Chapter 19

A HOSPITABLE HOST--FRANKLIN JAIL--CHARITABLE WOMEN--A THOUGHTFUL, MOTHERLY GIFT--A GENEROUS GUARD--ASHVILLE JAIL--ATTEMPT TO BREAK OUT.

Upon our arrival at Franklin we were taken to the jail, but before we were locked up, Doctor Moore, of the village, invited us to his house to dinner, and upon his agreeing to be responsible for our safe return, we were allowed to go with him unattended by any guard. Although no promise had been exacted from us not to escape, we would not have attempted to leave, had an outlet presented itself. We would have considered it a base betrayal of his confidence, as much so as the violation of a parole, to have taken advantage of so kind and generous a host. We were received at his house with all the cordiality of distinguished guests, and nothing was said or done, by any member of the family, that could be construed into a hint that we were other than welcome visitors.

Dr. Moore was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy, but was too much of a gentleman to allude to any thing during our visit, that would be offensive to our ears. Books and papers were on the parlor table, photographs of the family and friends were shown us; a stereoscope was also on the table, supplied with views of scenes both in the North and South. I was looking at some of the views, when I, without knowing what it was, put one into the stereoscope and looking at it, almost imagined that I was in New York. It was a view of Broadway from the Battery up. Oh! how this picture reminded me of home. It seemed as though I could call a stage by raising my hand. I looked at it long and earnestly, so long that I almost forgot my surroundings, forgot everything, and was again among friends at home.

Altogether, we passed a very pleasant afternoon with the genial doctor and his interesting family.

As we were leaving, Mrs. Moore and a neighbor, Mrs. Siler, having noticed our stockingless feet, presented us each with a pair of nice, warm, woolen socks, that they had knitted for some member of their own family, and filling a basket with choice apples and potatoes, sent them with us to the jail, which was to be our quarters that night. Arriving at the jail, we found that the doctor, thoughtful of our comfort, had caused a fire to be built in the wide fireplace, the cheerful glow of which made our imprisonment more tolerable. These little acts of kindness left a green spot in our memory of prison life, that still remains as an oasis in the otherwise cheerless desert we passed through. When God makes up his rewards and punishments, I am sure he will say to the kind-hearted doctor and his family, "I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me."

The next day a Mr. Johnson was detailed as our guard, and instead of staying with us at the jail, he invited us to his house, where he kept us over night, giving us a good clean bed and a good supper and breakfast, and treating us as had Doctor Moore, more as guests than as prisoners.

The next day we were started for Ashville, N. C., with a guard, under Lieutenant Ammon. The Lieutenant, sympathizing with me in my enfeebled condition, furnished me with a mule to ride, and showed me every kindness possible.

One of our guard on this trip was Hon. Thomas S. Siler, ex-member of Assembly of Macon county. He was a very agreeable gentleman, who still had a strong attachment for the Union. He was intelligent and well posted on every subject, and my conversation with him during the march, seemed to lessen the tediousness of the journey.

We arrived at Ashville, N. C., on the 7th of November, and were crowded into an upper room in the jail, about twelve feet square, in which there were besides us, twenty-seven rebel deserters, two of them sick with the measles. I had not been able up to this time, to do anything for my swollen and inflamed legs, and they were in a most frightful condition, causing me intense pain and suffering, so much so that I was fearful of losing them entirely, as they had been neglected so long. A surgeon visited me in the jail, and recommended my removal to the hospital, but although I offered to give my parole for that purpose, Colonel Lowe, who was in command, refused to allow me to be sent there.

The room was so full, that it was impossible for all of us to lie down at once, and we were obliged to take turns standing up. Our water closet consisted of a wooden pail in one corner of the room, which was twice a day carried out and emptied by the guard; as we were none of us allowed to leave the room for any purpose. The intolerable stench from this pail, and the filthy slops around it, was enough to create an epidemic.

The atmosphere of the room was simply insufferable, and we were obliged to keep the windows raised, notwithstanding the cold weather, in order to get ventilation. We had one old stove in the room, but our supply of wood was quite insufficient to keep the temperature anything like comfortable, although the village was surrounded by good timber.

