Attempted escape of Confederate officers from Fort Warren.
Drs.
Gibbe and
Freeman, late exchanged surgeons from
Fort Warren, bring intelligence of several of our officers being in close confinement at that fort for an attempt to escape.
In a note from
Dr. Freeman he says that he was confined in
Fort Warren when
Major Reid Sandres, C. S. A.,
Lieuts J. W. Alexander and
James Thurston, of the Confederate steamer
Atlanta, and
Lieut. C. W. Bead, of the
Tacony, (who burnt the Yankee revenue cutter off
Portland,) effected in partial escape.
A letter has also been reserved at the Navy Department from
Europe relative to the same incident.
We combine the accounts.
In August last some officers and sailers (
E. B. Pryde, Mester's Mete of the
Tacony and
Sherman, an old U. S. sailor, imprisoned by the
Yankee Government for refusing to fight against the
South,) came to an understanding that it was possible to get through the musket holes in the fort and so escape.
On the night of the 18th of August the two sailors effected their egress from their cells, and having reached a little island a quarter of a mile off got a boat and returned for the officers.
Being observed, however, by the sentinel, they were obliged to retreat, and next day, capturing a small sloop, "in the name of the
Confederate States," they set sail and reached the
Bay of Fundy in eight days, almost starved, and without having lasted water for five days.
The officers above mentioned got out of their room on the same night, as agreed.
Major Sanders was the largest of the four who could be squeezed through with life left.
To the others of their room-mates it was an absolute impossibility.
They waited on the shore in rain for the boat till near morning, when they were successful in returning through the aperture to their quarters undiscovered.
Some nights afterwards the adventure was renewed.
Alexander and
Thurston availed themselves of an old target, by which they reached the little island near.--They also, however, were obliged to give up the intention of returning to take off the others.
Maj. Sanders and
Lt. Read, meanwhile, endeavored to get off with planks and oil cans, which they had fastened together, but their means were insufficient.
Near daylight they again essayed their return to the cell; but the plank by which they were scaling the wall to the loop-hole, fifteen feet up, broke under
Lt. Read.
The noise attracted the sentinel, and they were discovered.
Thurston and
Alexander were also recaptured off
Portland and returned to the fort Upon refusing to give parole not to attempt escape again, they were all four sincerely confined in the casemates of the fort, where they remain.
The details of preparation for a compressive journey through a very small opening — by oiling, starvation, &c., for a week beforehand, are very amusing.
They got out by a rope, and returned by the plank.
It was deemed so incredible that a man could get through these contracted apertures that
Stanton sent orders to have the experiment made by a five Yankee.
Since this the musket-holes have been divided by an iron bar, and a sentinel with a loaded gun walks under each one continually.
The reference to the miscreant
Harris, who betrayed
Maj. Sanders, and was promoted for it,
Dr. Freeman says he is universally despised even by the officers of the
Yankee section themselves.
They call him a double-edged traitor.
All the prisoners at
Fort Warren were in good health when the surgeons left.
Capt. Webb and
Maj. Crittenden begged the four young men in the casemates to give their parole, as flight was now absolutely impossible, and they might as well have what liberty the prisoners in general enjoyed.
But they steadily refused, declaring it their intention to escape whenever the opportunity offered.
They are allowed exercise out of doors an hour or two every day, no one speaking to them without permission, and during this time their cell is diligently searched for any concealed means of escape.
