The Underground World: A mirror of life below the surface (part 5 of 5)
Of course the new leaf was never turned over, unless in a backward direction. The journalist’s reputation as a succorer of suckers was so firmly established that he drew them from every quarter, and could not shake them off.
Hundreds of other New Yorkers have acquired much the same kind of fame, and are exposed to the same sieges, with similar results. Fearing borrowers as Captain Cuttle feared his landlady, they seek their places of business furtively, and go home by back streets. Not infrequently they lock themselves in private rooms and hide in out-of-the-way corners, to escape itinerant chevaliers of industry. While honorable gentlemen are thus skulking to avoid borrowers, unscrupulous debtors walk composedly through the crowd, and stare their creditors out of countenance—thus showing the outward advantage that dishonesty possesses over uprightness and fair dealing.
Some persons have been victimized so often, that they have hung up placards like these in their offices:—
[Sidenote: PRECAUTIONS OF THE PRUDENT.]
“No money lent here in sums less than ten thousand dollars.”
“All applicants for loans are expected to furnish mortgages on real estate in the city.”
“Gentlemen desirous of borrowing are referred to the Rothschilds, in London, Paris, and Frankfort.”
“First-class collaterals required on all loans.”
“Rates of lending to-day, five per cent. a minute, and nothing received as security except double eagles.”
“Persons who are hard up are politely, but firmly, requested to go to the devil.”
* * * * *
The effect of these announcements is reputed to be excellent. In numerous instances they prevent professionals from revealing their chronic wants; in others, they abash fellows who had made up their minds to arrange for a loan; and in others again, they cripple the hopes formed of a successful swindle.
I have been told, by a person who tried the experiment, that these manifestoes have saved them thousands of dollars a year, and an infinite amount of annoyance besides. Such placards certainly have a fine extinguishing effect upon the flaming ardor of the social highwaymen so superabundant in Gotham.
The length of time that a borrower (outside of business) has been plying his vocation may be determined by the amount he asks for. When he is rather new to the trade, he wishes usually to be accommodated with a loan of five hundred dollars, and, if that sum be inconvenient, he thinks he can get along with something less. He has been known to accept thirty or forty cents on the dollar of his original proposition, and generally it is not safe to offer him any sort of compromise.
After a year or two of genteel swindling, the borrower fixes his demand at from one hundred to fifty dollars, but can be induced to take twenty-five dollars as a sort of instalment on the obligation, which he fancies the community has, in some mysterious manner, incurred.
Ten-dollar swindlers have, for the most part, seen much dishonorable service, and are among the most numerous of their nefarious guild. They are to be found everywhere,—in the street, at the hotels, at the theatres, at the races, even at private parties sometimes,—where they make the stereotyped excuse that they have left their porte-monnaie in another coat, and that they would be profoundly obliged for a trivial loan until the day following.
[Sidenote: PETTY IMPOSTORS.]
The petty impostors, who solicit loans from five dollars to fifty cents, have usually met with so many rebuffs that they make their approaches with a diffidence that usually undoes them. They mention five dollars with an infirmity of voice, evincing that they have no expectation of obtaining it, and drop down to three, two, or one with a precipitancy revealing their familiarity with disappointment. As a last resort, they inquire dolefully for postal currency representing half a dollar; and it is seldom they fail to get it, through sheer commiseration, from the person besought.
One of the most transparent and impudent orders of swindlers are those who tell you they are in a certain strait, and could be easily helped if they would apply to their father, brother, or some other near relative. But they are too proud, they take pains to inform you, to demean themselves in that fashion, and therefore they have recourse to a stranger on whom they have not the slightest claim. This mode of borrowing, an insult to the lowest intelligence, deserves to be answered with the boot; and yet, as it involves a certain sort of flattery, it frequently meets with a practical response.
It is estimated that, independent of all regular or mercantile transactions, the denizens of New York lose from five to six million dollars annually by swindlers claiming to be philanthropists, reformers, scholars, business men, and gentlemen in temporary distress. These miscellaneous borrowers have pretexts of every kind, all of them appealing to the best part of our common nature, if they were only true.
The sole difference between professional borrowers and beggars is, that the former always promise to pay, and the latter never promise, though one can be as much depended upon for settlement as the other.
[Sidenote: CONSTANT CALAMITIES.]
Such recurring calamities as visit these unblushing negotiators of loans might have been gathered from the multitudinous woes of the Greek tragedies or the grand operas. The borrowers are very seldom unprovided with a dead mother, or an unburied wife, or starving children, or a dishonest partner, or a stolen pocket-book, or a deferred remittance, or an absolutely necessary journey, or a remarkable mishap of some sort. They infest the principal hotels at the busy hours of the day, and employ their best energies in introducing themselves to the pockets of the boarders. Nearly every public house appears to have its special haunters, and one ingenious story will serve their purpose for a month or more. Borrowing has long been systematized here, and every season is marked by new inventions and pathetic fictions to delude the generous and unwary.
The audacity of the professional borrower is grand and exalted. He will stop your carriage in the park, and invite you to a pecuniary desperation; will make known his financial embarrassment as you are walking out of church with the present or future Mrs. —— on your arm; seek a private interview, with a monetary purpose, before you are up in the morning.
If you were to be hanged,—of which there is no danger in New York, whatever crime you may commit,—he would steal up behind the sheriff, as the latter was drawing the black cap over your eyes, and ask you if you could not spare ten dollars, now that you were going to a country where national bank-notes are not current.
Most New Yorkers understand so thoroughly the trick of courteous cozening, that, whenever any man they do not know intimately seems anxious to see them, they are convinced that he is in quest of a loan, and in nineteen cases out of twenty their convictions are just. Neither friendship, nor love, nor detectives can trace a fellow to his lair, or scent out his sanctuary, like a borrower. He will pursue his game round the world, and shame a sleuth-hound from the start.
