The soldier's story of his captivity at Andersonville, Belle Isle, and other Rebel prisons . sand tin quart measures, such as every soldier carrieewith him to cook his coffee in. By means of our rope,one by one, on a dark, rainy night, we got into the welland swung into the tunnel, one ahead of the other, onour hands and knees, as if to play leap-frog. We thencommenced to open the tunnel, which was rather a del-icate job. We were about six feet from the surfaceof the ground, and digging up into the open air atthe further extremity of the tunnel was termed open-ing the tunnel. This had to be pe
The soldier's story of his captivity at Andersonville, Belle Isle, and other Rebel prisons . sand tin quart measures, such as every soldier carrieewith him to cook his coffee in. By means of our rope,one by one, on a dark, rainy night, we got into the welland swung into the tunnel, one ahead of the other, onour hands and knees, as if to play leap-frog. We thencommenced to open the tunnel, which was rather a del-icate job. We were about six feet from the surfaceof the ground, and digging up into the open air atthe further extremity of the tunnel was termed open-ing the tunnel. This had to be performed with greatcare, first, for fear of being discovered, and second,there was danger of being smothered by the fallingearth. I had heard of one case where a tunnel wasopened in the middle of a picket fire; but it was toldthat the tunnellers, nothing daunted, sprang out throughthe fire; the guard, believing their patron, the devil,had come to visit his Confederacy, ran away, leaving theprisoners to escape. We were not ambitious to passthrough the fire in any such way, and were anxious. ESCAPE AGAIN-. 123 only to be let alone. We opened our tunnel afteftwo hours or more of careful labor; and I, by virtueof having commenced the tunnel, had the privilege of(Sticking my head into the outer air first, and was notmuch pleased to see, sitting crouching in the rain, not adozen paces from our opening, an outer picket guard,at a large fire. Had he not been so intent on keepingcomfortable, he must have seen us, as we, one by one,crawled stealthily into the thicket near at hand. Unce,when a twig broke, he made a motion to look up, andI thought we were gone up; but he merely stirredhis fire, and resumed again his crouching position. Asthe last man came out, and, at a safe distance, we stoodin whispered consultation, the hourly cry of the guard,Twelve oclock, and all is well, went round thestockade. We separated into parties of five, each to goin different directions, and, silently graspi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectandersonvilleprison
