CHAPTER VIII.
AN ESCAPE.
About the first of August our remaining officers decided that parole or exchange was very unlikely, and we concluded to attempt an escape. Captains Miller and Lambert, with Major Hamilton, had already gone. They had slipped out of the stockade and had finally succeeded in getting home, but the hardships of the journey caused the death of two and nearly killed Hamilton. The result, of course, we did not know at the time, so Captains J. B. Gedney and Thomas M. Fee, Lieutenants Charles Burnbaum and Walter S. Johnson, Adjutant S. K. Mahon and myself made our plans to follow their example.
After considerable diplomatic work we finally closed a deal with one of our guards to secure us an opportunity to get out, for $150 in Confederate money, and he picked out a couple of his companions to help him. We watched and studied the methods of guard-mounting, and selected what seemed to be the most favorable point for our egress. We then informed our friend the guard of the time and place decided upon and instructed him how to have himself and friends fall in at guard-mount, so that they would get the posts which covered our chosen ground.
When the appointed time came we were all nervous and somewhat excited, for we could not tell whether our guards would prove true to us or not, but we were determined, and we made our preparations with the utmost secrecy. We had secured some provisions and an axe, and when we finally started Captain Gedney led the way as pioneer, carrying the axe. I came next, with a pail containing our provisions, on top of which was a large boiled ox heart, and the others followed. As we approached the stockade our hearts beat quickly, and we were in a state of dreadful suspense until we saw that the nearest guard was aware of our presence and found that he was not disposed to see us. We had picked out a spot where the soil was loose, and, when we found that our guard was sincere, it was the work of a very short time to work and separate two slabs of the stockade so that we could squeeze through.
The night was dark and rainy, and fitful flashes of lightning but partly illuminated the scene, yet caused us to crouch close to the ground to avoid discovery. I shall never forget the interval of dread, hope and nervous excitement consequent upon our delay at the fence while forcing an outlet, although it could not have been more than a very few minutes. Between the rumblings of thunder we could hear the low sough and moan of the wind in the trees outside of the stockade, like the suppressed wail of human beings in pain; then would come a flare of flickering lightning through the clouds, like the striking of a match that would not burn, at which we would flatten out against the fence or on the ground, with our hearts in our mouths; then, with the darkness, would come the low roar of distant thunder, like the anathemas of a disappointed match-striker, and we would desperately renew our efforts for fear the successful match would be struck before we got away, our fears being heightened by the evident approach of the worst of the storm. My similes may not be poetic or grand, but it is a fact that it seemed to us as if each flash of lightning was an attempt to find us and each roll of thunder the growls of our captors at the failure.
At last we got through the fence, and at once struck a pace for the woods, which would have carried us to Iowa in short order if we could have kept it up.
We had scarcely started before there came what seemed to me to be the greatest flash of lightning that I had ever seen. For an instant you could have seen to read in the open spot across which we were making all the speed of which we were capable, and then came a yell from one of the guards, the roar of a musket and a rattle of thunder that fairly caused us to become frantic in our efforts to put a proper distance between ourselves and that stockade. In the darkness which followed the glare I plunged head over heels into a small ravine, hugging my bucket of food desperately, but when I arose and hastened on my ox heart had disappeared. We had no time to bewail the loss, however, for our danger of recapture was more serious, and we fairly flew along.
Just what efforts were made to overtake us I do not know, but we finally reached a place where we could hide and take a breathing spell, and no sounds of pursuit disturbed us.
After a time the storm passed over and the moon began to peep through the clouds now and then, when we started again on our journey. The country was what can be best described as an open-timber country, that is, timbered thinly without much underbrush. We walked all night, selecting our course as best as we could, having occasional periods of partial moonlight, then a cloudy spell, and again a thunderstorm. When daylight at last appeared we sought a ravine and a dense thicket and stowed ourselves away.
It cleared off with the rising sun, and we spent the day in hiding, drying our clothes in the sun as best we could. We had no idea where we were, and could only locate directions in a general way; so we talked over the situation and decided to travel by night, going as near north as possible, and to take turns as leader or guide, holding each leader responsible for keeping our course.
When night came it was decided that it was my lead, and I prepared to guide the party north in a country of which I knew nothing, my only support being the consciousness that I knew as much about our surroundings as the others.
We started, and proceeded in a very satisfactory manner until we struck what we took for a bayou. There was a path along the bank, so we turned and followed it for quite a distance, expecting it to lead us to a crossing, but finally concluded that we should wade the stream. I picked out a good place and started in. We walked until tired, sometimes up to our knees in water and again up to our waists, but there seemed to be no other side, and by the time we concluded that we had a swamp to deal with instead of a bayou we knew just about as well how to find the spot we had left as how to reach the other side. After a standing committee of the whole had discussed--and cussed--the situation, in water up to our waists, we decided that it was better to go on than to try retracing our steps, as we would be bound to reach the other side or some side if we only kept on long enough. So I picked out a northerly direction as well as I could and we floundered on.
The silence was not oppressive, as the croaking of innumerable frogs, the buzzing of several million mosquitoes and the splash of the water did not permit such a thing to exist, while exclamations, some partially suppressed and some emphatic, frequently silenced the frogs and startled the mosquitoes, as one or another of the party stepped into a hole or stumbled over a root. At last we struck a place where the water was quite deep, the bottom soft and the bullrushes so thick that we could scarcely wade through them.
When we got where the bullrushes waved over our heads, while the mud was nearly to our knees and the water up to our armpits, the rest of the party stopped and mildly remonstrated, one of them suggesting that my ability as guide was not being displayed in finding the most convenient way to go north, even while I might be going the most direct way, and that there was room for an argument as to whether our most material progress was not toward a place located in another direction.
At this I suggested that as I was their Moses to lead them out of the wilderness I could scarcely be blamed for a visit to my birthplace while the opportunity offered.
Captain Gedney was so exhausted that we were compelled to grope around until we found a place where he could sit down. Before it was found he was so completely fagged out that we had to support him, and, when at last we found where he could sit with his mouth and nose just above water, the situation had become serious.
Then we appointed a committee of one to explore the neighborhood and find, is possible, a place where we could sit down conveniently. Lieutenant Johnson, being the tallest, was selected for this delicate duty, and we rested (!) for a time while he departed on his quest. We had several reports from him in the next few minutes, but they had no bearing upon the object of his mission and are omitted, and then his voice grew fainter and fainter very rapidly. At last we heard him shout to come on, and we went toward his locality in as good order as possible. After some worse floundering than any we had yet had we began to find hard bottom and more shallow water, and in a short time we joined him on a bare space around the roots of a big tree, where we all sat down and awaited daylight, after voting thanks to Johnson for his timely help in the hour of need. We figured out that we must have walked at least ten miles through that swamp, and even today I can hear those frogs and the dismal splash of the water when I allow my mind to dwell upon that night's experience.
Despite our worn-out and exhausted condition, and the drowsy feeling which came to us as the result, we were unable to sleep soundly. The myriads of mosquitoes were not slow to discover our half-stupid condition, and they took a mean advantage of our partial helplessness. I have never been able to decide how much of our exhaustion on the following morning was due to our exertions and how much to the loss of blood which resulted from the attacks of our musical enemies.