[Sidenote: AT THE END.]
“Lost in the great city” is often a sad truth; but it may be converted into a fiction if a man in need of money have his attention called to the pocket-book of the person supposed to be lost. You cannot so bury yourself in this Babylon of a new world that the borrower will not bring you to light. And, if you have had experience, when a stranger flatters you, you will understand, from the degree of his compliment, the exact amount of the loan he expects to obtain.
LXX.
AMONG THE DETECTIVES.
DETECTIVE LIFE.—CURIOSITIES OF LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.—NOT KNOWING YOUR NEIGHBORS.—PECULIAR ACQUAINTANCES.—ROBBERY OF A DRY GOODS STORE.—INGENIOUS DETECTION OF THE CRIME.—LOVE AND JUSTICE.—A SURPRISING DENOUEMENT.
There are some men who seem better fitted to live beneath the surface of the earth than in the open air. Their habits are much like those of the mole or the weasel, and sometimes they are not altogether unlike those animals in general appearance. They have the burrowing propensity of the rat and the woodchuck, and in many instances their lives are about as reputable as that of the first-mentioned animal. They seem to avoid the light of day, and to spend their lives in undermining the works and lives of others. Great cities can furnish a good supply of these men, and the rural districts are not altogether destitute of them. They flourish best in large cities, as there they have a better field for their operations than in the country. In the country everybody knows everybody else for a considerable distance around, and can tell you about his family and its antecedents for as many years as you care to know. Frequently the people observe the manners and habits of their neighbors with more care than they observe their own.
In the city men go about their daily occupations, knowing little and caring little about others, except those with whom they come in contact or have relations of a business character. In New York, for example, there is not one householder in five who knows the name and occupation of his next-door neighbor, and generally he does not care to know. People may occupy the same house for years without knowing anything about each other. I can give a personal experience of my own which will illustrate what I have here stated.
During the first year of my residence in New York, after remaining a few weeks at a hotel I went one day in search of lodgings in a private house. I found a house whose exterior pleased me, and on the door-post there was the attractive announcement, “Rooms to let.” I rang the bell, made known my object, saw the vacant room, was satisfied, and engaged it. Next day I moved in. I took my meals at a hotel, and for a year and a half occupied that room.
[Sidenote: AN ODD EXPERIENCE.]
I did not know the name of anybody in the house except the proprietor, and never troubled myself about the occupants of the rooms on the floor where I was located. One day, in ascending the stairs, I met an acquaintance coming down; an acquaintance whose business was in the very office where I was located, and whose desk was not far from mine. We hailed each other, and our conversation revealed the fact that he had been for two years an occupant of that house, and I had been there nearly a year. Had we been in the country or almost anywhere else in America than in New York, we should have known each other’s local habitation and names in less than a fortnight.
City life, politics, and poverty are about equal in the opportunities they afford for making acquaintances with peculiar people. These acquaintances may not be formed very rapidly; but as one moves about in a great city, he is certain, sooner or later, without any effort on his own part, to be introduced to men whom he would not always be willing to recognize in public. Without ever going to church he may make the acquaintance of clergymen. Without touching a playing card or entering a gaming house he may be acquainted with gamblers. Without studying the mysteries of the kinchin lay, or familiarizing himself with the language of the inhabitants of Blackwell’s Island, or the state penitentiary, he may become acquainted with thieves of various grades. Without doing anything for which he should be “shadowed” he may be familiar with detectives, and without speculating in stocks he may know the men whose fortunes are made and lost on Wall Street. A great city is an epitome of the globe, and in its streets, and alleys, and by-ways may be found all the vicious and dangerous elements of human existence.
[Sidenote: A DETECTIVE’S STORY.]
Some years ago it was my fortune to become acquainted with a professional detective. He was not of the elegant sort, whose labors are confined only to the exposure and punishment of crimes of the higher grades, but he was a man who, to use his own language to me one day, was ‘ready for anything.’ He told me several stories of his experience. He did not present documentary evidence of their authenticity, and some of them were rather too much for my belief. Others were plausible enough to be true, and as the man always appeared to have plenty of money, I concluded that he must be an expert at the business. One evening he told me his experience in working up a case of robbery, which I will endeavor to give as nearly as possible in his own words:—
“A dry goods merchant on Broadway had lost a considerable amount of property at various times, but on no one occasion was there a large quantity taken. Of course the clerks in the establishment were suspected, but there was no way of discovering whether they were guilty or not. A close watch had been set on all of them, but nothing could be discovered. I was engaged to work up the case, and to enable me to do so, I was employed in the store as an extra clerk and salesman. It was thought that the foreman and floor walkers might be guilty of the robbery, and therefore they were not taken into the secret. The head of the house explained, however, to the foreman that I was a relative of his wife, and had been thrown upon him to provide for. It was therefore understood that I was not to be required to work very hard, and was to be allowed to go out whenever I asked permission. With this understanding I went to work at my new business. I did not know anything about dry goods, nor about selling them, and consequently they put me upon the commonest articles, which were not in very great demand. This gave me plenty of time for looking around and observing the habits of the clerks.
“I became acquainted with one after another, but made no headway for several weeks in discovering the secret. I accompanied the clerks to their rooms occasionally, and sometimes we were at the theatre together. I knew the salaries that were paid in the establishment, and I knew just how much money each man could afford to spend, and my object was to find out what man among them was living beyond his income. All of them appeared to be quiet, well-behaved young men. Some of them were members of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and others patronized the Mercantile Library, and spent most of their evenings there. Three or four were a little inclined to fast lives, but evidently did not have money enough to carry out their wishes.
