements.
After pining for several weary months
for an exchange that was never effected
these southern patriots set about to ac-
complish their own deliVerance. Vari-
Gus plans were concocted, but were all
successfully thwarted by the vigilance
of their custodians. Finally the inspira-
ton of this story hit upon q scheme
which for audacity and cleverness is IN
precedented, and won for its originator
title and distinction among his COM
panions which time has not yet obliter-
ated.
Among the prisoners at Camp Butler
were number of boys who served the
Confederacy in the capacity of powder
monkeys" function well known to
heavy artillerists.
IT WAS A CLEVER PLAN.
The duties of these youngsters were
to convey powder charges from the
magazines to gunners in trenches or to
assist in like manner on the floating bat
teries which annoyed the federal gun
boats in the Mississippi river.
Two Of these little fellows, who had
fallen into the hands Of the enemy, were
treated with the dignity due prisoners of
war, and consequently found themselves
hundreds of miles away from home and
mamma and subject to all the heartless
discipline of military prison. The manly
fortitude Of these two juvenile warriors
attracted the martial soul of Colonel
Morrison, who commanded the post.
To make their imprisonment less ardu-
GUS he made them his Office orderlies,
and sent them on the hundreds of er-
rands which commanding officer finds
daily necessity in the discharge of his
duty.
The little fellows were true patriots,
and no persuasion or punishment could
dissuade them from the cause of their
fathers. 1t was through them that the
hero of this story accomplished his de-
signs. The boys had access at all times
to the colonePs Office, likewise the adju-
tant's desk. One night they were hidden
to steal from the adjutant's desk lot of
blank passports.
But what good were passports to a
soldier whose very uniform forbade exit
from the inner stockade of the prison,
might be asked. Fortunately, however,
In the prison there was a sutler who pos
sessed all the venality characteristic of
his cloth.
Among the prisoners in Camp Butler
there were several confederate soldiers
who were the sons of wealthy parents and
occasionally received money from home.
From this element general fund was
collected and appropriated to the use of
the plotters for deliverance. With the
sutler, whose loyalty to the American
dollar exceeded his fidelity to the Ameri-
can Union, it was an easy matter to
smuggle in a suit of citizens clothes now
and then.
FEW GO AT A TIME.
On visiting days hundreds of people
from the country around would throng
to the post to look at the fiery rebels.
They were shown, under the escort of a
guard, through every part of the prison.
and on several occasions these parties, in
some unaccountable way, would number
one or two more on coming out than
they did on coming in. Each individual,
however, displayed his passport to the
guard at the gate, and retired unQues-
toned from the portals of the fort into
the loyal prairies of Illinois.
Had the guards counted their guests
upon their arrival and departure some
startling surprises would have resulted.
On one occasion two confederate officers
escaped by the guard with forged passes
and had taken seats in a carriage which
was waiting to serve visitors at the gate
|of the fort when Colonel Morrison him
self came out and, addressing them,
asked if they had seen all they wanted
Ito see.
eyes, sir" replied one of the fugitives
|suayely. "They are a hard looking set,
|ain't they, colonel" AT the same time
|he was so alarmed that his tongue al
|most refused to articulate.
By this process half hundred Con- |
!federates were released from custody and
returned to their commands Ia the field.
FThe reader must not imagine that these
hmen Were not missed by their guardians,
for after every muster the guards were
doubled and many commissioned and
hon-commissioned officers relieved, it be-
ling suspected that they We're responsible
for the mysterious disappearance of the
prisoners.
So cleyerly did the plan operate under
cautious restrictions that the leak through
(which the human contents of that noto-
rious pen escaped was not discovered
until the man who created it had been
duly exchanged and was fighting under
his own flag on the fields of Georgia,
where he was known the army as Colo