myself, trusted to fortune, and
fell into Rat Hell, which was a rayless pit of darkness, swarming with
squealing rats, several of which I must have killed in my fall. I felt a
troop of them, run over my face and hands before I could regain my feet.
Several times I put my hand on them, and once I flung one from my
shoulder. Groping around, I found a stout stick or stave, put my back to
the wall, and beat about me blindly but with vigor.

In spite of the hurried instructions given me by Wilcox, I had a long
and horrible hunt over the cold surface of the cellar walls in my
efforts to find the entrance to the tunnel; and in two minutes after I
began feeling my way with my hands I had no idea in what part of the
place was the point where I had fallen: my bearings were completely
lost, and I must have made the circuit of Rat Hell several times. At my
entrance the rats seemed to receive me with cheers sufficiently hearty,
I thought; but my vain efforts to find egress seemed to kindle anew
their enthusiasm. They had received large reinforcements, and my march
around was now received with deafening squeaks. Finally, my exploring
hands fell upon a pair of heels which vanished at my touch. Here at last
was the narrow road to freedom! The heels proved to be the property of
Lieutenant Charles H. Morgan, 21st Wisconsin, a Chickamauga prisoner.
Just ahead of him in the tunnel was Lieutenant William L. Watson of the
same company and regiment. With my cut hand and bruised shoulder, the
passage through the cold, narrow grave was indescribably horrible, and
when I reached the terminus in the yard I was sick and faint. The
passage seemed to me to be a mile long; but the crisp, pure air and the
first glimpse of freedom, the sweet sense of being out of doors, and the
realization that I had taken the first step toward liberty and home,
had a magical effect in my restoration.

[Illustration: FIGHTING THE RATS.]

I have related before, in a published reminiscence,[15] my experience
and that of my two companions above named in the journey toward the
Union lines, and our recapture; but the more important matter relating
to the plot itself has never been published. This is the leading motive
of this article, and therefore I will not intrude the details of my
personal experience into the narrative. It is enough to say that it was
a chapter of hairbreadth escapes, hunger, cold, suffering, and, alas!
failure. We were run down and captured in a swa