“After a time I found out that one, who was the most quiet and unobtrusive of the whole lot, seemed to be living a little beyond his means. Upon him I fixed my suspicion and watched him closely both in the store and out of it.
[Sidenote: MAKING FRIENDS.]
“He and I became fast friends. We went about the city together; we visited the theatres and beer-gardens, and on Sundays took a trip to Coney Island, where we occasionally spent several dollars in entertaining ourselves and chance acquaintances; but the young man, whom I will call Johnson, was constantly on his guard, and whenever I proposed any new amusement or any additional expense, he always opposed it, and said that he could not afford it, though somehow he generally did afford it before we got through.
“I found he had a sister living in Harlem. Occasionally, but not often, she called at the store. She rarely bought anything, and never remained longer than a few minutes. He visited her every few days, though sometimes a week or two might intervene between his journeys to the place where she lived. Several times, when he was absent and I knew he was to be away for the evening, I visited his room, and searched it carefully; but never a thing could I find to implicate him in the robbery. Not a scrap of silk or lace or anything of the sort could ever be discovered in the room.
“I next managed to be introduced to his sister, and of course I pretended a great liking for her. She was living in a very quiet way, in a boarding-house, and was a teacher, on a small salary, in one of the public schools. Having ascertained her salary, and, calculating her expenses, making an estimate of the value of her clothing as nearly as I could, I was satisfied that she was living somewhat beyond her salary.
[Sidenote: SEARCHING A LADY’S ROOM.]
“One day Johnson told me that he was going with his sister to a school picnic. He had obtained leave of absence from the store, and I thought it an excellent time to make investigations. So I went to his sister’s boarding-house, inquired for the young lady, and of course was told that she was away. I explained to the landlady that I had received a message, saying that she would be at home several hours earlier than she had expected, and that I was to meet her that afternoon, to go on another excursion. I said it was about time for her to reach home, and, if the landlady had no objection, I would wait in the parlor. As I had been there frequently, and the landlady knew me, she made no objection. Luckily she went out a few minutes after, and gave me more freedom to operate than I had expected.
“I immediately went to the young lady’s room,—of course it was very impolite for me to do so,—and searched it thoroughly. It is of no use telling you all I found there, unless you have never been in a lady’s room, and do not know what it contains. She had a very good wardrobe, better than most young women in her position. It struck me as very odd that she had four dresses of rich black silk, which did not appear to have been made a very great while. Four dresses of black silk are a pretty good supply for a school teacher on a small salary, and I made up my mind that the silk came from the dry goods store where Johnson was engaged.
“There is a great difference between believing a thing and proving it. You may be certain of it from the circumstances, but it may not be very easy for you to go into court and show its reality. Now, here was my predicament. I thought four dresses were too many for one young lady, just as I once thought, when I searched a man’s trunk, and found fourteen coats of different sizes, and no trousers or vests, that it was a remarkable wardrobe for a gentleman to have. But how was I to get at the fact, and show the connection between the wearing apparel of Miss Johnson and the Broadway dry goods store?
[Sidenote: A DETECTIVE MAKING LOVE.]
“To help matters along, I made love to Miss Johnson in the regular way, referred to my relations with the dry goods house, and obtained an indorsement from the head of the firm, as a relative of his wife. I was getting along very well, only I did not want to propose and get an engagement, because that might make the situation a little awkward. I deferred the day of proposal on the ground that my uncle in the country, from whom I had expectations, was opposed to my marriage, except to a lady of his choosing; and that I should be obliged to wait until he had handed in his checks, which would be before a great while, as he had a lovely cough, and the rheumatism, supplemented with the dyspepsia and gout, so that the situation was perfectly charming.
“Johnson approved of my attentions to his sister, and of course we became warmer friends than ever. All this time I was studying to entrap the two, so as to fasten the robbery of the dry goods house upon them. One day I pretended a great admiration for a certain kind of silk that I had seen at the store. I told Laura that it suited her complexion exactly, and was just the dress she ought to wear. It was a light-colored silk, of a peculiar shade, which had been made expressly to order for the dry goods house, and I knew that they had the monopoly of it. I spoke about it several times, and said I hoped, one of these days, to be able to present her with a dress of this sort, but did not know when it would be, as my income, just at that time, was too small for any lavish expense.
“Love for me made the girl incautious. Four or five days later, twenty or thirty yards of this silk were missing from the store; and in a week or more, when I made a call, Laura surprised me with a dress of the material I had so much admired. I praised it, and I praised her, and she was happy.
[Sidenote: A SUPPER AT DELMONICO’S.]
“I invited her to accompany me the following evening to a theatre, and told her she must wear that dress; that I wanted her to be the prettiest and best dressed woman there; and, dressed in that, I knew she would be. We went to the theatre, and afterwards to Delmonico’s, where I had arranged to be shown to a private room for supper. I had invited her brother to join us, and, to avoid his suspecting anything, I told him that the day before, I had received a remittance of fifty dollars from my uncle, and was going to have a pleasant evening, without regard to the expense.
“But her brother was not the only person to be there that evening. The head of the firm was waiting where he could see us enter, and with him was a policeman.
“Our supper was brought, and was progressing finely; we had each taken a glass of champagne, and possibly two glasses, and, as the servant came into the room bringing something I had ordered, he was followed by the head of the firm and the man in blue. Johnson was arrested for theft, and his sister for being an accessory to the theft. Both turned pale; the young lady fainted, so that we had to dash water in her face—seriously injuring the elegant dress she wore. Johnson stoutly denied his guilt. He was taken from the room before his sister recovered. When she came to her senses, we told a pardonable falsehood, and said that he had confessed everything. She supposed our statement true, and then acknowledged that she had first urged her brother to the commission of the theft, in order to gratify her love for finery. With an eye to economy, she had always induced him, when stealing on her account, to take enough to pay for making up the material, so that she would not be subject to any expense at the dress-maker’s.
