Daring and Suffering: a History of the Great Railroad Adventure

CHAPTER IV.. Take an Early Train--Prospecting--Capture of the Train--Panic

Take an Early Train--Prospecting--Capture of the Train--Panic in Confederate Camp--Away at Lightning Speed--Thrilling Experience--Cut the Telegraph--Tear up the Track--Unexpected Obstacle--Running a Powder Train to Beauregard--Red Flag--Dropping Cross-Ties--Battering out Spikes--Immense Exertion of Strength--Pursuing Backward--Terrible Chase--Attempt to Wreck the Enemy's Train--Fearful Speed--Bold Plan. 57-67

CHAPTER V.. Consternation Along the Route--Wood and Water--Attempt

Consternation along the Route--Wood and Water--Attempt to Fire the Train--Partial Failure--Message sent to Chattanooga--Terrific Preparations--Abandon the Train--A Capital Error--In the Woods--A Thrilling Account of the Chase from the Atlanta "Southern Confederacy." 68-90

CHAPTER VI.. Stupendous "man Hunt"--My Own Adventures--Playing

Stupendous "Man Hunt"--My Own Adventures--Playing Acrobat--Perilous Crossing of a River--Hunger--The Bloodhounds--Flying for Life--No Sun or Star to Guide me--Traveling in a Circle--Nearing Chattanooga--Lost in Deadened Timber--Glimpse of the Moon--Fatigue produces Phantoms--Dreadful Storm--I Sleep and enter Fairy Land--Glorious Visions--Reality--A Picket--Romance Faded--Horrible Situation--Day Dawn--No Relief. 91-105

CHAPTER VII.

Sabbath--Continuous Rain--Press Onward--Observed--Arrested--Curious Examination--Equivocating for Life--Plans Foiled by Unexpected News--Plundered--Jail--Terrible Reflections--New and Hopeful Resolve--Unwelcome Visitors--Vigilance Committee Disappointed--Ordered to Chattanooga--A Mob--Chained to the Carriage--Escort--The Journey--Musings--Arrival--Another Mob--Benevolent Gentleman(?)--General Leadbetter--Andrews. 106-126

CHAPTER VIII.. Negro Prison--Swims, the Jailor--Horrible Dungeon--Black

Negro Prison--Swims, the Jailor--Horrible Dungeon--Black Hole of Calcutta--Suffocation--Union Prisoners--Slave Catching--Our Party Reunited--Breakfast Lowered by Rope--Hunger--Counseling--Fiendish Barbarity--Chained in the Dungeon--Andrews tried as a Spy and Traitor--Sweet, but Stolen News--Removed from Dungeon--Pure Air and Sunlight--Attacked by a Mob--"A Friend"--Madison--Daring Adventure and Narrow Escape. 127-147

CHAPTER IX.. Return to Chattanooga--Caution of Rebels--Unchain Ourselves--Mock

Return to Chattanooga--Caution of Rebels--Unchain Ourselves--Mock Trials--The Judge--Singing--One Kindness--Projected Escape--Loitering Comrades--A Gleam of Hope--Sad Parting--Knoxville--Prison Inmates--Brownlow--Awful Cruelty--Andrews Condemned to Death--Escapes with Wollam--Fearful Perils--Swimming the River--Hiding on an Island--Found by Children--Yields to His Fate--Horrible Death--Wollam's Stratagem--On the River--Passes a Gun Boat--Final Capture. 148-170

CHAPTER X.. Sorrow for Andrews--Prepare for Trial--Charges and

Sorrow for Andrews--Prepare for Trial--Charges and Specifications--Plan of Defence--Incidents of Trial--Encouragement--Not Allowed to Hear Pleading--Lawyer's Plea--Seven Tried--Mitchel Dissolves the Court--Tied Again--A Saucy Reply--Advantage of Sickness--Fry Deceived--Revolting Inhumanity--Fry's Capture--Starve to Atlanta--Taunts of the Mob--Atlanta Prison--A Kind Jailor. 171-183

