by W. N. Brown
Lights-out was at nine p.m. Without any blankets, men without coats were left to shiver on the floor during the winter. In the summer, whatever breeze came through the windows offered little relief from the sweltering heat. Prisoners would sweat and scratch at lice all night long, getting what little sleep they could.
Outside the prison, twenty-five to thirty guards patrolled the grounds nonstop, day and night. They were ordered to shoot any prisoner who came within three feet of a window. The outside of the first floor was painted white, so anyone trying to escape would be seen more easily. Any guard allowing a prisoner to escape could be sent to jail.
* * *
Chapter Three
Rats in the Cellar
Rose and Hamilton spent the better part of October and all of November examining their escape plan from every angle. They memorized the guards’ schedules, and Rose learned the prison layout. They both knew that if they were caught, they could be whipped, locked in the prison dungeon, or shot dead, so they wanted to be extra sure the route they chose was their safest option.
“The way I figure it,” Rose said, “your original idea of tunneling out of the east cellar is still our best chance.” It was a cold December morning, and he could see his breath as they huddled together in the back of the Chickamauga Room. “The west cellar is out because the guards sleep right above it. Digging from the middle cellar’s out, too, because that’s where the dungeon is . . .”
Libby’s so-called “dungeon” was the cold, dark place where rule breakers and prisoners who were disfavored were held in isolation with no light, barely any room to move, and only bread and water to eat, often for weeks at a time. The poor souls locked away there often had to catch and eat rats just to survive.
Hamilton nodded. “It’s time we started. I’ll head down there tonight. You stay up here. That way, if I get caught and sent to the dungeon, one of us is still around to work on the tunnel.” Rose reluctantly nodded his agreement. “Be careful.” That night, while everyone else was asleep, Major Hamilton got to his feet in the darkness and crept down to the kitchen. The wooden stairs creaked with every step, and he waited at the bottom of them with bated breath for a guard to come and investigate.
When none came, he quickly moved over to the two stoves. By the light of the moon streaming through the barred windows, the major slowly and quietly moved one of the stoves aside, revealing a fireplace. He removed the ashes and took from his pocket a knife he’d borrowed from a friend. Then Hamilton knelt down and began the slow and tedious work of chiseling out the mortar between the bricks at the back of the fireplace. Sweat ran down his forehead, from both the effort and the fear of being caught. Every time he thought he heard a guard walking past the kitchen window, he stopped chiseling and lay flat on the floor. Only after the guard passed would he resume. After two hours, he’d managed to dislodge only three bricks.
This is harder than I expected . . .
Finally, after another hour, he removed enough bricks to feel a draft of air through the chimney behind the wall. Hamilton set his knife down. With sore hands, he replaced the bricks and put the stove back into place.
That’s enough for tonight, he thought as he snuck back upstairs. My hands can’t take any more.
The next night the work began again. This time Rose insisted on helping his friend. After following Hamilton to the kitchen and pushing aside the stove, Rose crouched in the fireplace and took up the pocketknife, ready to do some chiseling of his own. The colonel attacked the mortar, working fervently.
The two continued to trade off chiseling duties over the next nine evenings, with Hamilton working one night and Rose the next. Christmas came and went, barely acknowledged in the prison.
Finally, on the evening of December 30, Hamilton was able to remove enough bricks to stick his head and shoulders through the fireplace wall and look down into the adjoining chimney.
This is it, he thought. He peered straight down the narrow, soot-covered shaft. Beneath him, the shaft curved around and dropped into the east cellar a few feet down. He could smell the cold, dank air of the open space below.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, Hamilton thought, remembering the famous line from the Divine Comedy.
He paused a moment, contemplating whether or not to go and wake Rose, before trying to squeeze his body into the chimney.
What if I get stuck and can’t get out? he thought. The guards would see the removed stoves and the bricks and I’d be caught for sure!
