LONGINGS FOR GOD'S COUNTRY--CONSIDERATIONS OF THE METHODS OF GETTING THERE--EXCHANGE AND ESCAPE--DIGGING TUNNELS, AND THE DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED THEREWITH--PUNISHMENT OF A TRAITOR.
To our minds the world now contained but two grand divisions, as widely different from each other as happiness and misery. The first--that portion over which our flag floated was usually spoken of as "God's Country;" the other--that under the baneful shadow of the banner of rebellion--was designated by the most opprobrious epithets at the speaker's command.
To get from the latter to the former was to attain, at one bound, the highest good. Better to be a doorkeeper in the House of the Lord, under the Stars and Stripes, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness, under the hateful Southern Cross.
To take even the humblest and hardest of service in the field now would be a delightsome change. We did not ask to go home--we would be content with anything, so long as it was in that blest place "within our lines." Only let us get back once, and there would be no more grumbling at rations or guard duty--we would willingly endure all the hardships and privations that soldier flesh is heir to.
There were two ways of getting back--escape and exchange. Exchange was like the ever receding mirage of the desert, that lures the thirsty traveler on over the parched sands, with illusions of refreshing springs, only to leave his bones at last to whiten by the side of those of his unremembered predecessors. Every day there came something to build up the hopes that exchange was near at hand--every day brought something to extinguish the hopes of the preceding one. We took these varying phases according to our several temperaments. The sanguine built themselves up on the encouraging reports; the desponding sank down and died under the discouraging ones.
Escape was a perpetual allurement. To the actively inclined among us it seemed always possible, and daring, busy brains were indefatigable in concocting schemes for it. The only bit of Rebel brain work that I ever saw for which I did not feel contempt was the perfect precautions taken to prevent our escape. This is shown by the fact that, although, from first to last, there were nearly fifty thousand prisoners in Andersonville, and three out of every five of these were ever on the alert to take French leave of their captors, only three hundred and twenty-eight succeeded in getting so far away from Andersonville as to leave it to be presumed that they had reached our lines.
The first, and almost superhuman difficulty was to get outside the Stockade. It was simply impossible to scale it. The guards were too close together to allow an instant's hope to the most sanguine, that he could even pass the Dead Line without being shot by some one of them. This same closeness prevented any hope of bribing them. To be successful half those on post would have to be bribed, as every part of the Stockade was clearly visible from every other part, and there was no night so dark as not to allow a plain view to a number of guards of the dark figure outlined against the light colored logs of any Yankee who should essay to clamber towards the top of the palisades.
The gates were so carefully guarded every time they were opened as to preclude hope of slipping out through theme. They were only unclosed twice or thrice a day--once to admit, the men to call the roll, once to let them out again, once to let the wagons come in with rations, and once, perhaps, to admit, new prisoners. At all these times every precaution was taken to prevent any one getting out surreptitiously.
This narrowed down the possibilities of passing the limits of the pen
alive, to tunneling. This was also surrounded by almost insuperable
difficulties. First, it required not less than fifty feet of subterranean
excavation to get out, which was an enormous work with our limited means.
Then the logs forming the Stockade were set in the ground to a depth of
five feet, and the tunnel had to go down beneath them. They had an
unpleasant habit of dropping down into the burrow under them. It added
much to the discouragements of tunneling to think of one of these massive
timbers dropping upon a fellow as he worked his mole-like way under it,
and either crushing him to death outright, or pinning him there to die of
suffocation or hunger.
In one instance, in a tunnel near me, but in which I was not interested, the log slipped down after the digger had got out beyond it. He immediately began digging for the surface, for life, and was fortunately able to break through before he suffocated. He got his head above the ground, and then fainted. The guard outside saw him, pulled him out of the hole, and when he recovered sensibility hurried him back into the Stockade.
In another tunnel, also near us, a broad-shouldered German, of the Second Minnesota, went in to take his turn at digging. He was so much larger than any of his predecessors that he stuck fast in a narrow part, and despite all the efforts of himself and comrades, it was found impossible to move him one way or the other. The comrades were at last reduced to the humiliation of informing the Officer of the Guard of their tunnel and the condition of their friend, and of asking assistance to release him, which was given.
