AN ACCOUNT
OF THE
Escape of Six Federal Soldiers
FROM PRISON AT DANVILLE, VA.:

Their Travels by Night

THROUGH

THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY TO THE UNION PICKETS

AT GAULEY BRIDGE, WEST VIRGINIA,

IN THE WINTER OF 1863-64.

BY

W. H. NEWLIN,

Lieutenant Seventy-Third Illinois Volunteers.

CINCINNATI:
WESTERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN PRINT.
1887.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,
BY W. H. NEWLIN,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

The account contained in these pages was first written in1866. Its publication was delayed in the hope that weshould learn something of our two comrades who were leftbehind. After revising and abridging it somewhat, it ispresented to the reader in its present form. We werecompelled to rely on memory in preserving for publicationthe incidents here narrated, as while on our trip we hadneither pencil nor paper. That reliance, however, was notin vain, as the scenes through which we passed, thoughhere poorly portrayed, are of a character not easily forgotten.They are indelibly enstamped on the memory, and itseems each year as it passes renders the recollection ofthem more vivid and distinct. It is not needful to statethe motives which prompted this compilation. Much of thesame character has been written and published, but as thisdiffers in one essential particular, at least, from all that hasyet appeared, we hope that fact will form a sufficientexcuse for introducing it to the public.

W. H. N.

This Narrative Duly Authenticated by Sworn Statements of Two Comrades who were on the Escape, is on file in Pension Claim, No. 352,023.

From all the information ever obtained touching the fate of firstcomrade left behind, the reasonable conclusion is that he PERISHED ator near the place where we left him, his remains being found and decentlyburied near Blue Ridge Mountain. Whatever his fate may havebeen, it was self decreed. His reasons for preferring to be left alonewere satisfactory to him, and were not all disclosed to us. Oneexplanation of this last rather singular circumstance may be foundin the fact that the comrade was an Englishman, and had been inthis country but a few weeks before enlisting.

How much we should like to see the old "darky" to whom wesaid, "Put your ear to the string-hole," and on his compliance withthe request we pronounced the word "Yankees." (See page 60.)"I'll git my trowserloons on."

In the case of leaving the second comrade, as described on pages72-76, there was no option or time for deliberation. The exigenciesof the hour compelled a separation. Mr. Tripp succeeded in escapingthe notice of our pursuers, though hid in their immediatevicinity, and hearing their talk enumerating reasons for their failureto "take us