Hamilton steeled his nerves. After all his hard work, his excitement to test the tunnel was too strong to ignore. With any last-minute doubts shaken off, Hamilton climbed into the hole, lowering himself down feet first. The chimney was cramped and snaked a bit on the descent. He had to slide in on the floor as he entered the small passage, then push himself straight down, and then again to the right.
I sure hope this will be large enough for Rose to get through, he thought, imagining his friend’s six-foot-two frame.
After wriggling himself through the final bend in the shaft, Hamilton, now covered in soot, felt his legs kick out into open space. He dropped down about four feet onto a floor cushioned with straw. The east cellar was blacker than night, the air as cold as a cave. He also heard an all too familiar noise—the scratching and skittering of Libby’s permanent rat residents.
Hello again, my four-legged friends, he thought.
Hamilton struck a match and saw the straw moving with hundreds of screeching rats, climbing over one other to escape this new intruder. Some of the rats were almost the size of small dogs, the largest he’d ever seen.
Dear Lord, now I know why they call it Rat Hell.
Hamilton clenched his fist and started forward slowly so as not to blow out the match light. His face contorted at the odor of the cellar, a horrible mixture of spoiled pork fat and rat droppings.
At the far end of the room he could make out the east wall. He walked over and ran a hand along the damp stone and mortar.
Seems older than the fireplace construction, he thought. Hopefully it’s more penetrable. . . .
When he turned around to head back, the match blew out.
Hamilton grimaced.
That was my last match!
He hurried across the moving floor. Then a familiar squeal rang out under his feet. Hamilton winced, realizing he’d stepped on one of the rats. Gathering his courage to continue, he felt his way along the wall until he was able to find the small passage opening that led back to the first floor. He jumped and pulled himself up into the chimney, banging his head on the top of the brick entrance in the process. After climbing back out into the kitchen, Hamilton rubbed the knot on his head and breathed a sigh of relief.
If I’m gonna tunnel out of Rat Hell, he thought, I’ll have to get less squeamish . . . and bring more matches!
He quickly and quietly replaced the bricks and pushed the stove back into place. Then he crept back upstairs to the Chickamauga Room. He found Rose sleeping in his usual spot in the corner.
“Rose!” he whispered.
“Yeah?” the colonel answered groggily.
“I did it! I broke through to the cellar!”
“Well done, Hamilton,” Rose said, rubbing his eyes. “Now get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long night.”
Chapter Four
Excavation Begins
Around midnight the next evening, minutes before the first day of the new year, Rose followed Hamilton down to the kitchen. Together they removed the stove, and Hamilton showed Rose his work, taking out the loosened bricks in the fireplace and exposing the entrance to the tunnel.
“Now, it’s a little tricky getting through,” the major told Rose. “You’ve got to—”
“I can manage,” the colonel cut him off. “See you down there.”
Facing the floor, Rose awkwardly climbed into the hole feet first, sucking in his gut and squeezing down as far as he could go. At that moment, Hamilton heard a Confederate guard stop outside the
window. He could also hear the colonel struggling in the chimney.
“Help!” Rose whispered. “I’m stuck!”
Rose couldn’t move his arms at all. He was trapped in the curve of the passageway. Worse yet, his back was bent at a horrible angle in the tunnel.
“Hamilton, I can’t breathe!”
Rose’s mind raced. He can’t hear me. I’m doomed! God help me, I’m going to die in the chimney of Libby Prison . . .
Hamilton’s face suddenly appeared in the darkness above.
“Quiet!” he hissed. “There’s a guard outside!”
“Help me,” Rose whispered between gasps.
Leaning headfirst into the fireplace, the major tried his hardest to pull his panicking friend out of the crawl space, but Rose wouldn’t budge. Hamilton knew they had to be as quiet as possible so as not to alert the guard standing outside by the window. Grabbing Rose by the armpits, he tried again to pull him out, but to no avail.
I can’t get enough leverage, Hamilton thought. I need someone to hold my legs.
“Don’t panic. I’m going to go and find some help.”