[Sidenote: A CONFESSION.]
“Johnson maintained his innocence until his sister told him that she had made a confession. Then he acknowledged his guilt, and explained how the robberies had been carried on.
“He had managed to ingratiate himself with the porter who swept out the place after the day’s work was over. During the day he would fold the silk he intended to steal into a bundle that might resemble a lot of waste paper, watch his chance, and throw it in a place just large enough to receive it, under a shelf, a few inches above the floor. When the porter swept the store, he brought out the package with his broom, taking care to have a sufficient quantity of waste paper and rubbish lying near to prevent attracting attention to the package. In this way he would get it outside, and take it to his home, where Johnson would call for it. The porter received something for his efforts in the cause of dishonesty, and the stolen property would be taken to Laura’s house, whence it would go either to the dress-maker or to a receiver of stolen goods.
“The porter was arrested an hour later, and both he and Johnson received the punishment due to them for their crime. As for the girl who was the cause of the theft, she was allowed to escape, on condition of leaving the city immediately. The firm would have prosecuted her, had it not been for my intercession. I liked the girl, and was ashamed of the trick I had played upon her; but then, you know, it was in the interest of justice, and a man ought to be willing to do anything for the sake of honesty.
“It is a little off color to make love to a girl, and pretend you want to marry her, just for the sake of entrapping her into the disclosure of a crime; but this is the way of the world, and anybody who thinks differently does not know the whole duty of the detective. Why, I have been to a fellow whom I suspected, and told him that his wife and children had been killed by a railway accident, and got him worked up to a terrible condition of anguish. I did it just to throw him off his guard, make him a little crazy perhaps, and then, while he did not know what he was about, I would accuse him of a crime, and get him to own up.
“If a man is going to be a good detective, he must not go frescoing around with anything like fine feelings. If he does not go in for all the tricks of the business, he is not likely to succeed in his profession.”
LXXI.
WAR AND PRISON ADVENTURES.
EXPERIENCES OF AN ARMY CORRESPONDENT.—RUNNING THE BATTERIES OF VICKSBURG.—EXCITING SCENES.—PERILOUS SITUATION AND HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPE.—SHOT, SHELL, STEAM, FIRE, AND WATER.—TWO YEARS AS A CAPTIVE.—TUNNELLING.—ITS MODE, MANAGEMENT, AND MISHAPS.—TOILING FOR FREEDOM UNDER GROUND.—BOLD AND PROSPEROUS EFFORTS FOR LIBERTY.—LIFE IN A DUNGEON.—PERISHING BY INCHES.—DEATH ON EVERY HAND.—SUBTERRANEAN SEEKING FOR THE LIGHT.—SELF-DELIVERANCE AT LAST.
When I was a small boy, and fed my miniature mind with thrilling accounts of the adventures of famous men, of their incarceration in prison, and of their escapes, I had no expectation of one day sharing in experiences of a very similar character. I can understand now why I felt so much interest in the biographies of Baron Trenck, Walter Raleigh, Cervantes, Silvio Pellico, and other noted personages who had spent much of their life in confinement. I little dreamed then that I should be for two years a prisoner, and last of all a prisoner in my own country, held by my own countrymen.
As may be supposed, the fortunes of war—our Great Rebellion—proved adverse to me, and I became the occupant of no less than eight different southern prisons.
The way I chanced to fall into the enemy’s hands was this. Having been a war correspondent for twice a twelvemonth, and having learned, under a variety of circumstances, how it feels to be shot at, and what the feeling is of just escaping death, I had a curiosity to enjoy the sensation of running the formidable batteries of Vicksburg during the spring of 1863. I communicated my intention to two of my companions, and they said that they would go with me. We were at Young’s Point, Louisiana, whence the army had already begun to move, by land to New Carthage, designing to cross the Mississippi River there, and attack Vicksburg in the rear. A number of gunboats and several transports had already run the batteries, and on none of these had I been able to obtain permission to go. Just at this time, another expedition, consisting of two large barges loaded with provisions, and bound to a steam-tug, was fitting out, and almost ready to start. Running the batteries was considered extremely perilous—so much so that the soldiers accompanying the transports, instead of being ordered to that duty, were allowed to obey their own inclination. The custom was for the officers of the regiments to announce that so many privates were needed, and that those who wished to take the risk would step forward.
[Sidenote: A HAZARDOUS EXPEDITION.]
The special expedition in which we military journalists were concerned was deemed an unusually dangerous one, for the reason that the river had then fallen, and there was considerable probability that the boats might get aground in front of the great guns, and be shot to pieces. Moreover, the moon was at the full, and at the hour of our starting—a little after midnight—would be in the very zenith of the heavens. The other vessels had gone down on dark and stormy nights, when they could hardly be seen from the Mississippi shore, and when the probability of their being struck was very small. Several old south-western pilots advised me not to try the experiment; for, if I did, the chances were twenty to one against my coming out alive. “I know the river,” one said, “and the state it is in just now. Besides, those two big barges will be so clumsy, hitched to that little tug, that they’ll be dead sure to stick on that bar opposite Vicksburg, and then you boys’ll have a lively time. The rebs will riddle you from stem to stern, and there won’t be a Yankee left to tell the tale.”
I laughed at this gloomy picture, quoting, “The gods take care of Cato.” The pilots, who had never read Cato, or even heard of Addison, replied in their literal way that they didn’t know my name was Cato, and that they were sure there was no such steamboat on the river.
[Sidenote: A SLOVENLY PREPARATION.]
