rs.
Colonel, afterwards General, W. Ross Hartshorne and his 330 men of the
190th Pa. are to break the fence just above the main rebel camp which is
on our left. My own column of about three hundred men of the Nineteenth
Corps are to break the fence just below the rebel camp; then Hartshorne
and I are to leap from opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These
seven battalions were to some extent organized with field, staff, and
company officers. Every officer and soldier was to be on the _qui vive_
a little before five o'clock in the morning, watching intently for the
signal. This was to be the waving of a fire-brand by General Hayes in
front of house number two.

Quite a number of officers had no faith in the plot, and they regarded
it with indifference. A few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who
had been a prisoner before and seemed glad to have been captured again,
a bloated, overgrown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward,
formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said to have been commissioned for
political reasons, was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in the
hearing of rebel sentries, "_Some of our officers have got escape on the
brain_," with other words to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally
stopped such traitorous language by saying with tremendous emphasis:
"Captain D----, I've heard a good deal of your attempts to discourage
officers from escaping, and your loud talk about officers having 'escape
on the brain.' Now, sir, I give you notice that if you're again guilty of
anything of the sort, I'LL--BREAK--YOUR--HEAD--WITH--A--CLUB!"

The time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous attacks was about an
hour before sunrise the morning of October 15th.

As we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether through suspected
treachery or otherwise, got wind of our purpose. Towards evening of
October 14th extraordinary vigilance on their part became apparent.
Troops were paraded, posts strengthened, guards doubled, privileges
restricted, and word was passed around in our hearing that a battalion
of Confederates had just arrived. Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed
through the night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next morning was
doubtless in obedience to orders for a more rigorous enforcement of
rules.

Our outbreak was countermanded and postponed, but preparations
continued. The delay enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our
organizations more complete. The early morning of Octo