བྱུང་ངམ་ ས་

Tennessee, were to go out last, and from a window could see the fugitives walk out at a gate at the other end of the inclosure, and walk fearlessly away.

The street-lamps were extinguished between one and two o'clock, when the exit was more safely accomplished. At half past two, Captain Jones, Colonel Kendrick, and Lieutenant Bradford passed out in the order named; and as Colonel K. emerged from the hole, he heard the guard within a few feet of him, sing out "Post No. 7, half past two, in the morning, and all's well!" Once out, they proceeded up the street, keeping in the shade of the buildings, and passed eastwardly through the city.

The route through which Colonel Kendrick, and those of his party passed, and the hardships they endured, it will be necessary to state but briefly: Keeping the York River road to the left, and moving toward the Chickahominy River, they passed through Bear Swamp, and crossed the road leading to Bottom Bridge.

Sometimes they waded through mud and water, almost up to their necks, keeping the Bottom Bridge road to the left. While passing through the swamp near the Chickahominy, Colonel Kendrick sprained his ancle and fell; and while lying there, he looked up and saw in a direct line with them, a swamp bridge and parties passing over it with muskets.

They therefore moved further south, and passing through more of the swamp, reached the Chickahominy, about four miles below Bottom Bridge. Here was a difficulty. The river, though but twenty feet wide, was very deep, and the refugees much fatigued. Chancing, however, to look up, Lieutenant Bradford saw that two trees on opposite sides of the river, had fallen so that their branches were interlocked across the stream; when,

by going up one tree and down the other, the fugitives soon reached the east bank of the Chickahominy.

They subsequently learned from a friendly negro, that if they had crossed the bridge they had seen, they would assuredly have been recaptured; for Captain Turner, the keeper of the Libby prison, had been out and posted guards there, and had alarmed the inhabitants, and organized them as a vigilance committee to capture the escaped prisoners.

After crossing over this natural bridge, they laid down on the ground and slept until sunrise on the morning of the 11th, when they continued on their way, as near eastwardly as they could. Having eaten nothing up to this time, they were almost famished; for, as should have been stated, Lieutenant Bradford, who had charge of the haversack for this squad, had been compelled to leave it in the tunnel, from the narrowness of the passage. About noon they met some negroes, who informed them as to where the Rebel pickets were, and also gave them some food.

By advice of the negroes, they remained in the woods until night, when the negroes furnished them a supper, after which they proceeded on their way, having been first directed how to avoid the Rebel pickets.

At one point they met a negro woman, who told them that her mistress was a Secesh woman, and that she had a son in the Rebel army. The party, however, being exceedingly hungry, determined to secure some food. This they did by boldly approaching the house, and informing the mistress that they were fugitives from Norfolk, who had been driven out by Butler, when the Secesh sympathies of the woman were at once aroused; and she ministered to their necessities, and started them

on their way, with instructions how to avoid the Yankee soldiers, who occasionally scouted in that vicinity.

This information was exceedingly valuable to the refugees, as by it they discovered the position of the Union forces. When about fifteen miles from Williamsburg they came upon the main road, and found the tracks of a large party of cavalry. A piece of paper found by Captain Jones, satisfied him that they were Union cavalry; but his companions were suspicious, and avoided the road, and moved on to the "burnt ordinary" where they awaited the return of the cavalry, and from behind a fence corner, where they were secreted, the fugitives saw the flag of the Union, supported by a squadron of cavalry, which proved to be a detachment of Colonel Spear's 11th Pennsylvania regiment, sent out for the purpose of picking up escaped prisoners, as Colonel Straight had ere this, with a number of other fugitive officers, reached Yorktown.

The party rode into Williamsburg with the cavalry; where they were quartered for the night, and where they found eleven others who had escaped safely, and where they were furnished by Colonel Spear and his command with clothing and other necessaries.

At all points along the route, the fugitives were enthusiastically received by the negroes, and there was no lack of white people who sympathized with them and helped them on their way.

Of the one hundred and nine who left the prison, Rebel authorities subsequently claimed to have recaptured forty-three, and sixty are known to have arrived within our lines in safety; leaving but six unaccounted for; most of whom it was hoped would yet come in, as the Rebel scouts had given up the pursuit.

Colonel Straight of the 51st Indiana Volunteers, and Captain II. B. Chamberlain of the 97th New York Volunteers, after leaving the prison took a northeasterly course, and halted at four o'clock, on the morning of the 10th of February, in a dense wood close by the Chickahominy swamps, and remained the next day. At dark they started again on their journey, crossing the Chickahominy on a fallen tree, and got into a dense thicket, and accomplished only five miles. The third night they started again, steering for the Pamunkey River. The detours they had to make to keep under cover of the woods, and traversing swamps, took them till daylight to reach midway between the Chickahominy and Pamunkey. Next night they reached the Pamunkey ten miles above the White House. The river was up-deep, dangerous and cold-swimming it impracticable.

After four day's delay a negro took them across in a boat-another negro piloted them down the river, fifteen miles, they reached York River, got across in a skiff, reached Yorktown on the 21st and Fortress Monroe the 24th of February.

LITTLE JOHNNY CLEM.

A PLEASANT little incident occurred one evening at General Thomas' Headquarters. Little Johnny Clem, the motherless atom of a drummer-boy, "aged ten," (according to the papers,) who had strayed away from Newark, Ohio, and the first that was known of him, though small enough to live in a drum, was beating

the long roll for the 32d Michigan, was the subject and centre of attraction.

At Chickamauga he had served as "marker," carrying the guidon, by means of which the lines are formed —a duty similar to that of the surveyor's flag-man, who flutters a red signal along the metes and bounds.

On the Sunday of the battle-the little fellow's occupation gone, he picked up a gun that had slipped from some dying hand, provided himself with ammunition, and began putting in the periods, quite on his own account; blazing away close to the ground, like a firefly in the grass.

Late in the waning day, the waif, left almost alone in the whirl of the battle, a Rebel Colonel dashed up, and looking down at him, ordered him to surrender. "Surrender!" he shouted. The word was scarcely out of his mouth, when Johnny brought his piece to "order," and as his hand slipped down to the hammer, he pressed it back, swung his gun up to the position of "charge bayonet," and as the officer raised his sabre to strike it aside, the glancing barrel lifted into range, and the proud Colonel fell dead from his horse.

A few swift moments ticked on by musket-shots, and the tiny gunner was swooped up and borne away captive by the Rebels. Soldiers bigger, but not better were taken with him, only to be swept back again, by a surge of Federal troops, and the prisoner of thirty minutes was John Clem, "of ours" again, and General Rosecrans made him a Sergeant, and the stripes of rank covered him all over, like a mouse in harness; and the daughter of Mr. Secretary Chase presented him a silver medal, appropriately inscribed, which he worthily wears, a royal order of honor, upon his left breast; and