Ruses to Escape Captivity

Tom Elmore

Captain
Member of the Year
Joined
Jan 16, 2015
Being captured usually meant a long trek to an enemy prison camp and an internment that often proved fatal. But if one was clever and the circumstances were advantageous, it might be possible to cheat fate.

- July 2. Late in the evening and the wounded of both parties lay on the field together - then there was work for the Ambulance corps, a detail of two men from a company to carry off the wounded. … It was necessary for our Ambulance corps to go out in front of our pickets to get our wounded and the same way on the other side so our pickets passed our men through the lines and the Yankees did the same. The next morning our Ambulance corps went on the field and asked if there were any more of our men wounded and they replied there was one of the 10th Alabama there with his thigh broke. Our men asked if they could go to their lines after him and they said yes (he was in ten steps of them), so they went up and put him on the litter very carefully and brought him back to our lines after daylight and put him down, and behold he could walk; he was not hurt after all. He had completely fooled the Yankees and saved himself from being a prisoner and got back to us again safe and sound. [Letters from Charles Wesley Foust, Company B, 10th Alabama]

- July 2. At a time when the Rebel riflemen were annoying the artillerists from their concealed shelter behind the large boulders, etc., Michael Broderick, detailed from the 11th Massachusetts and placed as driver on the battery wagon, left his team, which was out of danger, and came forward to the crest where things were a little lively. Picking up a musket which had been dropped by the infantry, he was soon engaged with a foe who was evidently behind one of the boulders in front. … When I took him to task for leaving his team, his reply was: "Let men stay here, captain, sure there are plenty back there to look after the horses." I said no more, and Mike commenced to dance, first on one side of a rock and then on the other, challenging his man to come out and face him. ... He was thus engaged when I last noticed him. At night Mike was reported missing, but early on the morning of the 3rd he reported, with a Rebel musket and cartridge belt, stating that he had been taken prisoner and placed in a belt of timber with other Federal soldiers. Watching his chance, he noticed the guards were few and far between, and when opportunity offered he quickly found a belt and musket and commenced to march up and down like the Confederate guards (his slouch hat and old blouse, together with his general make-up, aroused no suspicion, as many Rebels were dressed similarly). When night came on he marched into the Federal lines and reported as stated. [Capt. James E. Smith, 4th New York Battery, New York at Gettysburg, III:1293]
 
Back
Top