89. An Escape from Prison
BY TIMOTHY DWIGHT (1781)
ABOUT the same time, orders were received from the
commanding general at New York,
which were concealed from General Wadsworth, but he finally learned
that he was not to be
paroled nor exchanged, but was to be sent to England as a rebel of too
much consequence to be at
liberty.
Not long afterwards Major Benjamin Burton, a brave and
worthy man, who had served
under General Wadsworth the preceding summer, was taken and
brought into the fort, and lodged
in the same room with General Wadsworth. He had been informed that
both himself and the
general were to be
sent, immediately after the return of a privateer now out on a cruise,
either to New York or
Halifax, and thence to England.
The prisoners immediately resolved to make a desperate
attempt to effect their escape.
They were confined in a grated room in the officers' barracks within
the fort. The walls of this
fortress, exclusively of the depth of the ditch surrounding it, were
twenty feet high, with fraising
on the top, and chevaux de frise[217] at
the bottom.
Two sentinels were always in the entry, and their door, the
upper part of which was of
glass, might be opened by these watchmen whenever they thought
proper, and was actually
opened at seasons of peculiar darkness and silence. At the exterior
doors of the entries, sentinels
were also stationed, as were others in the body of the fort, and at the
quarters of General
Campbell.
At the guard house, a strong guard was daily mounted. Several
sentinels were stationed
on the walls of the fort, and a complete line occupied them by night.
Outside the ditch, glacis and
abattis, another complete set of soldiers patroled through the night. The
gate of the fort was shut
at sunset, and a guard was placed on or near the isthmus leading from
the fort to the main land.
The room in which they were confined was railed with boards.
One of these they
determined to cut off so as to make a hole large enough to pass
through, and then to creep along
till they should come to the next or middle entry; and then lower
themselves down into this entry
by a blanket. If they should not be discovered, the passage to the walls
of the fort was easy.
In the evening, after the sentinels had seen the prisoners retire
to bed, General
Wadsworth got up and standing in a chair attempted to cut with his
knife the intended opening,
but soon found it impracticable. The next day by giving a soldier a
dollar they procured a gimlet.
With this instrument they proceeded cautiously and as silently
as possible to perforate the
board, and in order to conceal every appearance from their servants and
from the officers their
visitors, they carefully covered the gimlet holes with chewed bread. At
the end of three weeks
their labors were so far completed that it only remained to cut with a
knife the parts which were
left to hold the piece in its place.
When their preparations were finished, they learned that the
privateer in which they were
to embark was daily expected. In the evening of the 18th of June, a
very severe storm of rain, with
great darkness and almost incessant lightning came on. This the
prisoners considered as the
propitious moment.
Having extinguished their lights, they began to cut the corners
of the board, and in less
than an hour the intended opening was completed. The noise which the
operation occasioned was
drowned by the rain falling on the roof. Major Burton first ascended to
the ceiling, and pressed
himself through the opening.
General Wadsworth came next, put the corner of his blanket
through the hole and made
it fast by a strong wooden skewer, and then attempted to make his way
through by standing on a
chair below; but it was with extreme difficulty that he at length effected
it, and reached the middle
entry.
From this he passed through the door, which he found open,
and made his way to the
wall of the fort,
and had to encounter the greatest difficulty before he could ascend to
the top. He had now to
creep along the top of the fort between the sentry boxes at the very
moment when the relief was
shifting sentinels, but the falling of heavy rain kept the sentinels within
their boxes, and favored his
escape.
He now fastened his blanket around a picket at the top, and he
let himself down through
the chevaux de frise to the ground, and in a manner astonishing to
himself made his way into the
open field. Here he was obliged to grope his way among rocks, stumps
and brush in the darkness
of night, till he reached the cove. Happily the tide had ebbed and
enabled him to cross the water,
about a mile in breadth and not more than three feet deep. About two
o'clock in the morning
General Wadsworth found himself a mile and a half from the fort, and
he proceeded through a
thick wood and brush to the Penobscot river; and after passing some
distance along the shore,
seven miles from the fort, to his unspeakable joy he saw his friend
Burton advancing towards him.
Major Burton had been obliged to encounter in his course
equal difficulties with his
companion, and such were the incredible perils, dangers and
obstructions, which they surmounted,
that their escape may be considered almost miraculous. It was now
necessary they should cross
the Penobscot river, and very fortunately they discovered a canoe with
oars on the shore suited to
their purpose.
While on the river they discovered a barge with a party of
British from the fort in pursuit
of them, but by taking an oblique course, and plying their oars to the
utmost, they happily eluded
the eyes of their pursuers and arrived safe on the western shore.
After having wandered in the wilderness for several days and
nights, exposed to extreme
fatigue and cold, and with no other food than a little dry bread and
meat, which they brought in
their pockets from the fort, they reached the settlements on the river St.
George, and no further
difficulties attended their return to their respective families.
[[217]]
Sharp wooden stakes.