by Tom McCarthy
He wrenched off one of the long boards that formed a table-seat in the kitchen and found that it was long enough to touch the cellar base and protrude a foot or so above the kitchen floor. By this means he easily descended, leaving Hamilton to keep watch above.
The storm still raged fiercely, and the faint beams of a streetlamp revealed the muffled form of the sentinel slowly pacing his beat and carrying his musket at “secure” arms. Creeping softly toward him along the cellar wall, he now saw that what he had supposed was a door was simply a naked opening to the street, and further inspection disclosed the fact that there was but one sentinel on the south side of the prison. Standing in the dark shadow, he could easily have touched this man with his hand as he repeatedly passed him. Groping about, he found various appurtenances indicating that the south end of this cellar was used for a carpenter’s shop and that the north end was partitioned off into a series of small cells with padlocked doors and that through each door a square hole, a foot in diameter, was cut. Subsequently it was learned that these dismal cages were alternately used for the confinement of “troublesome prisoners”—i.e., those who had distinguished themselves by ingenious attempts to escape—and also for runaway slaves and Union spies under sentence of death.
At the date of Rose’s first reconnaissance to this cellar, these cells were vacant and unguarded. The night was far spent, and Rose proceeded to return to the kitchen, where Hamilton was patiently waiting for him.
The very next day, a rare good fortune befell Rose. By an agreement between the commissioners of exchange, several bales of clothing and blankets had been sent by our government to the famishing Union prisoners on Belle Isle, a number of whom had already frozen to death. A committee of Union officers then confined in Libby consisting of General Neal Dow, Colonel Alexander von Shrader, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph F. Boyd, and Colonel Harry White, having been selected by the Confederates to supervise the distribution of the donation, Colonel White had, by a shrewd bit of finesse, “confiscated” a fine rope by which one of the bales was tied, and this he now presented to Colonel Rose. It was nearly a hundred feet long, an inch thick, and almost new.
It was hardly dark the following night before Rose and Hamilton were again in the kitchen, and as soon as all was quiet, Rose fastened his rope to one of the supporting posts, took up the floor plank as before, and both men descended to the middle cellar. They were not a little disappointed to discover that where there had been but one sentinel on the south side there were now two. On this and for several nights, they contented themselves with sly visits of observation to this cellar, during which Rose found and secreted various tools, among which were a broadax, a saw, two chisels, several files, and a carpenter’s square. One dark night both men went down and determined to try their luck at passing the guards. Rose made the attempt and succeeded in passing the first man but unluckily was seen by the second. The latter called lustily for the corporal of the guard, and the first excitedly cocked his gun and peered into the dark door through which Rose swiftly retreated. The guard called, “Who goes there?” but did not enter the dark cellar. Rose and Hamilton mounted the rope and had just succeeded in replacing the plank when the corporal and a file of men entered the cellar with a lantern. They looked into every barrel and under every bench, but no sign of Yankees appeared, and as on this night it happened that several workmen were sleeping in an apartment at the north end, the corporal concluded that the man seen by the sentinel was one of these, notwithstanding their denial when awakened and questioned. After a long parley, the Confederates withdrew, and Hamilton and Rose, depressed in spirits, went to bed, Rose as usual concealing his rope.
Before the week was out, they were at it again. On one of these nights, Rose suddenly came upon one of the workmen and, swift as thought, seized the hidden broadax with the intention of braining him if he attempted an alarm, but the poor fellow was too much paralyzed to cry out, and when finally he did recover his voice and his wits, it was to beg Rose “for God’s sake” not to come in there again at night. Evidently the man never mentioned the circumstance, for Rose’s subsequent visits, which were soon resumed, disclosed no evidence of a discovery by the Confederates.
