by Paul Simpson
Day was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery and on 14 March 1997, the Air Force named its new Survival School building at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State, the “Colonel George ‘Bud’ Day Building” in honour of his escape.
Sources:
Siouxland Lifestyle magazine, Winter 2005: “Col. George ‘Bud’ Day, Siouxland’s Hometown Hero”
US Air Force official website: “Maj. George ‘Bud’ Day”
Airforce magazine, February 1984: “Valor: The Long Road to Freedom”
Vietnam magazine, June 2007: “Bud Day: Vietnam War POW Hero”
Airforce magazine, December 2005: “The Strength of Bud Day”
PART VI: TUNNELLING FOR FREEDOM
Like Rats From a Trap
The American Civil War, which raged between 1861 and 1865 following the secession of seven states from the union to form the Confederate States of America, led to the creation of thousands of prisoners of war. Many of these were housed in dreadful conditions, and officers saw it as their duty to get back to their armies if at all possible.
One of the biggest escapes of the Civil War, and indeed from an American jail in the nineteenth century, came from the Confederate-run Libby Prison (sometimes referred to as Libey in contemporary news reports), in Richmond, Virginia. A former ship-supply shop and warehouse had been taken over at the start of the war – the owner was given forty-eight hours to pack up and leave – and hundreds of Union prisoners, as well as Confederate deserters, were stashed there. If they looked out of the windows, they risked being shot: Confederate guards would treat a head as a legitimate target, and there were numerous instances of Union soldiers being shot when they were doing nothing more than sitting reading the newspaper.
The prison occupied an entire city block, with Carey Street running along the north side of the prison, and sloped down to the south where a canal and then the James River flowed. The jail was on three floors, each divided into three rooms, with cellars beneath each of the rooms on the ground floor. Prisoners were kept on the upper two storeys, one of the rooms on the ground floor was used as a dining room, and an area in the cellar beneath the hospital was initially used as a kitchen during the day before an infestation of rats forced its closure. The ground floor also housed the commandant’s office and a hospital. The middle cellar was used as a carpenter’s shop – because the prison was built on a hill, there was access to it from the street to the south side. The Confederates cut doors between the rooms on the upper levels, allowing the inmates to mingle freely, but the rooms on the ground floor, as well as the cellars, were kept as separate units. To the east of the prison was a vacant lot between two buildings, about seventy feet away from the jail walls.
Although 109 men escaped from Libby on the night of 8 February 1864, they were by no means the first to do so. As early as 23 October 1862, Confederate deserters who were being held in the prison hospital, took what the Richmond Dispatch referred to as “French leave” – in other words, they escaped. A month later, four deserters got up to the roof, and then let themselves down to the ground using a rope made from blankets. The guards that they passed during their escape were sent for court martial. Another escaper, James Simmon, was returned to Libby in December after being arrested for drunkenly drawing a knife. Nine black slaves ran off at some point during the morning of 16 February – they were only counted twice a day, so had plenty of time to make a clean getaway. And so it went on, as hundreds of Yankee prisoners were brought through the doors, some to be exchanged for Confederate POWs, others to remain within the walls.
One of those brought to Libby following the battle of Chickamauga on 20 September 1863 was Colonel Thomas E. Rose. He had already proved that he wasn’t going to submit to prison easily: on the journey to Richmond, he escaped from his guards in North Carolina but was recaptured after a day wandering around the woods. Arriving at Libby, he took stock of his surroundings and noticed that rats exited from the prison into the river when the tide was high, and that there was a sewer running beneath the street immediately between the prison and the canal. Chatting with another prisoner, Major Hamilton, Rose deduced that the best means of escape would be by a tunnel to go from the easternmost cellar down to the sewers. From there they could reach the canal, and thus to safety.
There were only two snags immediately apparent. The easternmost cellar was the one that had been abandoned because of the large colony of rats that lived there, lending it the nickname Rat Hell. And there was no easy way of getting to it. The only room on the ground floor to which they could get access was the dining room, which was in the middle.
Before they could even begin digging a tunnel, they needed to find a way into Rat Hell, and Hamilton devised the solution. They would need to cut a hole in the back of the dining-room fireplace, without breaking through the wall into the hospital room, or disturbing the ceiling of the carpenters’ cellar beneath, both of which were visible to Confederate guards throughout the day. They then had to cut a way down the portioning wall so that when they did break through, they were in the rat cellar – creating an inverted S shape. The gap had to be wide enough to allow a man to get through, but small enough that its entrance could easily be hidden from guards, or, indeed, other prisoners who crowded round a stove in front of the fire from dawn until dark.
For days, between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., Hamilton worked using only an old jack-knife and a chisel to remove the mortar from between the bricks, hiding the dust in an old rubber blanket, which he then removed and began digging at the wall behind to create the tunnel. Promptly at 4 a.m., Hamilton and Rose would replace the bricks, and throw soot at the area to hide their handiwork.
