United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Anecdotes
From the day Rose entered the prison he made up his mind that he would
not die there like a sick dog if there was any way of escape and there
was not a moment of his waking hours in which he was not planning some
way to get out. Although the prisoners were not supposed to have
communication with each other or from outside, there was a complete
system under which each one had news from all over the prison as well
as from the outside world. This was done by a series of raps
constituting the prison telegraph. As the guards usually visited the
prison only at intervals in the daytime, the prisoners managed to pass
back and forth down through the chimney throughout the whole prison in
spite of locked doors and supposedly solid walls. Messages and money
were frequently sent in from outside. A favorite trick was to wind
greenbacks around a spool and then have the thread wound by machinery
over this money. Gold pieces were sealed up in cans of condensed milk.
Maps, compasses and other helps for escaping prisoners were sent in a
box. In order to prevent suspicion of the fact that the box had a
double bottom, two double bottoms were placed on the box side by side
with a space between them. When the contents were turned out, the
prison inspectors could see the light shining through the bottom of the
box and were thus convinced that there could be no double bottom there.
Letters were sent in containing apparently harmless home-news. Between
the lines, information as to routes and guards was written in lemon
juice. This was invisible until exposed to heat, when the writing would
show.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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