Hamilton agreed with Rose that there remained apparently but one means of escape, and that was by force. To overpower the two sentinels on the south side would have been an easy matter, but how to do it and not alarm the rest of the guard and, in consequence, the whole city was the problem. To secure these sentinels without alarming their comrades on the east, west, and north sides of the prison would require the swift action of several men of nerve acting in concert. Precious time was passing, and possibly further alterations might be decided upon that would shut them off from the middle cellar, as they had already been from their original base of operations. Moreover, a new cause of anxiety now appeared. It soon transpired that their nocturnal prowlings and close conferences together had already aroused the belief among many observant prisoners that a plan of escape was afoot, and both men were soon eagerly plied with guarded inquiries and besought by their questioners to admit them to their confidence.
Hamilton and Rose now decided to organize an escaping party. A number of men were then sworn to secrecy and obedience by Colonel Rose, who was the only recognized leader in all operations that followed. This party soon numbered seventy men. The band was then taken down by Rose in convenient details to the middle cellar or carpenter’s shop on many nights to familiarize each man with the place and with his special part in the plot and also to take advantage of any favoring circumstances that might arise.
When all had by frequent visits become familiar with the rendezvous, Rose and the whole party descended one night with the determination to escape at whatever hazard. The men were assigned to their several stations as usual, and a selected few were placed by the leader close to the entrance, in front of which the sentinel was regularly passing. Rose commanded strict silence and placed himself near the exit preparatory to giving the signal. It was an exciting moment, and the bravest heart beat fast. A signal came but not the one they looked for. At the very moment of action, the man whom Rose had left at the floor opening in the kitchen gave the danger signal! The alert leader had, with consummate care, told every man beforehand that he must never be surprised by this signal—it was a thing to be counted upon—and that noise and panic were of all things to be avoided as fatal folly in their operations. As a consequence, when this signal came, Rose quietly directed the men to fall in line and reascend to the kitchen rapidly but without noise, which they did by the long rope which now formed the easy means of communication from the kitchen to the cellar.
Rose remained below to cover the retreat, and when the last man got up, he followed him, replaced the board in the floor, and concealed the rope. He had barely done so when a detail of Confederate guards entered the kitchen from the Carey Street door and, headed by an officer, marched straight in his direction. Meantime the party had disappeared up the stairway and swiftly made their way over their prostrate comrades’ forms to their proper sleeping places. Rose, being the last up and having the floor to fix, had now no time to disappear like his companions, at least without suspicious haste. He accordingly took a seat at one of the tables and, putting an old pipe in his mouth, coolly awaited the approach of the Confederates. The officer of the guard came along, swinging his lantern almost in his face, stared at him for a second, and without a remark or a halt marched past him and ascended with his escort to the Chickamauga room. The entrance of a guard and their march around the prison, although afterward common enough after taps, was then an unusual thing, causing much talk among the prisoners, and to the mind of Rose and his fellow plotters was indicative of aroused suspicion on the part of the Confederates.
The whispering groups of men next day and the number of his eager questioners gave the leader considerable concern, and Hamilton suggested, as a measure of safety rather than choice, that some of the mischievous talk of escape w
ould be suppressed by increasing the party. This was acted upon; the men, like the rest, were put under oath by Rose, and the party was thus increased to 420. This force would have been enough to overpower the prison guard in a few minutes, but the swift alarm certain to ensue in the streets and spread like wildfire over Richmond, the meager information possessed by the prisoners as to the strength and position of the nearest Federal troops, the strongly guarded labyrinth of breastworks that encircled the city, and the easy facilities for instant pursuit at the command of the Confederates put the success of such an undertaking clearly out of the range of probability, unless, indeed, some unusual favoring contingency should arise, such as the near approach of a cooperating column of Federal cavalry.
Nor was this an idle dream, as the country now knows, for even at this period General Kilpatrick was maturing his plans for that bold expedition for the rescue of the prisoners at Richmond and Belle Isle in which the lamented and heroic young cripple, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, lost his life. Rose saw that a breakout of Libby without such outside assistance promised nothing but a fruitless sacrifice of life and the savage punishment of the survivors. Hence the project, although eagerly and exhaustively discussed, was prudently abandoned.
