Hopes of liberty.
The whole of our party was now notified that after taps, which occurried at 9 o'clock every night, we would raise the door and enter the commissary.
In each casemate there was a porthole about seven feet above the water in the moat.
We had planned to let ourselves down through the one in the commissary to the water by means of a rope fastened on the inside to a barrel of pork.
All of the party except myself could swim.
A rope nearly a hundred feet long was to be fastened around my waist and under my arms.
We had secured these helps by means known to prisoners of war. I was to be the last man to crawl through the port-hole, and the seventh, or the one just ahead of me, was to hold on to the rope attached to me, and thus assist me over the moat.
Entering the commissary, we found a Federal soldier asleep in his bunk.
He proved to be the commissary sergeant.
Everything having been arranged, I stood guard over the sergeant, while the others passed out at the port-hole.
Fortunately, the soldier did not awake.
I passed quickly through the hole when my turn came, and found that the man who was to hold the rope attached to me had let it slip from his hand, and I was left to get across as best I could.
I can hardly tell how I managed, but I seemed to wade a short distance under water, then spring to the surface for breath, let myself down again, go forward, and again come to the surface, and in this way was soon across.
