ESCAPE OF ONE HUNDRED AND NINE COMMISSIONED YANKEE OFFICERS FROM THE LIBBY
PRISON - A SCIENTIFIC TUNNEL - THEIR UNDERGROUND ROUTE TO LIBERTY.
– One of those extraordinary escapades of prisoners of war which have
been very frequent on both sides, occurred at the Libby Prison between the hours
of darkness on Tuesday evening and daylight yesterday morning. The discovery was
first made at the daily morning count, when the number of the prisoners fell
alarmingly short. The roll was then resorted to, as it always is when the count
does not correspond with the number booked. The calling of the roll consumed
nearly four hours and out of the one thousand and fifty odd officers confined in
the prison the day previous, one hundred and nine were found to be missing. At
first it was suspicioned that the night sentinels had been bribed, and connived
at the escape; and this suspicion received some credence from the statements of
the Yankee officers, who said the guards had passed them out by their posts. The
officer of the guard, and the sentinels on duty the night previous were
accordingly placed under arrest by Major Turner, and after being searched for
money or other evidences of their criminality, confined in Castle Thunder in
order that further developments might either establish their innocence or fix
their guilt upon them. In the meantime Lieutenant La Touche and Major Turner
made a thorough inspection of the basement of the prison, which slopes downward
from Cary street towards the river dock. This basement is very spacious and
dark, and rarely opened except to receive commissary stores. A stairway leading
down from the first floor, has long ago been boarded over and there was no
communication from above. The wall masonry of the basement, near the front of
the building, commences at least ten feet below the level of Cary street. At the
base of the east wall, and about twenty feet from the Cary street front, was
discovered a tunnel, the entrance to which was hidden by a large rock, which
fitted the aperture exactly. This stone, rolled away from the mouth of the
sepulchre, revealed an avenue, which it was at once conjectured led to the outer
world beyond. A small negro boy was sent into the tunnel on a tour of
exploration, and by the time Major Turner and Lieutenant La Touche gained the
outside of the building, a shout from the negro announced his arrival at the
terminus if the subterranean route. Its passage lay directly beneath the tread
of three sentinels, who walked the breadth of the east end of the prison, across
a paved alley way, a distance of more than fifty feet, breaking up inside of the
enclosure in the rear of Carr’s warehouse. So nicely was the distance gauged,
that the inside of the inclosure was struck precisely, which hints strongly of
outside measurement and assistance. Through connection once opened, the
prisoners were enabled to worm themselves through the tunnel, on by one, and
emerging at least sixty feet distant from any sentinel post, to betake
themselves off, singly, through an arched gateway, to some appointed rendezvous.
To reach the entrance of the tunnel it was necessary for the prisoners to cut
through the hospital room and the closed stairway leading into the basement. All
the labour must have been performed at night, and all traces of the work
accomplished at night was closed up or cleared away before the morning light.
The tunnel itself is a work of several months, being about three feet in
diameter and at least sixty feet in length, with carvatures worked around rock.
Upon the testimony afforded by the revelation of the tunnel, the imprisoned
guards were at once released and restored to duty, the manner of the escape
being too evident.
The following is a list of the principal officers who escaped, and their
rank. Among them we regret to have to class the notorious Straight.
Colonels: J.F. Boyd, Twentieth army crops; W.G. Ely, Eighteenth Connecticut;
H.C. Hobart, Twenty-first Wisconsin; W.P. Kendrick, Third West Tennessee
cavalry; W.B. McCreary, Twenty-first Michigan; Thomas E. Rose, Seventy-seventh
Pennsylvania; J.P. Spofford, Ninety-seventh New York; C.W. Tilden, Sixteenth
Maine; T. S. West, Twenty-fourth Wisconsin; A.D. Straight, Fifty-first Indiana;
D. Miles, Seventy-ninth Pennsylvania.
Majors: J.P. Collins, Twenty-ninth Indiana; G.W. Fitzsimmons, Thirtieth
Indiana; J.H. Hooper, Fifteenth Massachusetts; B.B. MacDonald, One Hundredth
Ohio; A Von Witzel, Seventy-fourth Pennsylvania; J.N. Walker, seventy-third
Indiana; J. Henry, Fifth Ohio. There were besides, thirty-two captains and
fifty-nine lieutenants, making one hundred and nine in all, who gained their
liberty without the preliminaries of parole or exchange. Of this number four
only had been returned to the prison up to last evening, re-captured. These were
two captains and two lieutenants. Two were overtaken near Hanover Court House,
and the others, about twenty miles below Richmond, on the Williamsburg route.
Couriers were early dispatched in every direction, and the pickets double
posted on all the roads and bridges. It is quite evident that the escaping
prisoners have scattered and are travelling singly or in pairs, or are laying up
in the houses, or hiding-places, provided for by the disloyal element to be
found in and about Richmond. Doubtless many will be re-captured, but we fear too
many will escape for the credit of the Confederacy. We believe the largest
number of them are yet in Richmond, and will seek to steal off one by one in
various guises other than that of the Yankee. It is fortunate that the leak was
discovered when it was, or the exodus would have been continued last night, and
night after night, until there would have been no Yankees to guard.
Brigadier General Neal Dow did not attempt the passage of the tunnel, for the
reason that he was afraid his strength would fail him in his flight to the
embrace of Butler the Beast.