All talk of escape by the general crowd now wholly ceased, and the captives resigned themselves to their fate and waited with depressed spirits for the remote contingency of an exchange. The quiet thus gained was Rose’s opportunity. He sought Hamilton and told him that they must by some stratagem regain access to Rat Hell and that the tunnel project must be at once revived. The latter assented to the proposition, and the two began earnestly to study the means of gaining an entrance without discovery into this coveted base of operations.
They could not even get into the room above the cellar they wanted to reach, for that was the hospital, and the kitchen’s heavy wall shut them off therefrom. Neither could they break the heavy wall that divided this cellar from the carpenter’s shop, which had been the nightly rendezvous of the party while the breakout was under consideration, for the breach certainly would be discovered by the workmen or Confederates, some of whom were in there constantly during daylight.
There was, in fact, but one plan by which Rat Hell could be reached without detection, and the conception of this device and its successful execution were due to the stout-hearted Hamilton. This was to cut a hole in the back of the kitchen fireplace; the incision must be just far enough to preserve the opposite or hospital side intact. It must then be cut downward to a point below the level of the hospital floor, then eastward into Rat Hell, the completed opening thus to describe the letter S. It must be wide enough to let a man through, yet the wall must not be broken on the hospital side above the floor nor marred on the carpenter’s shop side below it. Such a break would be fatal, for both of these points were conspicuously exposed to the view of the Confederates every hour in the day. Moreover, it was imperatively necessary that all trace of the beginning of the opening should be concealed, not only from the Confederate officials and guards, who were constantly passing the spot every day, but from the hundreds of uninitiated prisoners who crowded around the stove just in front of it from dawn till dark.
Work could be possible only between the hours of ten at night, when the room was generally abandoned by the prisoners because of its inundated condition, and four o’clock in the morning, when the earliest risers were again astir. It was necessary to do the work with an old jackknife and one of the chisels previously secured by Rose. It must be done in darkness and without noise, for a vigilant sentinel paced on the Carey Street sidewalk just outside the door and within ten feet of the fireplace. A rubber blanket was procured, and the soot from the chimney carefully swept into it. Hamilton, with his old knife, cut the mortar between the bricks and pried a dozen of them out, being careful to preserve them whole.
The rest of the incision was made in accordance with the design described, but no conception could have been formed beforehand of the sickening tediousness of cutting an S-shaped hole through a heavy wall with a feeble old jackknife in stolen hours of darkness. Rose guarded his comrade against the constant danger of interruption by alert enemies on one side and by blundering friends on the other, and as frequently happens in human affairs, their friends gave them more trouble than their foes. Night after night passed, and still the two men got up after taps from their hard beds and descended to the dismal and reeking kitchen to bore for liberty. When the sentinel’s call at Castle Thunder and at Libby announced four o’clock, the dislodged bricks were carefully replaced, and the soot previously gathered in the gum blanket was flung in handfuls against the restored wall, filling the seams between the bricks so thoroughly as to defy detection. At last, after many weary nights, Hamilton’s heroic patience and skill were rewarded, and the way was open to the coveted base of operations, Rat Hell.
Now occurred a circumstance that almost revealed the plot and nearly ended in a tragedy. When the opening was finished, the long rope was made fast to one of the kitchen supporting posts, and Rose proceeded to descend and reconnoiter. He got partly through with ease but lost his hold in such a manner that his body slipped through so as to pinion his arms and leave him wholly powerless either to drop lower or return—the bend of the hole being such as to cramp his back and neck terribly and prevent him from breathing. He strove desperately, but each effort only wedged him more firmly in the awful vise. Hamilton sprang to his aid and did his utmost to effect his release, but powerful as he was, he could not budge him. Rose was gasping for breath and rapidly getting fainter, but even in this fearful strait, he refrained from an outcry that would certainly alarm the guards just outside the door. Hamilton saw that without speedy relief his comrade must soon smother. He dashed through the long, dark room up the stairway, over the forms of several hundred men, and disregarding consequences and savage curses in the dark and crowded room, he trampled upon arms, legs, faces, and stomachs, leaving riot and blasphemy in his track among the rudely awakened and now furious lodgers of the Chickamauga room. He sought the sleeping place of Major George H. Fitzsimmons, but he was missing. He, however, found Lieutenant F. F. Bennett of the 18th Regulars (since a major in the 9th United States Cavalry), to whom he told the trouble in a few hasty words. Both men fairly flew across the room, dashed down the stairs, and by their united efforts Rose, half-dead and quite speechless, was drawn up from the fearful trap.
