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Show ISY DASR&g. I Of the 109 Union prisoners who escaped from Libby Prison at Richmond, Rich-mond, Va., in February, 1864, only one Is now known to be alive. Ho is Gen. Benjamin Franklin Fisher, now SO years. His homo Is In Val-ley Val-ley Forge, near Philadelphia. From a standpoint of safety and ease there is nothing better than to be a prisoner of war. A soldier has t" Stand up and be shot at A prisoner usually is as well fed as the soldier and he spends his time rutins. Unlike the prisoners In ivil life the prisoner of war Is not disgraced. But the confinement wears on the prisoner lie L- kept in ignorance of the news from the front and hears from his side only when new prisoners are brought in. Besides the true soldier wants to get back and light. That is what actuated the soldiers of Libby Prison, ac-cording ac-cording to the story as told by leneral Fisher a half ccnturv at'tor the thrllllns escape astonished the South jnd was the occasion of much laudable comment in the North. The escape from Libby Prison was one of the most carefully planned events of that kind on rcc-ord. rcc-ord. How they found an old chisel and dug their way not only out uf the prison, but under the yard and outside the outermost prison ow, the tunneling out of Uhhy was planned and executed principally princi-pally by Cel. Thomas E Rose. I was not one of tho llrst to be let into the secret', 'out about the time the tunnel was nearly completed I was told of It by a near friend, who was one of the prisoners, and Invited In-vited to join the enterprise. M thai time I vn9 in the hospital In tho prison. 1 was not very ill, hut I did not mind staying there; and, by tho way, I want to say that the food In Libby Prison was not so bad as you sometimes hear It was. The soup was good and the fare as good as a soldier usually gets. "The efforts to escape had been.' progressing lor more than a month before I learned of them. There v erc several plans attempted before the tunnel was finally decided upon as the most feasible one. Ofti ers Who had been captured by the Confederates Con-federates at the battle of Chick-amauga Chick-amauga and were confined in Llbhy Prison formed a combination In December, De-cember, 1S6:;. They swore each other to secrecy. Colonel Rose wjs the chief mover of the project, but all of them were determined to make their escape. BRICKS REMOVED FROM B iCK OF FIREPL ( 1 . "Their secret was so well kept that therr comrades in the prison. 15 fence back of the guards, was related re-lated the other day by General Fisher himself. "The Army of the Potomac was still under the command of Hooker." Hook-er." he said. "On the night of June Iti, 18G3, our party was suddenly surprised by ninety of Mosby's men on a raid and I was taken prisoner. The man who took me came from nowhere in particular, so far as I. could see, but suddenly I was confronted con-fronted by a fellow 16 feet high, who almost put his revolver down my throat. I know he was not 16 feet high but he looked like a giant to me. I instinctively put my hand to my hip to draw my own weapon, .but my hand fell by my side before I completed the movement. "I was a prisoner or war. The fellow who captured me said that his finger was already on his trigger as my h?.nd went back, and I escaped es-caped death by a hair's breadth. I was taken to Richmond and placed in Libby Prison, where captured Union officers were confined. like myself, did not know what they were doing. They first removed the bricks from back of the fireplace in what was called the kitchen and then dux their way down into the cellar under the next apartment. They made an entrance through the wall that was something like the letter S. They had to conceal their activity from the guard, for he prisoners were lined up and counted twice each day, once In the morning morn-ing and again in the afternoon. "WTille at first a great deal of work was done at night, later Colonel Col-onel Rose and his chosen companions com-panions worked in the day. That meant that some clever dodging and Impersonation had to oe done twice a day when the prisoners were counted. The prisoners were lined up in rows, and alter the men at one end had stood up to be counted, count-ed, those in the plot stooped and hastily but quietly ran to the other end and were there counted again. The number consequently tallied. There were five men to be accounted account-ed for at fuur times, and again three men "This plan worked well enough for a time, but some of the rrlson-ers rrlson-ers discovering the men sneaking down the line to be counted again, and they, thinking it was a practical joke, attempted to do the same thinfr. They were discovered, and then the guard called the roll and placed sentries back of the line to prevent the impersonation. The discovery dis-covery of the fraud was brought about by a comical Incident. Tho clerk in counting found there were more men present than were known to be prisoners. He was puzzled and called the roll. On that occasion It was found that two of the men were missing. "They were In an awkward predicament. pre-dicament. One of the missing men answered at tip m xt roll and explained ex-plained that he had been asleep in one of the apartments and had not beer. seen. The other man had de- I ! td 'I to remain In the cellar and continue the work of tunneling. "The tunnel was more than f0 fe ' long, and it had to bo dug with a chisel through the hard ground. Ono man dug and filled a prison spittoon, a square wooden box, and this was drawn back Into the cellar cel-lar and the earth hidden under some straw. While one man worked in the tunnel, which was a little more than two feet in diameter, another fanned air into the tunnel. tun-nel. When I was' let into tho secret, se-cret, and they sent for mo because, as chief signal officer I was believed be-lieved to be well acquainted with the country and roads through Which w (- ahould have to pass to reaCll the Union lines, the tunnel ilnxost completed. At this time the original eleven men. lneludng Colonel Rose, who was a PenhsyJV vanian. had been Increased to nine-te nine-te by the admission of eight more into the