Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1894-04-29

| WINDOW CT LIBBY
One Of the others suggested that it
was the rats that made the noise. While
they were talking recognized the voice
| OF my friend. Captain Johnson, OF the
Fifth Kentucky, and advancing, made
| myself and my mission known.
johnson said be had intended to COM
municate the fact OF the tunnel to me
when it would have been completed, but
begged me, for Gods sake, in the mean
time to saw nothing about 1t, and l &C
guessed in his request. l am satisfied
now, that had | not done this, but had
kept up q communication between the
hospital and the Lower Potomac room
by means of the stairs before referred
to and the opening In the hospital floor,
three hundred men, instead ofone hum
dred and ten men, might have escaped
through the tunnel.
Already, perhaps, I have said more
about myself in this connection than |
had intended TO do, for it is not my de-
sire TO figure as Libby hero or an i'm
portant factor in the great escape.
was one of those who made the attempt
and failed; but among the many vivid
| events OF my life | shall always look
back upon the night Of February 9,
| 1864, as being the strangest.
Soon after dark Colonel Rose, Major
Hamilton aud Captain Johnson-the
| latter had been ia the tunnel for three
or four days and was reported missing
succeeded in getting through with
others who were directly in the secret.
Those who had heard OF tunnel, but
knew nothing of it except as runner,
became at once the most eager TO get
| through TO Gods land"
AS is known, access TO the hospital
cellar was had by taking up the bricks
in the back of the fireplace in the Ca
rey street end of the dining-room or
kitchen.
Among the rations served us by the
| confederates there were q few tallow
candles for each Of the immense rooms.
These, as soon as it became dark, were
lit, and fastened 10 posts In. the differ
ent rooms, serving merely TO reveal the
darkness. Every night at nine o'clock,
beginning with post No. l, the guards
would shout:
mine o'clock! Post No. -! Lights
out up thers, you id YaBks" and at
once the tallow dips would be extin-
guished. As soon as the lights were out
this night the men, in great disor1ery
gangs, sWarmed about the fireplace, for
getting all their previous self-denial and
manliness in their wild efforts to get
through to Ged's land. About II o'clock
some one started the cry: THE guards.
| the guards"
Whereupon the prisoners, shouting
and struggling like demons about the
fireplace, made break for the stairs
leading to the upper rooms, and were
soon lying. painting, on the floors In
their own sleeping places. Those VINO
had the presence of mind not to be in
iuenced by the alarm had now a clear
field to themselves, and succeeded in
getting through.
CAPTAIN Moran says that one hun
dred aud nine men escaped. There
were really one hundred aud tee, OF
whom fifty were recaptured. Had not
the tunnel been discovered on the alter
noon OF the 10th the prison might have
| been emptied the following night. A
curious incident, which l have never
heard recounted, followed the enemy's
discovery of the escape. The following
morning, as was usual, the prisoners
were assembled into the Upper
| Potomac room, TO be counted
into the Upper Chickamauga.
Little Ross" well-known to all
! the prisoners, and who was sub
seoueutly burned to death in the
Spottswood hotel in Richmond, kept
tally as the men passed through. He
counted them by ives, and when he dis
| covered that 10 men were gone, he hur-
ried and reported the fact to Turner,
who received the statement with open
eyed lncredulity. Why" he is re-
ported to have said to Ross, "the num-
Der of men missing is divislble by five.
You have simply made a mistake in
your tally"
If the prisoners had known the num-
Der of men who had gone through the
tunnel, they could have made up the
deficiency, and so avoided Sus picion, by
having the men pass through the west
room, climb up the posts 10 the roof,
crawl along the roof to the upper Poto-
mac room, drop down and be counted
again: but unfortunately they did not.
Turner appeared in person to super
wise a new count and, by this time, the
prisoners, learning that two hundred
men were missing, determined to make
M the deficiency, and they overdid IT,
II should be said that in their rags and
with their pale faces they looked much
alike. and any two might have passed
for twins. The younger aud more
active men crowded to the counting
place first. passed through, reached the
! Potomac room and were counted again,
and this was kept up until there were
Ola Yankees too many. Turner was at
his wits end. He swore that it was
among the possibilities for 10 men to
Get out without his knowing it, but, by
the eternal Jumping jingo, 213 Yankees
/ could not get in without his being aware
Of the fact, particularly as he was ac-
customed TO search each man on his
arrival at TIE prison. Fearing trick,
the men were all driven down in the
dining room, and then counted up the
stairs, one at time, when Ross nrst
tally was fund TO be correct. In order
TO create the impression that the guards
had conlived at the escape Of the pris-
ouers a board had been knocked out of
the side Of one Of the sinks in the direc-
ton of the canal, and a rope which
Colonel Rose had used in his first tun-
mel was dropped over to indicate that
the men had gone out in that way. A:
they could not have done this without
the consent of the guards. every man o.
the battalion then on duty about LIBBY
was put under arrest
About the middle of the afternoon
the exit from the tunnel to the east. OF
1 ~ ---.s.. .i.da nf the hnard fanc.