Hamilton managed slightly to increase the size of the hole and provide against a repetition of the accident just narrated, and all being now ready, the two men entered eagerly upon the work before them. They appropriated one of the wooden spittoons of the prison and to each side attached a piece of clothesline, which they had been permitted to have to dry clothes on. Several bits of candle and the larger of the two chisels were also taken to the operating cellar. They kept this secret well and worked alone for many nights. In fact, they would have so continued, but they found that, after digging about four feet, their candle would go out in the vitiated air. Rose did the digging, and Hamilton fanned air into him with his hat; even then he had to emerge into the cellar every few minutes to breathe. Rose could dig but needed the light and air, and Hamilton could not fan and drag out and deposit the excavated earth and meantime keep a lookout. In fact, it was demonstrated that there was slim chance of succeeding without more assistance, and it was decided to organize a party large enough for effective work by reliefs. As a preliminary step and to afford the means of more rapid communication with the cellar from the fireplace opening, the long rope obtained from Colonel White was formed by Hamilton into a rope ladder with convenient wooden rungs. This alteration considerably increased its bulk and added to Rose’s difficulty in concealing it from curious eyes.
He now made a careful selection of thirteen men besides himself and Hamilton and bound them by a solemn oath to secrecy and strict obedience. To form this party as he wanted it required some diplomacy, as it was known that the Confederates had on more than on
e occasion sent cunning spies into Libby disguised as Union prisoners for the detection of any contemplated plan of escape. Unfortunately, the complete list of the names of the party now formed has not been preserved, but among the party, besides Rose and Hamilton, were Captain John Sterling, 30th Indiana; Captain John Lucas, 5th Kentucky Cavalry; Captain Isaac N. Johnson, 6th Kentucky Cavalry; and Lieutenant F. F. Bennett, 18th Regulars.
The party being now formed were taken to Rat Hell and their several duties explained to them by Rose, who was invested with full authority over the work in hand. Work was begun in rear of the little kitchen room previously abandoned at the southeast corner of the cellar. To systematize the labor, the party was divided into squads of five each, which gave the men one night on duty and two off, Rose assigning each man to the branch of work in which experiments proved him the most proficient. He was himself, by long odds, the best digger of the party, while Hamilton had no equal for ingenious mechanical skill in contriving helpful, little devices to overcome or lessen the difficulties that beset almost every step of the party’s progress.
The first plan was to dig down alongside the east wall and under it until it was passed, then turn southward and make for the large street sewer next the canal and into which Rose had before noticed workmen descending. This sewer was a large one, believed to be fully six feet high, and if it could be gained, there could be little doubt that an adjacent opening to the canal would be found to the eastward. It was very soon revealed, however, that the lower side of Libby was built upon ponderous timbers, below which they could not hope to penetrate with their meager stock of tools—such, at least, was the opinion of nearly all the party. Rose nevertheless determined that the effort should be made, and they were soon at work with old penknives and case knives hacked into saws. After infinite labor they at length cut through the great logs, only to be met by an unforeseen and still more formidable barrier. Their tunnel, in fact, had penetrated below the level of the canal. Water began to filter in—feebly at first, but at last it broke in with a rush that came near drowning Rose, who barely had time to make his escape. This opening was therefore plugged up, and to do this rapidly and leave no dangerous traces put the party to their wit’s end.