secret. "After working in the ' il air, and with little rest, the tunnel vas believed to be nearly finished, but it was discovered that tho opening that was mad. nnc out -omic feet : hort of the fence to the north of the prison, and would have led to dis overy as soon as a prisoner should attempt to pass through it. "I must explain that the prison Stood by itself, and to the north of it was a vacant lot about llfty feet wide. A fence separated it from the back yard of warehouse which fronted on tho same street as the prison. There were no sen-trli sen-trli on the other ride of this fonce, but there were six of thorn constantly constant-ly patrollng the outside of the prison. pris-on. In the warehouse were tome boxes containing clothes that had been sent as present for the prisoners pris-oners by friends. Tho sentries were not paying any attention to either these clothes or to the warehouse. "It was the plan to have the tunnel tun-nel open Into the yard in the rear of the warehouse and for the es-capinc es-capinc prisoner? to pass through the warehouse to the street after they emtrKcd from the tunnel. "I was working on the tunnel during the last few days, and when ve found that we had brought it out into the vacant lot, and not on the other side of the fence, we were rather dismayed for a while. Colonol Rose was equal to tho occasion oc-casion He first stuffed an old coat Into the small opening and later Shoved through it an old shoe. Wo looked at the shoe lying unsuspiciously unsus-piciously there from one of the windows win-dows of the prison. WATCHES SHOE WHILE PLAYING CHESS GAME. "We wero fearful that either the prison commandant or the prisoners who were not In the secret would discover the tunnel, and during tho whole of the next day I sat by the window, playing chess with one of the prisoners, so that I might keep watch on the spot where our tunnel tun-nel ' ame out and which was marked by the position of the old shoe. Tho man who wars playing with me Gen. Benjamin F. Fisher, ?f-Sole ?f-Sole Survivor of Libby Tunnel Diggers, Tells ! How He and His 4 Companions Tunneled Under the Guards and Gained Federal Lines, i never suspected the plot, and the day passed without the prison officials offi-cials discovering the tunnel, either. "That night ajid the following day we worked on the tunnel again, and on the night of February 9 the work was completed. An opening was made through the soil and Colonel Rose, almost exhausted by hla efforts ef-forts and by the lack of air in the tunnel, shoved his hands through the ground Into the cold night air. The opening was enlarged and Colonel Col-onel Rose looked over the ground. He went into the warehouse, and then, plnclng a couple of boards over the hole to conceal It, crawled c 1 " ,.4 A back and organized the escape. The first party of nine was led by himself him-self and I led the second party of ten. My party left about an hour after Colonel Rose, and then, Colonel Col-onel Rose having had the word passed around tho prison that the tunnel was finished und that every man was welcome to take his chance to escape through it, a crowd of prisoners took advantage of the opportunity op-portunity . "Rose and his party got away and I and my party got away without the sentries being alarmed. One of them, when questioned the next day, I have been told, said that he did see several parties of men coming com-ing out of the warehouse, but that he thought they were some of the young men of the town robbing the prisoners' boxes and did not pay any attention to them Tho next morning, morn-ing, according to reports, when the roll was called it was found that 109 prisoners had escaped during tho night. Many of these were retaken. "As we came out of the warehouse ware-house the street was in darkness, save for a gaslight, which only threw a shadow about the place where Ave emerged. I and my friend walked rapidly down the street. Wo had saved from our rations lor days, and had a supply of food in our haverstacke. The weather was very cold, and I was without an overcoat, but I never noticed tho discomfort, being solely interested in making my way back to the Union lines. "As wo crossed a railroad bridge I heard on sentry call to another. to nak him if ho noticed any men, but before they could mako an in vestigution we had disappeared into tho woods. We traveled at nigni, and for eleven days and twolv nights I was on the road, in the depth of winter, in tho marsh lands and woods. As we lay hiding at times, we heard our pursuers, but thej never caught up with us. The night before I reached the Union lines at Williamsburg, my companion compan-ion and mysell were rather hungry. I saw a hut of a negro and went to it. A negro woman opened tho door and her children surrounded U3. I a-ked her if there were any, I Confederate soldiers arcund. She told us thcro were some up at tha master's house, but before we could get out in walked the master himself. him-self. "I asked him which was the best road to take to reach Richmond, trying to give tho Impression that we were Confederates trying to get back to our lines. He took us out to the road and said. Sure. I'll show you.' We understood that wo had failed to fool him, for instead of showing us ho walked directly back to his house. We started to run for jfei It, and in a moment soldiers rushed out of tho house and began to shoot about us. That night I lost my companion. When I awoke the following fol-lowing morning ho was not to be found, having evidently given him self up. Early the following morn ing I dragged myself into Williams-burg, Williams-burg, and reported to the Union force thore. They took m In and told me that the temperature was 1 degrees below zero, but I never realized It was so cold. "I rejoined the Army of the Po- tomac, which now was in command of General Meade, and when I was about to bo sent out on a special dutj one day, Mead said to me, by way of a joke. 'You were captured once.' I returned tho compliment, j for I said to him, 'Yes; but you left your lines open for Mosby's men to get through.' " 1 rr , l He s a self-made man, is he" 1 not?" "Yes, except for the altera- d tlons made by his wife and hef j mother." Judge, p |