Feature Article
Libby And How We Got Out Of It
(submitted by SDCWRT member
Curtis Dryer – family papers )
BY
ALBERT WILLIAM BACHELER
Part II
Libby Prison, Richmond VA
It would be quite unlikely that men in circumstances like these should fail to discuss, in subdued tones but ever deepening interest, the chances of escape and the means for accomplishing it. One of the men captured with me was Ben Thompson, a native of Wolfeborough, NH. He was one of the best specimens of the traditional Yankee, —shrewd as a lawyer, keen at trade as a Jew, full of resources, and plucky. He lacked all reverence for dignity or rank, and would always succeed in worming his way into the confidence of officers with appearing intrusive.
The following story told at Ben’s expense, just before our capture, illustrates his character better than any words of mine. Ben had been detailed for picket duty one day, and scenting a chance to turn a honest shekel, he filled his haversack with commissary coffee, and watching his opportunity traded it off during the day with the “Johnnies” for tobacco and papers. Next day Ben was sick, “unfit for service”, so the surgeon said, and was missing from sight for some hours. Everybody supposed he was asleep in his tent. Nothing of the sort. With his surgeon’s release from duty in his pocket, and his haversack on his shoulder, Ben struck for the James, hired a darkly to row him across in his dugout, and turned up late in the forenoon at Dutch Gap canal, then two thirds dug across the narrow tongue of land where Butler was cutting off a seven mile reach of the river. For two hours Ben drove a thriving trade, and found the troops at work in the canal, hungry for both news and weed. He was nearly done with this traffic, and had begun to congratulate himself on the generous pile of greenbacks in his possession, when General Butler, with an orderly or two at his heels, made his way on foot into the “big ditch”. Thompson failed to see the General until he was close upon him, and knowing that he had been driving a contraband trade, he naturally feared a confiscation of his gains. However, drawing a bunch of choice Havana’s from the depth of his haversack, a reserve fund apparently provided for an emergency, he ran up to the General with, “Good morning, General, I’ve been trying to find you for a week, for I did want you to try some of my fresh cigars, and I hope you’ll do me the honor to accept them with my complements”. Before the General could refuse or accept the proffer, a ten-inch bomb from one of their mortars was dropped by the “Johnnies” in somewhat anxious proximity to the group. Exploding as it buried itself in the ground, it did not further damage than to cover the General and his escort with mud. But Ben, taking advantage of the exciting moment, cried out, “Good God, General, if that’s the manners you show a kindly disposed person like myself, the sooner I’m out of this, the better!” and with the words he ran like mad out of the canal, and was soon lost to view around a bend of the river.
Seeing Ben in a brown study one day, a fortnight after we reached Libby, I inquired what he was thinking about. Instead of any direct reply, he asked if I knew anything about shoemaking, and on my reply in the affirmative, he told me of a chance turnkey Pryor had offered him to make shoes for the Confederacy. “And who knows,” said he, “but there’ll be a chance for us to skedaddle out of this, if once we get into the shop.” Next morning thirty of us were detailed as shoemakers, and found ourselves in a building adjoining the main prison hard at work on shoes for the rebel army. There was a partial division of labor among the gangs that brought the stitching to me and the fitting of the soles to Thompson. Early in our work I noticed Ben went through a curious process of cutting deeply across the outer sole of every shoe, on the reverse die at the front, where hank and heal meet. Of course it ruined the shoe, which would do well if it served the wearer while he was walking away from the quartermaster’s. “That’s my mark,” said Ben, at my inquiry. “Escape valve, you know, for the guilty conscience of a fellow at work aiding and abetting the enemies of his country.” Neither of us ever met a “Johnnie” afterwards, but we ached to ask him if he had ever worn any of the patent brands manufactured by the Yanks at Libby.
Across Water Street from our shop was a large warehouse used for any overflow of prisoners, but empty at the time we were there, on the second floor of which, is a small room, old Pryor kept a variety store. It was a sort of perquisite to his office as prison keeper, and aided in eking out a scanty salary. Pryor was accustomed almost daily to conduct squads of half dozen prisoners to this store, and sell them bread, apples, and other eatables. His prices were outrageous, fifty cents for an apple, one dollar a loaf for bread, two dollars for apple-pie baked in an ordinary saucer. This process of sale was thought altogether safe, as the warehouse was within prison enclosure and always surrounded by the line of sentries. When Ben and I had studied the situation and formed our plans for escape, we broached the matter to our fellow-shoemakers and endeavored to induce some of them to join us. But the danger of recapture and the terrors of Castle Thunder proved stronger than our arguments. It was fortunate for us that they were so, for we learned by experience that the smaller the number in an escaping parties the less likely were the rebs to pursue and retake them. However, nearly the entire shop wrote anonymous letters to their friends, and these we agreed to deliver to the mails within a reasonable time, Ben remarking that if anything happened to that particular penny-post he should bring suit in the court of claims against the Southern Confederacy.