Rose wheezed in protest, but the major was gone.
After silently creeping out of the kitchen, Hamilton scrambled upstairs. He had to find someone he could trust, someone he knew could keep a secret. He had a few friends he believed were up to the job, but they were going to be hard to find among the dozens of men sleeping on the dark floor. With Rose struggling downstairs, Hamilton had to take a chance and settle on a stranger. He knelt down next to an officer sleeping near the stairwell and shook him awake.
“Sorry to wake you, soldier,” he whispered. “I’m Major Hamilton, and I need your help.”
Dazed, the young man squinted in the darkness.
“With what? And what hour is it?”
“I’ll tell you later. What’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Bennett,” he said, “of the Eighteenth Regulars.”
“Well, Lieutenant Bennett of the Eighteenth Regulars—follow me.”
Upon returning to the kitchen, Hamilton was dismayed to see the guard still standing by the window. He put a finger to his lips and led the confused Lieutenant Bennett to the wall with the tunnel and crouched down.
“You need to help me get my friend out,” Hamilton whispered. “He’s stuck in the chimney. Hold my legs while I pull his arms.”
Bennett obliged, holding Hamilton’s legs by the ankles as the major bent down into the chimney. Hamilton grabbed Rose under the armpits, and—with the new leverage from Bennett—managed to wrench Rose free just as the guard standing outside the window walked away.
By the time the two men had pulled him out, the colonel was coughing up a storm.
“What are you boys doing messing around down in the fireplace?” Bennett asked with a knowing grin.
“I’ll inform you soon enough,” Hamilton replied. “We’re much obliged for your aid, especially the colonel here. And if you don’t mind, let’s keep this among the three of us.”
Rose noticed Bennett pause, as if he was going to ask another question. Then the young officer seemed to change his mind.
“Yes, sir,” he said and crept back upstairs to the sleeping quarters in the Chickamauga Room.
“The passage is a little tight, don’t you think?” Rose asked.
“I’ll work on it,” Hamilton promised. “Why don’t you try again after that? Maybe tomorrow night.”
“No time. We need to start digging tonight.”
“Are you sure? You almost died!”
Rose was shaken up. His large hands were still trembling.
“It has to be tonight,” he said. “There’s no time to waste, now that we’ve opened the wall. It could get discovered anytime.”
“Okay,” Hamilton whispered. “But I don’t know if that Bennett kid will want to come down here to save your skin twice in one night.”
Hamilton took up the pocketknife and chiseled at the edges of the tunnel where Rose had gotten stuck. After an hour of work, the major felt certain the passage was now wide enough for Rose to get through.
Rose returned to the fireplace, this time sliding in on his back. He managed to curve his body through the chimney’s winding passageway and, after about a minute, found himself breathing the rank air of the east cellar.
“I made it!” he whispered up the tunnel to Hamilton.
He lit a match and started making his way over the sea of straw and vermin to the far wall.
Hamilton wasn’t lying about the rats, Rose thought. They’re everywhere!
On paper, their plan seemed simple—breach the wall at the southeast corner of the cellar, then tunnel south toward the main sewer. The sewer pipe opened up into the nearby Lynchburg Canal—and the road to freedom.
Having just climbed down through the chimney after Rose, Hamilton walked over to his friend.
“That’s where you want to start digging?” he asked.
“It’s as good a place as any,” Rose said, feeling around the wall with his hands.
Hamilton handed the colonel his knife. Rose kneeled down and began chiseling at the mortar between the stones, a skill he’d grown adept at the past few nights. Hamilton stood watch as Rose worked. A candle he’d brought from upstairs flickered in his hand, painting the small cellar room with orange light.
From the hay-covered floor, an eerie sea of glowing red eyes curiously watched these new visitors.
Hamilton grinned. “Never thought I’d be celebrating New Year’s Eve in a cellar with a bunch of rats.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Rose replied. “I’m not spending 1864 in Libby Prison.”