When the S-bend was complete, Rose volunteered to test it out, and nearly ruined the whole enterprise. He lost his grip on the rope which they had tied to a support in the dining room and fed down through the hole, and pinioned his arms by his side. The shape of the tunnel meant that he couldn’t move either up or down, and the more he struggled, the more tightly wedged he became. As Rose began to asphyxiate, Hamilton raced to the upper levels for help, and with only seconds to spare, was able to pull Rose free. Hamilton widened the tunnel.
Once it was able to accommodate the two men, they slid their way down the rope to Rat Hell, and began to dig the proper tunnel, in what remained of the kitchen area in the south-east corner of the room. Rose was the tunneller, with Hamilton fanning air down into the hole, as well as dragging out the dirt, and concealing it in the rats’ straw. However, they quickly realized that they would not be able to succeed on their own, and made a careful choice of thirteen other men to assist. To help get in and out of the cellar, they created a proper rope ladder with wooden rungs that could be pulled back up and concealed – with some difficulty – after each night’s work.
The men worked in shifts, one night on duty, two off. They initially planned to dig down alongside the east wall, go beneath it, and then turn south, and head for the large street sewer next to the canal that Rose had previously seen workmen entering. From these observations, Rose had guessed that the sewer should be six feet high, and they should hopefully be able to get to the canal without a problem.
That’s when they hit the next snag. Although Rose encouraged them to use their very basic tools to cut through the large timbers that had been used to support the prison on the south side, when they got through these, they realized that they had gone beneath the level of the canal. The danger of this was brought home to them when water began to seep in – slowly, at first, but then suddenly it broke through the tunnel roof, nearly drowning Rose. That branch of the tunnel was quickly blocked up.
The next attempt similarly caused a cave-in, with equally potentially hazardous results. Tunnelling towards a small sewer led to a breach in the pavement outside the prison wall, and the Yankee officers saw their captors looking at it suspiciously. However, when the word “rats” was repeatedly heard, Rose was relieved, although he deliberately took the next duty shift on his own, in
case they had been rumbled; if that happened, he would be the only one held accountable. No one arrived to arrest him, so the work continued.
Another sewer was tried, but this was too small for a man to get into unless they removed the wooden planks. This the team did, although by now they were becoming very disenchanted with their lack of progress. By 25 January 1864, they believed, however, that they were about to break through to the main sewer, and everyone bar the two men on duty anxiously waited for the diggers’ return the next morning. To the consternation of their colleagues, the pair reported that the final barrier to the main sewer was made of seasoned oak. The tools they had been using were worn out; it was becoming harder to keep any sort of light blazing to work by. They were ready to quit, despite having spent thirty-nine nights working. (They may also have been discouraged by the ease with which First New Jersey Cavalry soldier John Bray had simply walked out of the prison on the morning of Sunday 10 January, disguised in a Confederate Army coat he had bought from a rather dim-witted guard.)
Rose and Hamilton understood their frustration and disbanded the group. That didn’t stop either man, who decided to start a new tunnel, this time in the north-east corner of Rat Hell, going east. This had the advantage that they were digging through clay, and not heading towards water, but the disadvantage that they would have to reach a shed adjoining the vacant lot, which was easily visible to the guards patrolling the south side of the prison. Rose watched the nearest guard’s movements, and realized that they would have a few moments’ grace while his back was turned patrolling westwards. Additionally, unless it was obvious to him that he was looking at escaping prisoners, he was unlikely to challenge anyone in the streets of Richmond.
After three tries to find a suitable place to begin their new tunnel, Rose and Hamilton began work afresh, and were able to persuade some of their former helpers to return. It was hard work getting through the very densely compacted sand that had been placed around the prison walls when the building was erected, but by sheer hard work, they were able to create a tunnel that was two feet wide in diameter, and around two feet high, set about six inches above the level of the cellar floor. Without any tools, they couldn’t be sure that they were keeping the tunnel totally horizontal, but they did their best.
Teams of five carried out the tunnelling, working day and night now: one digging at the clayface, putting the dirt into a spittoon, which was taken by a second man and hidden in the straw; a third man fanned air into the tunnel using one of Hamilton’s inventions: a rubber blanket stretched across a wooden frame; a fourth man deputized for the second and third men when needed, while a fifth man kept a look out, since the Confederate guards were ordered to check every part of the building regularly. If they were about to come through the south door, the lookout would give a warning, and the three men above ground would hide in the straw, nestling alongside the rats, while the digger stayed within the tunnel. The guards weren’t keen on entering Rat Hell, and tended to stay down the south end, far away from the tunnelling work.
Although strict silence was maintained, Rose made sure that each man knew how much their efforts were assisting with the general escape, and it helped that progress was very clear each day. One evening, one of the diggers became overconfident, and started to dig up to the surface, convinced that they had reached their target. Instead, as he very rapidly realized when he glanced around him, he was still in the open lot, and thought he was clearly visible to a guard, if he happened to look in that direction. One of the other members of the team went to get Rose, who hurried down the tunnel to check, but realized that the situation wasn’t as bad as the digger had feared: although anyone exiting there would be clearly seen, the hole itself wasn’t an immediate threat. He stuffed his shirt into the hole, and covered it with dirt. (The mistake did come in handy though – the next day Rose put a shoe through the hole, and when he looked down at the lot from the prison, he saw that the tunnel had slightly deviated from its course, and got the diggers moving slightly to the left.)
