AN ACCOUNT OF THE ESCAPE OF SIX FEDERAL SOLDIERS FROM PRISON AT DANVILLE, VA.: THEIR TRAVELS BY NIGHT THROUGH THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY TO THE UNION PICKETS AT GAULEY BRIDGE, WEST VIRGINIA, IN THE WINTER OF 1863-64. BY W. H. NEWLIN, _Lieutenant Seventy-Third Illinois Volunteers_. CINCINNATI: WESTERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN PRINT. 1887. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, BY W. H. NEWLIN, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. The account contained in these pages was first written in 1866. Its publication was delayed in the hope that we should learn something of our two comrades who were left behind. After revising and abridging it somewhat, it is presented to the reader in its present form. We were compelled to rely on memory in preserving for publication the incidents here narrated, as while on our trip we had neither pencil nor paper. That reliance, however, was not in vain, as the scenes through which we passed, though here poorly portrayed, are of a character not easily forgotten. They are indelibly enstamped on the memory, and it seems each year as it passes renders the recollection of them more vivid and distinct. It is not needful to state the motives which prompted this compilation. Much of the same character has been written and published, but as this differs in one essential particular, at least, from all that has yet appeared, we hope that fact will form a sufficient excuse for introducing it to the public. W. H. N. This Narrative DULY AUTHENTICATED by SWORN STATEMENTS of Two Comrades who were on the Escape, is on file in Pension Claim, No. 352,023. [Illustration: After Seventeen Years Inquiry.] From all the information ever obtained touching the fate of first comrade left behind, the _reasonable_ conclusion is that he PERISHED at or near the place where we left him, his remains being found and decently buried near Blue Ridge Mountain. Whatever his _fate_ may have been, it was _self_ decreed. His reasons for preferring to be left alone were satisfactory to him, and were not _all_ disclosed to us. One explanation of this last rather singular circumstance may be found in the fact that the comrade was an Englishman, and had been in this country but a few weeks before enlisting. How much we should like to see the old "darky" to whom we said, "Put your ear to the string-hole," and on his compliance with the request we pronounced the word "_Yankees_." (See page 60.) "I'll git my trowserloons on."