L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

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[287] into requisition, and the dirt was hauled out in small quantities. After digging for some days the question arose whether they had not reached the point aimed at; and in order if possible to test the matter, Captain Gallagher, of the Second Ohio Regiment, pretended that he had a box in the carriage house over the way, and desired to search it out. This carriage house, it is proper to state, was used as a receptacle for boxes and goods sent to the prisoners from the North, and the recipients were often allowed to go, under guard, across the street to secure their property. Captain Gallagher was allowed permission to go there, and as he walked across under guard, he, as well as he could, paced off the distance, and concluded that the street was about fifty feet wide.

On the 6th or 7th of February the working party supposed they had gone a sufficient distance, and commenced to dig upward. When near the surface they heard the rebel guards talking above them, and discovered they were two or three feet yet outside the fence.

The displacing of a stone made considerable noise, and one of the sentinels called to his comrade and asked him what the noise meant. The guards, after listening a few minutes, concluded that nothing was wrong, and returned to their beats. The hole was stopped up by inserting into the crevice a pair of old pantaloons filled with straw, and bolstering the whole up with boards, which they secured from the floors, etc., of the prison. The tunnel was then continued some six or seven feet more, and when the working party supposed they were about ready to emerge to daylight, others in the prison were informed that there was a way now open for escape.