One intensely cold night our wood had given out, and so I took the large iron poker and commenced prying off the wainscoting of the room for fuel, and by morning I had completely stripped one side. That morning when the Sergeant came in he raised a great row about it, threatening to punish the one who had done it. I told him that I was the one, and that I had considered it a military necessity, and that if we were not furnished with wood, he would wake up some morning and find the old jail burned down. He said I should be reported and punished for destroying government property, but the only thing done was to give us thereafter a more liberal supply of fuel.

We occupied a front room in the north-west corner of the jail, and in the room back of us were twenty-nine more reb deserters and a large, powerful negro, who had been placed there by his master as a punishment for some alleged misdemeanor. There was only a board partition between the two rooms, and it was not long before I had established communication with our neighbors, by cutting a hole through the partition large enough to allow us to carry on conversation. Upon our entrance into the jail they had deprived us of our case knives that we had carried with us thus far, for fear we would cut our way out with them.

But I had a screw driver to a gun which they happened to overlook in their search. This I sharpened on the bricks on which the stove rested, and then commenced making an outlet for our escape. I took a strong cord, and lashed the screw driver to a round stick of stove wood, and at night removed one of the sick men, and commenced by punching across two boards in the floor just over the joist, to cut through the floor. It was hard work, but by spelling each other, we had the two boards completely loose before midnight. Upon removing the loose boards we found that there was a ceiling of the same thickness still between us and freedom. The floor and ceiling were both Norway pine, and very hard, and as we could not work with our short handled chisel we adopted another plan for that.

We took the large poker which I had used to tear off the wainscoting, and heating it red hot in the stove, commenced burning holes through the under ceiling. We had a pail of water for drinking, and when it blazed up too much, we would dash on a cup full of water. This was slow work, but just at daylight we had removed the last board and then carefully swept up all traces of our work, and placing the boards back in their place, carried the sick men back and laid them over them. Our windows were grated, and the room below was used as a store room and there were no grates at the windows there.

Once down in that room after dark, and we could easily make our escape. Everything went along smoothly that morning. The guard came in to bring our breakfast and empty our slop pail, without any suspicion that any thing was wrong, but about ten o'clock the Sergeant came up with a guard, and commenced looking around as though in search of something.

I knew instinctively what was up, but as he had the stove removed and commenced poking around the brick platform without saying a word, I could not restrain my laughter, and asked him if he had lost something; saying that if he had, perhaps I might tell him where to find it. He did not seem to take kindly to my offer of assistance, nor feel in a mood to enjoy the pleasure his frantic efforts to find the lost treasure, appeared to afford me. In fact he seemed to take it as a piece of Yankee impertinence. After satisfying himself that there was nothing under the stove, he had us all take up our blankets and other traps, without deigning to tell us what it was all for.

We all cheerfully complied with his order except the two sick rebs, who were too weak to get up. After thoroughly searching every other part of the room, he had the two sick men removed, and there discovered the loose boards and seemed satisfied and pleased. Was that what you was looking for Sergeant? said I. If you had told me what you wanted I could have told you where to look when you first came up, and saved you all this trouble. You'ens Yanks think you are d--d cute, don't you? was all the reply I received. He left the guard in the room while he went and got a carpenter to repair the floor; He soon returned with a carpenter, and told him to nail them boards down securely. I told some of my associates, to keep him interested, by asking him how he discovered the hole, and I would fix the carpenter.

Carelessly lounging up to where he was working, I said in a tone that could not be heard by anyone else: "I can get those boards up easier if you break the nails off."

He replied in the same undertone: "I don't care a d--n how soon you get them up when I get away."

I watched him, and saw that he followed my suggestion, breaking the nails in two with the claw of his hammer, so that they only a little more than went through the flooring. After he had finished the Sergeant inspected the work, and judging from the number of nails that it was securely done, took his guard and went away.

It seems that the family who lived in the lower part of the jail, kept a barrel of corn in that room below us, from which they fed their chickens, and that barrel set right under the hole we had cut; and when the old woman went to get some corn for her chickens that morning, she found it covered with chips and cinders, and looking up to ascertain the cause, discovered the hole in the ceiling. She at once notified the Sergeant of the discovery, and the result was we had our trouble and work for nothing.

Captain Alban and myself were the only Yankee prisoners in the jail, and until our arrival there had been no attempt at escape, and to us therefore was attributed all of the attempts to break out.

While the reb deserters were willing to share with us all the benefits to be derived from a break, they were too shiftless and lazy to fully enter into our plans for an escape.