CHAPTER XI.. Cavalry Approach--Seven Removed From the Room--Suspense--Sentence

Cavalry Approach--Seven Removed from the Room--Suspense--Sentence of Death--Heart-rending Separation--Death and the Future--Not Prepared--Inhuman Haste--The Tragedy--Speech on the Scaffold--Breaking Ropes--Enemies Affected--Gloom of Survivors--Prayer. 184-192

CHAPTER XII.. Religious Experience--Contraband Assistance--Intelligence

Religious Experience--Contraband Assistance--Intelligence of Negroes--Love of Freedom--Wollam's Recapture--A Friendly Preacher--Obtain Books--Disgusting Diet--Plays--Debates--Reading Hours--Envy the Birds--Dreams of Home--Telegraphing--Friends from our Army--Hope Deferred--Union Society--Difficulties of Tobacco-chewers--Precious Books. 193-207

CHAPTER XIII.. Contemplated Escape--Startling Intelligence--Our Doom

Contemplated Escape--Startling Intelligence--Our Doom Pronounced from Richmond--Hesitate no Longer--Our Plan--All Ready--Supper--Farewell--Life or Death--Seize the Jailor--Guns Wrested from Guards--Alarm Given--Scaling the Wall--Guards Fire--Terrible Chase--Six Recaptured--Wood and Wilson Reach the Gulf--Dorsey's Narrative--Porter's Account--Boasting of the Guards--Barlow's Cruel Death. 208-223

CHAPTER XIV.. Despair and Hope--Bitten Finger--Removed to Barracks--Greater

Despair and Hope--Bitten Finger--Removed to Barracks--Greater Comfort--Jack Wells--Cruel Punishment of Tennesseeans--Story of a Spy--Help Him to Escape--Virtue of a Coat--A Practical Joke--Unionism--Sweet Potatoes--Enlisting in Rebel Army--Description of a Day--Happy News--Start for Richmond--Not Tied--Night Journey--Varied Incidents--Lynchburg--Rebel Audacity Punished--Suffering from the Cold--Arrival in Richmond. 224-246

CHAPTER XV.. The City by Moonlight--Old Accusation Renewed--Libby

The City by Moonlight--Old Accusation Renewed--Libby Prison--Discomfort--A Change--Citizens' Department--Richmond Breakfast--Removed under Guard--Castle Thunder--Miniature Bedlam--Conceal a Knife--Confined in a Stall--Dreadful Gloom--Routine of a Day--Suffering at Night--Friends Exchanged--Newspapers--Burnside--Pecuniary Perplexities--Captain Webster--Escape Prevented--Try Again on Christmas Night--Betrayed--Fearful Danger Avoided. 247-266

CHAPTER XVI.. Letter Sent Home--Alarming Pestilence--Our Quarters

Letter sent Home--Alarming Pestilence--Our Quarters Changed--Rowdyism--Fairy Stories--Judge Baxter--Satanic Strategy--Miller's History--An Exchange with a Dead Man--Effect of Democratic Victories--Attempt to Make us Work--Digging out of a Cell--Worse than the Inquisition--Unexpected Interference--List from "Yankee Land"--Clothing Stolen--Paroled--A Night of Joy--Torch-light March--On the Cars--The Boat--Reach Washington--Receive Medals, Money, and Promotion--Home. 267-288

INTRODUCTION.

While our absent brothers are battling on the field, it is becoming that the friends at home should be eager for the minutest particulars of the camp-life, courage and endurance of the dear boys far away; for to the loyal lover of his country every soldier is a brother.

The narrative related on the following pages is one of extraordinary "daring and suffering," and will excite an interest in the public mind such as has rarely, if ever, arisen from any personal adventures recorded on the page of history.

WILLIAM PITTENGER, the oldest of a numerous family, was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, January 31st, 1840. His father, THOMAS PITTENGER, is a farmer, and trains his children in the solid experiences of manual labor. His mother is from a thinking familyhood of people, many of whom are well known in Eastern Ohio as pioneers in social and moral progress--the MILLS'S. WILLIAM learned to love his country about as early as he learned to love his own mother; for his first lessons were loyalty and liberty, syllabled by a mother's lips. Even before the boy could read, he knew in outline the history of our nation's trials and triumphs, from the days of Bunker Hill, forward to the passing events of the latest newspaper chronicling,--all of which facts were nightly canvassed around the cabin-hearth.

