comrades in the hospital. The hole in my cell during the progress of the
work was kept covered with a large hand-satchel containing my change of
clothing. We cut from underneath upward until there was only a thin
crust of the cement left in each of the cells. Money was necessary to
pay expenses of transportation and for other contingencies as they might
arise. General Morgan had some money that the search had not discovered,
but it was not enough. Shortly after we began work I wrote to my sister
in Kentucky a letter, which through a trusted convict I sent out and
mailed, requesting her to go to my library and get certain books, and in
the back of a designated one, which she was to open with a thin knife,
place a certain amount of Federal money, repaste the back, write my name
across the inside of the back where the money was concealed, and send
the box by express. In due course of time the books with the money came
to hand. It only remained now to get information as to the time of the
running of the trains and to await a cloudy night, as it was then full
moon. Our trusty convict was again found useful. He was quite an old
man, called Heavy, had been in the penitentiary for many years, and as
he had been so faithful, and his time having almost expired, he was
permitted to go on errands for the officials to the city. I gave him ten
dollars to bring us a daily paper and six ounces of French brandy.
Neither he nor any one within the prison or on the outside had any
intimation of our contemplated escape.

It was our first thought to make our way to the Confederacy by way of
Canada; but, on inspecting the time-table in the paper, it was seen that
a knowledge of the escape would necessarily come to the prison officials
before we could reach the Canadian border. There was nothing left, then,
but to take the train south, which we found, if on time, would reach
Cincinnati, Ohio, before the cells were opened in the morning, at which
time we expected our absence to be discovered. One thing more remained