The night we cast off our lines and floated down the Mississippi on our eventful expedition was as lovely a night as I have ever seen in any part of the world. The sky was without a cloud; the air was deliciously soft, and the heavens were so bright that we could read the newspapers without the slightest difficulty. There were thirty-five of us in all, including some twenty enlisted men, who had volunteered to go along in order to resist the enemy, if our vessels should be disabled and boarded. Never was any expedition worse prepared. The two barges were laden with barrels of pork and boxes of army bread, and on the top were bales of hay. The hay, which was extremely dry, was scattered all over, so that a spark—not to speak of a bursting shell—might ignite it in a moment, and so destroy our vessels inevitably. In addition to this, we had not a bucket on board, in the likely event of fire; nor had we a single small boat to get away with, should the flames master us. Still, all being volunteers, none of us were obliged to go unless we wished, and, as we said, the greater the danger, the greater the sensation, and the more we should enjoy its memory, provided we were fortunate enough to escape. It is due to the prudence of Captain ——, who fitted out the expedition in such an admirably reckless manner, to say that he did not intend to accompany us.
We had about five miles to run before reaching the batteries. There is a sharp bend in the river just above Vicksburg, caused by a tongue of land or peninsula on the Louisiana side. This peninsula had been covered with trees; but the rebels had cut them down, so that their guns had full sweep across it, and could command any and all vessels descending the stream when they were nearly three miles above the batteries. We floated at first, knowing that the puff of steam from the tug could be heard at a long distance in the midnight silence, and would necessarily attract the attention of the enemy. The first twenty minutes were passed quite pleasantly. We opened a bottle of wine, and drank to the success of our adventure, lighted our cigars, and chatted upon the possibilities of the situation. Thinking disaster might befall us, we tore up the few private letters we had in our pockets, and indulged in all kinds of jests respecting the potentiality of the result.
[Sidenote: UNDER FIRE AT VICKSBURG.]
We had scarcely reached the bend of the Mississippi, when we saw a flash from the hostile guns, heard the boom, and felt that the outer barge was struck. We thought that to be hit by the first shot was pretty good to begin with. Knowing, too, that we should be nearly three quarters of an hour under fire,—most of the time immediately in front of the batteries,—our prospects of a happy issue to our expedition were far from brilliant. There being no further use in attempting to steal on the foe, the engineer of the tug set the engine in motion. Our progress, hampered by the huge barges, was necessarily slow—very little greater than that of the current.
The initial gun was followed by a hundred others. For several miles along the Mississippi shore, the batteries belched forth shot and shell, until the bank of the river seemed all ablaze. Those who went for excitement certainly found it. The roar of the guns—some of the largest calibre—was almost deafening. The round shot howled over our heads; the shells shrieked fiercely and then exploded, many of them just above the barges. We could hear fragments falling about us, and it appeared as if the shot, so thick did they come, sometimes grazed our hair and our whiskers. As a pyrotechnic exhibition, it was splendid, and we should have enjoyed it greatly, had we not heard in the brief intervals of the cannonading the groans of the poor fellows who had been struck.
Such a situation is certainly a strong test of courage, which frequently quails in an entire state of placidity, when it would not blanch before the deadliest peril, could it be actively met. All we had to do—all, indeed, we could do—was to stand and take it. There was no possibility of shrinking or retreating, even had we been so inclined. We were precisely in the position of a regiment under a galling fire, and ordered not to move or return a single shot. Boom, bang, boom! whiz, yship, hursh! roar, crack, shriek!
[Sidenote: EXCELLENT GUNNERY PRACTICE.]
Such were the indescribable sounds that greeted and surrounded us for fully forty minutes, and you may be sure the minutes were not short.
The whole night was radiant, with flashing artillery and bursting shells. The brightness of the moon and stars was quite eclipsed; they looked dim and yellow through the blaze and smoke of war. The barges were struck again and again, and so were the bales of hay; but still the boats were not materially injured, and we could plainly hear the puff, puff, puff, of the tug, doing its best to carry along the great burden to which it was tied.
My two journalistic friends and myself were side by side, watching the exhibition with an interest that might be called personal. We were not excited, as we had supposed we should be, owing, no doubt, to the fact that we had had two years’ experience in the field. And yet we were forced to admit that it was about the liveliest experience under fire which we had ever enjoyed. I presume that our nerves were at a higher tension than we suspected, though we talked very glibly, and discussed the probability of our getting through, albeit much of what we said was lost in the infernal din.
What the French call the fire of hell was unremittingly kept up. A hundred guns seemed to explode, and a hundred shells to burst, every second. We suggested that the so-called Confederacy would soon expend all its ammunition, if it long continued such a tremendous cannonading; but then we remembered that long before it could be exhausted, we should be in a condition to know or care very little about it.
Under such circumstances, men who have any coolness, or inclination to speculate, are very apt to become fatalists, irrational as fatalism is.
“I don’t believe,” said one of my companions, “that I am destined to die here.” And the other remarked, “If my time has come, it might as well be here as anywhere else.”
[Sidenote: A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.]
Our speculations were cut short by an explosion, not so loud as, and altogether different from, any other that had taken place; and almost at the same instant there was a rush of steam, with a great deluge of live coals and cinders all about us. “What the devil is the matter now?” asked one correspondent. “This seems to be a new sensation!” exclaimed the second; while I solved the mystery by declaring that the boiler of the tug had exploded.
That I was right, was proved by the immediate cessation of the regular puff, puff, puff. A large shell had fallen upon the little steamer, and, bursting, a fragment had penetrated the boiler, causing the explosion, and throwing the fires of the furnace upon the dry hay covering the upper part of the barges. The loose hay caught at once. We ran to extinguish it; but our effort was vain. The fire blazed up before and behind us, and not having any means of putting it out, we abandoned further endeavor. On looking around, we discovered that a number of the soldiers, and those of the crew of the tug who had not been killed outright, were very severely scalded. Others, as we knew, had been badly wounded by shot and shell. At least half of the thirty-five men with whom we had set out were either dead or badly hurt, and our first thought was to help the poor fellows that could not help themselves.
