Identifier: andersonvilles00mcel (find matches)
Title: Andersonville : a story of Rebel military prisons, fifteen months a guest of the so-called southern confederacy : a private soldier's experience in Richmond, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen, Blackshear, and Florence
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: McElroy, John, 1846-1929
Subjects: Andersonville Prison United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865
Publisher: Toledo : D. R. Locke
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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nder hope thatif we could reach this we might perhaps get across the river,and find better opportunities for escape. But these last exi)ect-ations were blasted by the discovery that it was guarded.There was a post and a fire on the shore next us, and a singleguard witli a bmtern Avas stationed on one of the middle spans.Almost famished with hunger, and so weary and footsore thatwe could scarcely move another step, we went back to a clearedplace on the high ground, and laid down to sleep, entirely reck-less as to what became of us. Late in the morning we wereawakened by the Rebel patrol and taken back to the prison.Lieutenant Davis, disgusted with the perpetual attempts to THERE WAS A POST AND A FIRE. A STOUT OF REBEL MILITARY PRISONS. 4:09 escape, moved the Dead Line out forty feet from the Stockade;but this restricted our room greatly, since the number of pris-oners in the pen had now risen to about six thousand, and,besides, it offered little additional protection against tunneling.
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iv >vas not much more difficult to digfifty feet than it had been to dig thirtyfeet. Davis soon realized this, and putthe Dead Line back to twenty feet.His next device was a much more sensi-ble one. A crowd of one hundred andfifty negros dug a trench twent)^ feetwide and five feet deep around thes -whole prison on the outside, and this3 ditch was filled with water from the^S City Water Works. No one could cross^ this without attracting the attention ofthe guards. CARRTmG AWAY THE DIRT. Still we wcrc uot discouragcd, andAndrews and I joined a crowd that wa&constructing a large tunnel from near our quarters on the eastside of the pen. We finished the burrow to within a fewinches of the edge of the ditch, and then ceased operations, tOawait some stormy night, when we could hope to get acrossthe ditcli unnoticed. Orders were issued to guards to fire without warning on menwho were observed to be digging or carrying out dirt afternightfall. They occasionally did so, but the risk did

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