ast cellar at its southeast corner as an additional cook-room,
several large caldrons having been set in a rudely built furnace; so,
for a short period, the prisoners were allowed down there in the daytime
to cook. A stairway led from this cellar to the room above, which
subsequently became the hospital.

Such, in brief, was the condition of things when Colonel Rose arrived at
the prison. From the hour of his coming, a means of escape became his
constant and eager study; and, with this purpose in view, he made a
careful and minute survey of the entire premises.

From the windows of the upper east or "Gettysburg room" he could look
across the vacant lot on the east and get a glimpse of the yard between,
two adjacent buildings which faced the canal and Carey street
respectively, and he estimated the intervening space at about seventy
feet. From the south windows he looked out across a street upon the
canal and James River, running parallel with each other, the two streams
at this point being separated by a low and narrow strip of land. This
strip periodically disappeared when protracted seasons of heavy rain
came, or when spring floods so rapidly swelled the river that the latter
invaded the cellars of Libby. At such times it was common to see
enormous swarms of rats come out from the lower doors and windows of the
prison and make head for dry land in swimming platoons amid the cheers
of the prisoners in the upper windows. On one or two occasions Rose
observed workmen descending from the middle of the south-side street
into a sewer running through its center, and concluded that this sewer
must have various openings to the canal both to the east and west of the
prison.

The north portion of the cellar contained a large quantity of loose
packing-straw, covering the floor to an average depth of two feet; and
this straw afforded shelter, especially at night, for a large colony of
rats, which gave the place the name of "Rat Hell."

[Illustration: MAJOR A.G. HAMILTON.]

In one afternoon's inspection of this dark end, Rose suddenly
encountered a fellow-prisoner, Major A.G. Hamilton, of the 12th Kentucky
Cavalry. A confiding friendship followed, and the two men entered at
once upon the plan of gaining their liberty. They agreed that the most
feasible scheme was a tunnel, to begin in the rear of the little
kitchen-apartment at the southeast corner of Rat Hell. Without more ado
they secured a broken shovel and two case-knives