Those who were sound began pushing the bales of hay into the river, and putting the wounded upon them. The barges burned like tinder, and in a few minutes after they had been ignited, two thirds of them were wrapped in flames. The rebels, strangely unmindful of their much boasted chivalry, continued their fire, though they must have seen that our expedition was utterly wrecked. Having gotten off the wounded, we who were unharmed jumped overboard, and secured a bale apiece, designing to float down the river beyond the city, and then those of us who were expert swimmers, at least, strike out for the Louisiana shore, and try to get back to our camp at Young’s Point.
Alas for the vanity of human expectation! One of my journalistic associates and myself had arranged this programme to our satisfaction, when, hearing the sound of rowlocks, we knew the enemy must be out in small boats to capture the survivors of our ill-fated expedition. Consequently we left our bales, and floated,—nothing but our faces out of the water,—believing that by so doing, we should remain unnoticed. We had not floated quite a minute before a yawl, filled with armed men, was rowed up to us, and we were seized and drawn into the boat, with the remark from a rebel captain, “We will get you d——d Yankees once in a while.”
[Sidenote: IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY.]
We did not like our capture, but we took it good-naturedly, though it seemed rather hard that, after escaping shot, shell, steam, fire, and water, we should have the bad luck to fall into the enemy’s hands.
The old pilot had proved a prophet. There was not a single Yankee left to tell the tale. The expedition was reported a total loss, with all on board, and some of us had the pleasure, long after, of reading our own obituaries in the northern journals. They were very kind; so kind, indeed, that we had some hesitation in declaring ourselves alive, lest, when we should really shuffle off this mortal coil, we might not be spoken of so generously. General Sherman, who then had, and may still have, a tender affection for war journalists, expressed his sympathy that night with our reported death by saying, “We shall have despatches from h—l now before breakfast.”
Even we correspondents, who had had glowing visions of the highly rhetorical accounts that we had intended to furnish to the New York journals, were deprived of the privilege of putting a word on paper. Our career of imprisonment began, and a very dreary career it was. We were thrust into two places of incarceration in Vicksburg; were then transferred to Jackson; then to Selma; then to Atlanta; then to Richmond, and finally to Salisbury; having in that time been the inmates, as I have said, of eight different prisons, each one of which was, if possible, more repulsive than that immediately preceding.
[Sidenote: PLANS FOR ESCAPING.]
At the famous Libby Prison we made our earliest efforts to escape; for at the other places we had not remained long enough to perfect any plans for freedom. We all had more faith in tunnelling than in anything else; but being kept on the upper floors of the old tobacco house in Richmond, we had no opportunity to put our faith into the form of works. If we could only have tunnelled the air, we should have come out in the camp of the army of the Potomac before we had spent a month in the Libby.
Numerous efforts were made by the Union officers, while we were with them, to have their quarters changed to the ground floor, on the score of comfort; but their southern keepers were too shrewd to put them there, knowing full well that the prospect of escape by tunnelling would be vastly increased. The northern invaders, as they were denominated, could get down to one of the lower floors, a few at a time; but these were not enough to do the digging, and the other hard work required, within any safe period. They did not, however, surrender their plans, and frequently at night we used to discuss at length the most available means for securing our freedom.
Months after, when one of my fellow-scribes and myself (the second had been duly exchanged at Richmond) had been sent farther south as “hostages for the good conduct of the Washington government,” we were delighted to learn that the gallant officers we had left behind in Libby had at last succeeded in digging the long-contemplated tunnel, and, what was better, getting their liberty once more.
The ground floor in the most western of the three adjoining warehouses composing the Libby Prison was devoted, during the winter of 1863-4, to storage and lumber, and was seldom visited by the rebel officials. This was very fortunate for the Yankees, who had been prevented before from commencing operations in that quarter, in consequence of the occupation of the floor by some of the southern subordinates. As soon as the prisoners learned that they could operate to advantage, they sawed a hole through the floor of the second story, carefully concealing it by the piece of plank they had sawed out. This story was part of their quarters, and they could readily determine when the coast was clear, and let down some of their number, who were not long in removing enough of the first floor to begin their digging. They worked like beavers, relieving each other every two hours, and performing all their labor at night. They began their tunnel just inside of the outer wall, went below the foundation of the building, and then dug laterally to a point where they deemed it safe to come up.
[Sidenote: WORKING IN A TUNNEL.]
I have had so much experience in tunnels that I regard myself as an authority thereon. They are generally only large enough to admit the body of a good-sized man, who creeps into them, and, lying nearly flat, digs as hard as he can with any instrument he may procure. After the tunnel has been extended thirty or forty feet, lack of ventilation prevents the burning of lights, and anything like freedom of breathing. The Libby tunnel was some seventy feet long; and to remedy this defect, the officers made a large pair of bellows, much resembling those used by blacksmiths, with tacks, blankets, and boards. With this rude but ingenious instrument, they supplied with oxygen the two men employed in the tunnel, one in advance digging, and the other behind, carrying out, or rather backing out, with the dirt in a haversack. Progress, under such adverse circumstances, is necessarily slow, the digging generally being done with a pocket or case knife. Sometimes not more than two feet is made by twelve hours of hard labor, and no one works more than an hour at a time, as the foul air is very exhausting.
[Sidenote: THE GREAT TUNNEL AT LIBBY PRISON.]
