de from the
rigor of our confinement we were treated with marked kindness. We had
scarcely walked about our dungeon before the jailer's daughters were at
the door with their autograph albums. In a few days we were playing
draughts and reading Bulwer, while the girls, without, were preparing
our food and knitting for us warm new stockings. Notwithstanding all
these attentions, we were ungratefully discontented. At the end of the
first week we were joined by seven enlisted men, Ohio boys, who like
ourselves had been found at large in the mountains. From one of these
new arrivals we procured a case-knife and a gun screw-driver. Down on
the hearth before the fire the screw-driver was placed on the thick edge
of the knife and belabored with a beef bone until a few inches of its
back were converted into a rude saw. The grate in the window was formed
of cast-iron bars, passing perpendicularly through wrought-iron plates,
bedded in the stone jambs. If one of these perpendicular bars, an inch
and a half square, could be cut through, the plates might be easily bent
so as to permit the egress of a man. With this end in view we cautiously
began operations. Outside of the bars a piece of carpet had been
stretched to keep out the raw wind, and behind this we worked with
safety. An hour's toil produced but a few feathery filings on the
horizontal plate, but many hands make light work, and steadily the cut
grew deeper. We recalled the adventures of Claude Duval, Dick Turpin,
and Sixteen-string Jack, and sawed away. During the available hours of
three days and throughout one entire night the blade of steel was
worrying, rasping, eating the iron bar. At last the grosser yielded to
the temper and persistence of the finer metal. It was Saturday night
when the toilsome cut was completed, and preparations were already under
way for a speedy departure. The jail had always been regarded as too
secure to require a military guard, although soldiers were quartered in
the town; besides, the night was so cold that a crust had formed on the
snow, and both citizens and soldiers, unused to such extreme weather
would be likely to remain indoors. For greater secrecy of movement, we
divided into small parties, aiming to traverse different roads. I was to
go with my former companion, Captain Smith. Lots were cast to determine
the order of our going. First exit was allotted to four of the Ohio
soldiers. Made fast to the grating outside were a bit of rope and