Chapter Five
Putting Together a Team
They returned the next night with two knives and a chisel Hamilton had lifted from the carpentry shop. Over the next several days, they carefully liberated enough stones from the foundation wall to reach the packed earth behind it.
Soon Rose was tunneling into the earth. Scraping away on his belly, he suddenly noticed he was struggling to breathe. The air is thin underground, he thought.
Then all at once, a large clump of dirt came loose and rained down around him.
The tunnel was caving in!
“Rose?” Hamilton whispered. He could see Rose’s boots sticking out of the crumbled wall.
Kicking and twisting, Rose pulled himself out of the dirt pile. He was covered in soil, coughing and spitting out clumps.
“We need to come up with a better system,” he said, wiping the grime out of his eyes. “Next time I may not be so lucky.”
“If it caves in once, it will happen again,” Hamilton said. “The soil’s too loose here.”
When they returned the next night, Rose and Hamilton chose another part of the cellar wall. They set to work digging. As the week went on, they developed a routine: Hamilton would stand at the mouth of the tunnel, fanning in fresh air with a hat and holding the candle, while Rose dug. Hamilton also held a rope that was tied to Rose’s foot so he could help pull the colonel out in case of another cave-in.
Hamilton was impressed with Rose’s tunneling skills. The colonel dug like a man possessed, burrowing through the ground like a gopher.
“You sure you haven’t done this before?” Hamilton asked. “You can dig tirelessly for hours without stopping.”
“I used to be a schoolteacher,” Rose said. “Compared to dealing with a roomful of rowdy kids, digging out of prison is nothing.”
Lying on his stomach in the dark tunnel one night, Rose scraped at the dirt with his knife. His hand grew sore, so he pocketed the blade and began clawing at the dirt with blood-caked fingers. He did this in darkness—the farther into the tunnel he went, the harder it was to keep a candle lit. Deep in the earth, the air was thin, and he struggled to breathe while he worked.
I hope I don’t pass out, he thought hazily.
As Rose dug, Hamilton fanned air into the tunnel from the east cellar. Every so often, he felt a tug on the rope tied
to his wrist. He would then set the fan down and began pulling on the line. Out would come a spittoon (a pot into which people spat chewing tobacco juice) that Rose had swiped from one of the upper levels. It’d be filled with dirt. Hamilton would dump the dirt onto the floor in a corner, then cover the dirt with straw and return the spittoon to the tunnel.
Eventually, Rose emerged from the tunnel. Hamilton could see the sweat dripping off the colonel’s face in the candlelight as he gasped for air.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” Hamilton said. “I believe we should look into bringing in more men. It’s almost impossible to handle all these tasks while watching and listening for guards.”
Rose nodded. Keeping a lookout was important. Though the stairwell entrance to the cellar was locked up, all it would take was for one curious sentinel to walk into the kitchen, see the stove had been moved, and unlock the door to investigate. In that event, Rose and Hamilton would quickly snuff out their candles, lie on the ground in the darkness, and pray they weren’t seen.
“You might be right,” Rose told his friend. “We could use more diggers too. I thought we’d be further along by now.”
Hamilton looked down at Rose’s gnarled, bleeding hands.
“No two ways about it,” he said. “We need help.”
Despite being in a prison full of starving soldiers desperate to escape, choosing a team that Hamilton and Rose could trust wouldn’t be easy.
“We have to be careful about who we bring in,” Hamilton warned. “I’ve heard tell of guards occasionally posing as prisoners, keeping their eyes and ears open, hoping to catch word of any escape plans.”
Rose looked surprised. “Really?”
Hamilton shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”
“In any event,” Rose continued, “that can be avoided. We know Lieutenant Bennett is a good man. He helped save my hide when I was stuck. We’ll eliminate the men we don’t know.”
“If only it were that simple,” Hamilton replied. “There’ve been a few cases where prisoners have snitched on men plotting escape. In exchange for their betrayal, Turner traded their toady hides back to the Union.”