Sixteen days of digging later, on Saturday 6 February 1864, it looked as if everything was lost. A party of Confederate soldiers made a detailed inspection of the cellar, although they didn’t spot the tunnel entrance. Captain Johnson was the only tunneller there at the time; he had missed roll call on a number of occasions, claiming he was only “devilling the clerk” (when he was actually digging beneath the surface), but eventually he was forced to remain in Rat Hell twenty-four hours a day since his reappearance would have led to questions no one would want to answer. That night, he briefed Rose on their activities, and it caused general dismay amongst the escape party. Rose knew they were so near to success, and, once again, wasn’t willing to give up so close to their goal.
From that moment on until the tunnel was complete, Rose himself was the digger, working solidly through Sunday 7th and achieving twice as much in one day as the full teams had managed on their own. He slept Sunday night, and then on the Monday morning started up again. At midnight he reached a post, which he guessed marked the far side of the vacant lot, so he began digging upwards. As he broke through the surface, he heard the watch call out 1.30 a.m. He was free.
After taking a few moments to breathe in the fresh air, he took a walk around the prison exterior, avoiding the guards both there, and at the Pemberton Buildings, another military prison close by. He then re-entered the tunnel, pulled a piece of wood over the top of the entrance to hide it from prying eyes, and made his way back to Rat Hell, arriving back there around three o’clock. He and Hamilton wanted to make their getaway immediately, but the others wanted to wait, so that they’d have a full night to make a clean break, rather than just the few hours before dawn. Reluctantly the officers agreed, and a schedule for exiting was arranged: each digger could bring another man with him, and there would be an hour’s gap between parties. If the tunnel wasn’t discovered, then the same thing could happen on a second and third night.
It was a great idea in theory. In practice, the following night, when the breakout began, chaos ensued, as word spread around the prison about the tunnel. Instead of a dozen or so men every hour, there was a constant stream of prisoners trying to get through, which quickly turned into a stampede. A false alarm suggesting guards were coming led to panic, with men trampled underfoot as they tried to return to their rooms, but still 109 men, starting with Rose and Hamilton, were able to get through the tunnel that night. The fireplace was put back in position to hide the tunnel down to Rat Hell, and the last man through had put the plank of wood back over the exit in the shed.
As far as the authorities were concerned, the disappearance of over a hundred soldiers was like a miracle. The roll call on Wednesday morning took four hours to complete, since the guards simply could not believe the disparity in numbers. The guards who had been on duty the previous night were immediately accused of complicity in the escape, since there seemed no other way that the Yankees could have achieved it, until two of the prison officers made a thorough inspection of the basement.
When they found the tunnel, they sent a young slave boy down through it, and joined him at the exit on the far side of the vacant lot. Rose’s calculations had been so exact that the prison guards were convinced the diggers must have had outside help to reach the precise spot they needed. The guards who had been locked up suspected of conspiracy were immediately released, “the manner of the escape being too evident”, as the Daily Richmond Examiner explained.
Four of the officers were recaptured, even before the escape had been discovered, some miles from Richmond. The fugitives had all taken separate routes as quickly as possible to minimize the chance of too many of them being caught. Four more were caught during Wednesday, fourteen further on Thursday. One soldier was caught by a freed slave, who asked where he was going. When told “nowhere”, the man marched the soldier to the authorities “with courage and patriotism worthy of immortality”, according to the Enquirer. Three fugitives gave themselves up after they went the wr
ong way on the river, and ended up nearly frozen. By Friday, thirty-four had been recaptured, although one, at least, had bluffed his way past a checkpoint.
By the end of the weekend, the total of recaptured Yankees had reached forty-eight, including Colonel Rose, who had had the misfortune to run into a group of Confederate soldiers who had disguised themselves in the enemy uniforms. When he realized his mistake, he tried to bluff his way out, but without success, and then, a few hours later, attempted to make a break for it, despite having a broken foot. He was apprehended by another patrol and returned to Libby. Quite a few of the prisoners were found still in Richmond, one of them caught by a newspaper boy as he tried to swap his Union Army jacket for a slave’s greatcoat. Some of them were unable to stop themselves from trying to attack Confederate soldiers they saw, and paid the price with their liberty.
Although most official sources today claim that only forty-eight were recaptured, with two drowned, contemporary newspaper reports note that fifty-eight had been returned by 20 February, and twenty-one were known to have reached safety in Fort Monroe or Williamsburg, including Major Hamilton. One of the remaining thirty was found on 21 February, meaning fifty in total succeeded in reaching their goal.
Those who returned to Libby were thrown into what one writer described as “a narrow and loathsome cell” and found a regime that had been unavoidably affected by the prison break. An alarm was raised when one guard thought he saw something – which turned out to be his own shadow. In the end, many of the key prisoners were exchanged: Colonel Rose was repatriated on 30 April 1864 and fought with conspicuous gallantry to the close of the Civil War.