The Libby tunnel was not completed in less than a month, the officers being in constant dread lest it should be discovered. But it was not even suspected, and on a certain morning everything was pronounced ready for the test of its practical availability. Those who had done the most work and been the longest in confinement had precedence. About ten o’clock the prisoners began crawling into the tunnel one by one, while the entire number, including those who had no expectations of freedom, lay anxiously awake, awaiting the result of the undertaking. When daylight came, nearly a hundred and twenty, if I remember rightly, had gotten out; after that hour all further attempt had to be abandoned. A few poor fellows in the mouth of the tunnel were obliged to creep back and surrender the prospect of freedom for which they had so earnestly longed.
At the Libby, as in most prisons, the roll was called and the men counted every morning and evening, for the purpose, of course, of seeing if anybody had escaped. That particular morning at the Libby, the absence of the one hundred and twenty rendered the existence of a tunnel so highly probable that the rebels at once set about finding it, and in less than an hour they succeeded. They were angry enough, especially as one of the missing was Colonel A. D. Streight, who had been captured with a number of his men on a raid into Georgia, and whom the rebels so cordially detested, that they refused to exchange him, or the officers with him, thus interrupting the cartel until nearly the close of the war. I knew Streight very well in captivity,—he fell into the enemy’s hands in Georgia on the same date that I had a similar fortune in front of Vicksburg,—and I was rejoiced at his getting away, because his foes were so anxious to retain him.
The officers who escaped had a very severe experience. Long confinement and wretched food, not to speak of the poisoned air they had breathed, had rendered them weak and incapacitated for exertion. They had not more than seventy-five miles to go to reach our camp, but many of them could not march, others lost their way, and others again lacked the nerve and will to push steadily on. At least half of them were retaken, and those who arrived within our lines were in a pitiable condition. They had suffered from want of food and shelter; were excessively fatigued, and so foot-sore that in numerous instances their toe-nails came off, and they were unable to walk any distance for weeks after.
The second prison in Richmond to which we were consigned was the notorious Castle Thunder. There was no more opportunity for digging tunnels there than there had been at the Libby; and yet we had, if not expectations of escape, a settled determination to employ every possible means in our power. We plotted and plotted by night and by day; had secret communications with Unionists in Richmond; had rendezvous appointed in the event of our getting out; had the guards bribed; had our programme fully arranged; indeed, had everything complete except our escape. The fault certainly was not ours; for prisoners were never more prudent, never more watchful, never worked harder than we. Fate seemed to be against us. There was always a hitch, a tangle, a broken link, for which we were not in any way responsible. Having three of the guards properly bribed, one of them on the particular night when we intended to get out would inevitably become intoxicated; some agent whom we had trusted for a certain emergency would fall ill; a highly important message would miscarry at the critical moment; and thus were we cheated of our exertion and enterprise so repeatedly that it is singular we did not despair altogether.
[Sidenote: HOW PLANS WERE FRUSTRATED.]
We were betrayed once by a contemptible Marylander, who, himself a prisoner, and pretending to be excessively loyal, imparted to the authorities what he had suspected, in the hope of gaining their favor. The result was, that we were thrust into a noisome dungeon, and kept there for two weeks, with half a dozen deserters from the rebel army, who had varied their military life by forgery, burglary, and assassination. Having been returned to our old quarters, and having just formed a new project for emancipation, which we felt assured would fulfil its purpose, we were ordered off to Salisbury.
I remember that three or four desperate rebels in the condemned cell adjoining the apartment in which we were confined, freed themselves in an audacious manner, that entitled them to my admiration. They sawed through the floor, keeping up such a rattling of their chains while at work, that nobody could hear them, got down to the first floor, seized each a loaded musket from one of the racks, dashed out of the front entrance, shot one of the sentinels through the head, knocked another down with the butt of a gun, ran by the third, and disappeared in the darkness. The third sentinel fired his piece after them, and a general alarm was given; but, in spite of the fact that the Castle was in a much frequented part of the city, the bold fugitives got clearly away, and were never seen after in Richmond. They deserved a prosperous issue for their reckless courage; but there was something of luck in it, and I doubt, had I made the same attempt, if I should have been able to reach the outer door.
[Sidenote: TREATMENT AT SALISBURY.]
At Salisbury we were kept like cattle (except that we were not nearly so well treated), in a large enclosure, sleeping, or rather lying down, in an old building formerly used as a cotton factory. This building, with a number of miserable out-houses, was employed as the prison quarters, until some thousands of enlisted Union men were sent down there, when a system of freezing, starving, and murder seemed to be deliberately established by the rebel commandant.
Things soon became so bad that they could hardly get worse. It was death to remain, and even if an attempt to escape proved to be death also, we thought we should have the satisfaction of dying in an effort to obtain freedom, instead of perishing like rats in a hole.
Salisbury was the most hideous prison-pen, not even excepting Andersonville, in the entire South. Its one redeeming feature was, that it was not without facilities for tunnelling. These did not amount to a great deal, for the reason that we had spies in camp; the captives being made up of deserters from both armies, professional ruffians, and miscreants of every sort. Moreover, so intense was the suffering that not a few men, naturally loyal, but not of heroic stuff, could not resist the temptation to treachery, when they knew that their treachery would be rewarded by the food and raiment for the want of which they were perishing.
Tunnels were digging constantly, and were as constantly failing for the reasons I have mentioned. As my friend and myself were the only war correspondents at Salisbury, we were individualized to our fellow-captives, and having been longer in prison than anybody else, they were not only willing, but glad, to do anything which would aid us to escape. Consequently, we were informed of any and all plans, and given an interest in every tunnel that was projected, begun, or partially constructed. After one had fairly gotten under way, we would be invited to, and we would, examine it. Creeping on our hands and knees through its length, and then retreating in the fashion of a crab, we would pronounce the tunnel good, with the simultaneous instinct that it could not long remain undiscovered after we had made its acquaintance.