December 12, the day we had chosen for out attempt, was dark and stormy. Holding off as late in the afternoon as we dared, we informed Pryor that we needed something to eat, and with four other comrades who were in our secret were taken over the street to the store. Thompson and I made our purchase first, and then stepping aside, our companions engaged the keeper’s attention while we noiselessly crept up a second flight of stairs to the third story. There we were fortunate enough to find an immense pile of condemned tent-cloth, much of it with the stamp of the United States upon it. Working our way deep into the pile, we anxiously waited for any sounds that would indicate we had been missed. Comrades have since told me that Pryor at once inquired for us, but on being assured that we had returned to the shop seemed satisfied and returned the remainder without further questions. Six hours of weary waiting followed, for we had agreed to wait for midnight, as the safest hour for our attempt. Nothing broke the dull monotony of the time save the sleepy “Post No. 1, all’s well!” of the drowsy sentinels, carried in turn around the prison by each succeeding sentry. Soon after twelve we were astir. Cutting the tent-cloth into long strips we braided a triple strand into a passably strong rope of some thirty feet I length. Fastening one end to a table we had found near by, we dropped the other end from a window. It was short by ten feet, but we had no difficulty in dropping that height. Thomson slid down first and I followed. Once at the bottom we found ourselves inside a board fence fifteen feet high, with the smooth side next the prison. Luckily, however, there were lying about the remains of the boards and timbers of which the fence had been built, and having piled these up cob-house fashion, I mounted the pile, and Ben mounted my shoulders. He could just reach the fence top, and being muscular he was over in a twinkling, and had dropped me apiece of the tent-cloth and pulled me to the top. We found ourselves in the back yard of a private dwelling, and working our way toward the street were attacked by a ferocious bull-dog, whose howling alarmed us even more than his bite. The cur quickly yielded to Ben’s suavity and caresses and left us for his mat on the doorstep. In glancing over the front fence we were startled to see a sentry standing with his piece at order arms only a few feet away on the brick sidewalk! There was nothing for it but to put a bold face on the matter and leap the fence. Hastily agreeing to meet at a neighboring street light, Thompson was first and coolly walked away whistling. In ten minutes I followed without the whistle, and shortly rejoined Ben at the appointed place. Just why that “Johnny” failed to challenge us we never knew, but the probability in that overcome by drowsiness he was stealing a nap over his gun. As neither of us had more than a general knowledge of the streets, such as we could gain by our first march through them, or by our study from the prison windows, we tramped on with only the vague notion of reaching the suburbs and concealing ourselves until the succeeding night. Now and then we passed a watchman or some belated traveler, but the pieces of tent-cloth we had brought along so completely disguised us that no one asked any questions. As hour’s hard tramping found us bewildered, and once more in the heart of the city. Affairs took a serious turn.
We dared not inquire of those we me, nor at the houses, but hurrying on at our best pace found ourselves in another hour climbing the parapets of the third or inner line of works surrounding the city of the north. We saw no troops, as most of the rebels were with Lee guarding the Petersburg front. The ditch in front of the works was deep and half-filled with water, but creeping along in the darkness we soon reached a log laid over the chasm for the use of their troops. Over this we were threading our dizzy way, when Ben, who was ahead, slipped and tumbled in. He disappeared for a moment, but soon came up puffing to the surface. I ran along the bank and dropping him my canvas soon fished him out to terra firma. Every rag of clothing on him was saturated, and the bread in his pockets converted into mush. Faint streaks of dawn now showing themselves admonished us to be pushing on, and despite Ben’s condition we hurried away for something that looked like woods in the distance. We found the woods a swamp, thick grown with trees and underbrush. Exhausted and faint, we found a spot somewhat more solid that the rest, where we lay down in the shelter of a large cottonwood tree. After an hour’s sleep we both woke shivering and chilled to the very marrow. Ben was the worse off; the result of his morning’s dunking. To add to our discomfort a drizzling rain set in, and I was soon as badly off as my companion. We dared not light a fire even if we had the means; the most we could venture on was to rise occasionally to our feet, stretch our benumbed and aching limbs, and return quietly to our drenched beds on the ground. Soon after noon the sky cleared somewhat, and sounds of voices began to be heard; these indicated the presence of a camp on the opposite side of the swamp. Not long after, the men seemed to start a hunt, and some dogs had evidently treed an animal. Soon we heard the clip of axes, the tree was felled, and then dogs and men pushed on for the interior of the swamp. Nearer and nearer they drew to our hiding place, and in a moment I saw the gray squirrel they were after dart into a hollow oak not three rods from us. Three dogs and fifteen or twenty men were close behind. We fugitives instinctively hug the sod beneath us. Foiled in the chase, the men gather sticks and dry grass or bark and started a fire in the hollow but. The smoke soon force the squirrel from his retreat, and with a leap he took to the nearest trees; the dogs rushed over in hot chase, but failed to molest us; the men taking a shorter cut avoided us altogether, and in a few moments we knew by their shouts that they had bagged their game and were on there way to camp. In was a narrow chance, and Ben remarked, as we began to recover breath, that if that was a specimen of what we were to encounter the probabilities of our escape were slim. Darkness, or best friend, came at last, and we crept out of our hiding place as fast as our chilled and stiffened limbs allowed. With the pole star as guide we steered northward, in order if possible to cross the Chickahominy and put that stream between us and any pursuers that might be on our track. Carefully avoiding the roads, except when it was necessary to cross them, we tramped on through the weary hours of the night, startled now and then by the snapping of a twig or the movement of some animal more frightened than ourselves. At times we were up to the knees in mud and water, and again were climbing steep banks, or working our painful way through thickets and underbrush where we suffered severely from the thorns and briers. Near dawn we crossed a second and less pretentious line of parapets and were rejoiced to find these, like the last, unoccupied by troops. Soon after, we crept up to the Negro quarters of a Virginia plantation and stealthily pushing in the door we entered. At one end of the room was a large fireplace, and stretched on the floor of unbaked clay, in a half-circle, were the dusky forms of half a dozen slaves, with heads turned toward the fire that was smoldering low on the hearth. After some vigorous shaking we succeeded in rousing the sleepers, and begged for a chance to dry and warm ourselves.
(continued next month)