Although he was an adept in all branches of learning, yet, in school days, as now, young PITTENGER had two favorite studies; and they happened to be the very ones in the prosecution of which his teachers could aid him scarcely at all--History and Astronomy. But, in the face of discouragement, with the aid only of accidental helps, and by the candle-light and the star-light after the sunny hours had been toiled away, he pressed patiently and perseveringly forward in his own chosen methods, until he became an accurate historian, and a practical astronomer. At the age of seventeen, he manufactured, for the most part with his own hands, a reflecting telescope, which his friends came from near and far to see, and gaze through, at the wonderful worlds unthought-of before.

The ambitions of farm-life were not sufficient to occupy the head and hands of this searcher for knowledge. To explore the fields of the firmament with his telescope, gave him intenser pleasure than the most faithful farmer ever realized from furrowing his fields in the dewiest spring mornings. To follow the footsteps of heroes through the world's annals, as they struggled up through conflicts to glorious liberty, thrilled him with a livelier enthusiasm than ever sprang from the music of marching harvesters. While other young men of his age and neighborhood idled their rainy days and winter nights in trifling diversions, there was one who preferred the higher joy of communion with Humboldt in his "Cosmos," Macaulay in his "England," Irving in his "Columbus," or Burritt in his "Geography of the Heavens."

Owing to this decided preference for science and literature, the father found it advisable to indulge his son in the desire to enter a field more consonant with his wishes. He accordingly qualified himself, by close study at home, and without a tutor, for the profession of teaching. In this honorable avocation he labored with industry and promise, until he felt constrained by love of country to quit the desk and the children, for the tent and the hosts of armed men.

During his career as teacher, he was, for awhile, associated with the writer in the publication of the School Visitor, then issued at Cleveland, Ohio. The enterprise was, at that time, (1857-8,) to the great outer world, an unnoticed and insignificant one; yet to those whose little all was enlisted in the mission of a Day School paper, it was, indeed, something that lay close upon their hearts. That was a cheerless, friendless time in the history of the little Visitor, to at least two inexperienced adventurers in the literary world. But these were hidden trials, and shall be unwritten still.

The never-forgotten teachings of his mother, together with the unconscious tuition resulting from observation and experience, made PITTENGER an early and constant friend of freedom. Any mind imbued with an admiration of God's marches in the Heavens as an Omnipotent Creator, and inspired by a contemplation of God's finger in History as a merciful Deliverer, will rise to the high level of universal love to man, and will comprehend the broad equality of Gospel liberty and republican brotherhood. Let a man be educated, head and heart, and he will love freedom, and demand freedom, and "dare and suffer" for freedom, not for himself only, but for all the oppressed of the whole earth.

Reader, you may draw lines. You may profess a conservative Christianity that would theologize the very grace out of the command, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." You may ignore this Christ-like precept, and adopt something more fashionable and aristocratic; but if you do, you entertain in your heart treason, both to your Father in heaven and to your brother on earth. This law of love is revealed to lowly men. It cuts down through crowns and creeds and chains, and rests as a blessed benediction on sufferers and slaves. This is the inspiration that brings victory to our arms, and deals death to destroyers. This was the spirit that prompted our young hero to stand forth, one of the very first from his native county, a soldier for right and righteousness, the moment the Sumter cry rang up the valley of his Ohio home.

When PITTINGER became a volunteer, it was for the suppression of the Rebellion with all its belongings,--and if its overthrow should tumble slavery, with its clanking fetters and howling hounds, to the uttermost destruction, he would grasp his gun the firmer for the hope, and thank God for the prospect, the test, and the toil! He enlisted as a soldier for his country, ready to march anywhere, strike with any weapon, endure any fatigue, or share any sorrow. He went out not merely an armored warrior, to ward off attacks, not to strike off obnoxious top-growths; but to "lay the ax at the root of the tree," and to pierce the very heart of the monster iniquity.

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