The great tunneling tool was the indispensable half-canteen. The inventive genius of our people, stimulated by the war, produced nothing for the comfort and effectiveness of the soldier equal in usefulness to this humble and unrecognized utensil. It will be remembered that a canteen was composed of two pieces of tin struck up into the shape of saucers, and soldered together at the edges. After a soldier had been in the field a little while, and thrown away or lost the curious and complicated kitchen furniture he started out with, he found that by melting the halves of his canteen apart, he had a vessel much handier in every way than any he had parted with. It could be used for anything --to make soup or coffee in, bake bread, brown coffee, stew vegetables, etc., etc. A sufficient handle was made with a split stick. When the cooking was done, the handle was thrown away, and the half canteen slipped out of the road into the haversack. There seemed to be no end of the uses to which this ever-ready disk of blackened sheet iron could be turned. Several instances are on record where infantry regiments, with no other tools than this, covered themselves on the field with quite respectable rifle pits.
The starting point of a tunnel was always some tent close to the Dead
Line, and sufficiently well closed to screen the operations from the sight
of the guards near by. The party engaged in the work organized by giving
every man a number to secure the proper apportionment of the labor. Number
One began digging with his half canteen. After he had worked until tired,
he came out, and Number Two took his place, and so on. The tunnel was
simply a round, rat-like burrow, a little larger than a man's body. The
digger lay on his stomach, dug ahead of him, threw the dirt under him, and
worked it back with his feet till the man behind him, also lying on his
stomach, could catch it and work it back to the next. As the tunnel
lengthened the number of men behind each other in this way had to be
increased, so that in a tunnel seventy-five feet long there would be from
eight to ten men lying one behind the other. When the dirt was pushed back
to the mouth of the tunnel it was taken up in improvised bags, made by
tying up the bottoms of pantaloon legs, carried to the Swamp, and emptied.
The work in the tunnel was very exhausting, and the digger had to be
relieved every half-hour.
The greatest trouble was to carry the tunnel forward in a straight line. As nearly everybody dug most of the time with the right hand, there was an almost irresistible tendency to make the course veer to the left. The first tunnel I was connected with was a ludicrous illustration of this. About twenty of us had devoted our nights for over a week to the prolongation of a burrow. We had not yet reached the Stockade, which astonished us, as measurement with a string showed that we had gone nearly twice the distance necessary for the purpose. The thing was inexplicable, and we ceased operations to consider the matter. The next day a man walking by a tent some little distance from the one in which the hole began, was badly startled by the ground giving way under his feet, and his sinking nearly to his waist in a hole. It was very singular, but after wondering over the matter for some hours, there came a glimmer of suspicion that it might be, in some way, connected with the missing end of our tunnel. One of us started through on an exploring expedition, and confirmed the suspicions by coming out where the man had broken through. Our tunnel was shaped like a horse shoe, and the beginning and end were not fifteen feet apart. After that we practised digging with our left hand, and made certain compensations for the tendency to the sinister side.
Another trouble connected with tunneling was the number of traitors and spies among us. There were many--principally among the N'Yaarker crowd who were always zealous to betray a tunnel, in order to curry favor with the Rebel officers. Then, again, the Rebels had numbers of their own men in the pen at night, as spies. It was hardly even necessary to dress these in our uniform, because a great many of our own men came into the prison in Rebel clothes, having been compelled to trade garments with their captors.
One day in May, quite an excitement was raised by the detection of one of these "tunnel traitors" in such a way as left no doubt of his guilt. At first everybody was in favor of killing him, and they actually started to beat him to death. This was arrested by a proposition to "have Captain Jack tattoo him," and the suggestion was immediately acted upon.
"Captain Jack" was a sailor who had been with us in the Pemberton building at Richmond. He was a very skilful tattoo artist, but, I am sure, could make the process nastier than any other that I ever saw attempt it. He chewed tobacco enormously. After pricking away for a few minutes at the design on the arm or some portion of the body, he would deluge it with a flood of tobacco spit, which, he claimed, acted as a kind of mordant. Piping this off with a filthy rag, he would study the effect for an instant, and then go ahead with another series of prickings and tobacco juice drenchings.
The tunnel-traitor was taken to Captain Jack. That worthy decided to brand
him with a great "T," the top part to extend across his forehead and the
stem to run down his nose. Captain Jack got his tattooing kit ready, and
the fellow was thrown upon the ground and held there. The Captain took his
head between his legs, and began operations. After an instant's work with
the needles, he opened his mouth, and filled the wretch's face and eyes
full of the disgusting saliva. The crowd round about yelled with delight
at this new process. For an hour, that was doubtless an eternity to the
rascal undergoing branding, Captain Jack continued his alternate pickings
and drenchings. At the end of that time the traitor's face was disfigured
with a hideous mark that he would bear to his grave. We learned afterwards
that he was not one of our men, but a Rebel spy. This added much to our
satisfaction with the manner of his treatment. He disappeared shortly
after the operation was finished, being, I suppose, taken outside. I
hardly think Captain Jack would be pleased to meet him again.
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