[Sidenote: RIGID SEARCH OF PRISONERS.]
No wonder we often thought we were destined to breathe our last in durance vile. Every scheme, contrivance, or device for our deliverance appeared doomed to an untimely nipping. I can recall a dozen occasions when I entered tunnels in the evening just ready to be tapped, and through which I intended the next night to take my departure. The first thing I would learn, the following morning, would be, that somebody had turned informer, and that we must have recourse to still another enterprise.
I never did much work myself. I was as willing as Barkis; but I had little skill in that species of practical engineering, and was so much excelled by my companions in captivity that I did not insist on performing my share of the labor. So many of our tunnels had exploded, as we used to style it, that the authorities put on double lines of sentinels, compelling us to carry a tunnel so far that the obtainment of oxygen became impossible. Sixty or seventy feet, or even eighty or ninety, may be managed; but one hundred and forty or fifty feet cannot be accomplished without a ventilating apparatus, and at Salisbury we were absolutely without implements of any kind. It was quite common there for our custodians to draw us up in a line, and compel us to surrender, not only our valuables, on pretence that we might bribe the guards, but also our pocket-knives, and anything that might in any way aid us in our liberation. Old scraps of iron, and whatever might be converted into a sharp instrument, were, therefore, in active demand, and the supply entirely inadequate. I recollect that I was hailed with joy, on a certain afternoon, when I exhibited an ancient case-knife that I had contrived to conceal, and which not the neediest rag-picker in Paris could be persuaded to throw into his basket.
How the poor unfortunates at Salisbury did toil at tunnels, and how perverse fortune always proved! I make no question that scores of the captives, at the rate of three dollars a day, would have earned hundreds of dollars each in digging, and all, alas! to no purpose. The fabled industry of the Trojans was not to be compared to theirs. No sooner was one tunnel discovered than they set about making another, and when that blew up, they turned to a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, as if they were incapable of discouragement. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, especially when the human breast is famishing by slow degrees, and freedom smiles never so faintly in the far-off distance.
[Sidenote: SEVERE LABOR IN TUNNELS.]
If there be any severer labor than tunnelling, I am unacquainted with it. The first time I became a digger was on a hot summer day. Armed with an ordinary jack-knife, the blade of which was broken, I attacked the firm earth, and, for nearly two hours and a half, strove, like Hercules, against one of the original elements. The work would have been nothing in the open air, even with the noonday sun blazing down; but in that narrow, underground channel, where half a respiration was impossible, every movement of the muscles, every throb of the pulses, every beat of the heart, resembled a spasm, and the slightest exertion appeared like the greatest. The perspiration started from all my pores, my head ached, my lungs grew painful, my breath became hot and stertorous. The man behind me, who was engaged in removing the dirt, insisted on my stopping, saying that I was overworking, and that an hour at a time was quite as much as anybody ought to endure.
I would not heed him. My opposition was aroused, the spirit of the perverse was prompting me. I had determined to stay there and toil as long as I could move my hands, or catch a breath. I went beyond my resolution. I dug and dug, and after a while the sense of semi-suffocation and the pain in my breast seemed to cease. My head appeared to be on fire; the little candle I had before me shone as a calcium light. I fancied that I was inspired, that I could never be fatigued, and I wrought feverishly, but effectually, until my assistant wondered at the amount of earth he was obliged to carry off. I imagined that hours and days had passed. While I was delving energetically, though wildly, I lost consciousness, and chaos and oblivion came. I knew nothing more until I found myself stretched on a blanket, and my faithful Achates—noble fellow that he was—bathing my face, chafing my temples, and wondering if I should ever revive.
[Sidenote: NARROW ESCAPE FROM SUFFOCATION.]
Then I learned that I had swooned, and been dragged out of the tunnel by the feet—more dead than alive. The fever of delirium had seized me, and this I had mistaken for inexhaustible strength. Unquestionably I had been very near my end. If I had been allowed to remain there five minutes longer, I should have been thrown into the trench near the prison where so many poor fellows had gone before me, and have furnished the theme for a brief obituary.
Give me liberty or give me death! has become a stereotyped phrase. It is impossible to tell which is the better of the two; but I came much nearer gaining one than the other in the tunnel, which I had before associated only with the former.
[Sidenote: HOPE AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.]
When next I am thrown into prison—I do not believe it will be in my own country—I trust I shall have the means for constructing tunnels after an approved manner, and that they will not continue to balk my desires, and cheat my expectations. Tunnels, I must confess, have treated me shamefully. Again and again I have built high thoughts upon them; again and again I have placed implicit faith in them; again and again I have crowned their issue with the glorious symbol of freedom; and yet while they kept the word of promise to my ear, they broke it to my hope. Among perfidies they have been most perfidious, among treacheries the most treacherous, among disappointments the most disappointing, among deceits the most deceitful. For nearly two wretched, painful, terrible years, I thought of tunnels kindly, advocated them warmly, loved them tenderly, labored for them, in them, through them; and still in the hour of my direst need, and in the mightiest peril of my being, they refused me comfort, gave me despair for bread. I never shall forget—I never can forget—that when freedom dawned at last, it was through the darkened sky overhead, and not through the opened end of a channel under ground.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Transcriber’s Note: │ │ │ │ The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been │ │ retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors │ │ which have been corrected without note. │ │ │ │ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. │ │ │ │ Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant │ │ form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. │ │ │ │ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, like │ │ this. │ │ │ │ Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs │ │ and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that │ │ references them. The List of Illustrations paginations were │ │ changed accordingly. │ │ │ │ Variant not changed: │ │ Gentlemens and gentlemans. │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