aled, 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
to be done, and that was to ascertain the easiest and safest place at
which to scale the outside wall of the prison. The windows opening
outward were so high that we could not see the wall. In the hall was a
ladder resting against the wall, fifty feet long, that had been used for
sweeping down the wall. A view from the top of the ladder would give us
a correct idea of the outside, but the difficulty was to get that view
without exciting suspicion.

Fortunately the warden came in while we were discussing the great
strength and activity of Captain Samuel B. Taylor, who was very small of
stature, when it was suggested that Taylor could go hand over hand on
the under side of the ladder to the top, and, with a moment's rest,
return in the same way. To the warden this seemed impossible, and, to
convince him, Taylor was permitted to make the trial, which he did
successfully. At the top of the ladder he rested for a minute and took a
mental photograph of the wall. When the warden had left, Taylor
communicated the fact that directly south of and at almost right angles
from the east end of the block in which we were confined there was a
double gate to the outer wall, the inside one being of wooden uprights
four inches apart, and the outside one as solid as the wall;