UNION CORRESPONDENCE,
ORDERS, ETC., RELATING TO PRISONERS OF WAR AND STATE FROM JUNE 13, 1862,
TO NOVEMBER 30, 1862.--#27
[From the Richmond Dispatch,
October 17, 1862.]
ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON.
A conspiracy on the part of a number of the prisoners to
escape from Castle Thunder was discovered on Wednesday night. The
parties had made a long rope of cotton sheets and had gotten everything
ready to let Rogers (who is condemned to be shot on Saturday) out of a
window, when they were discovered and put in the dungeon. One fellow who
<ar117_655> proved very obstreperous was undergoing the bucking process
yesterday evening. It is not certainly known that Rogers initiated the
movement, but it is believed that his friends in the prison did so to
help him. We learn that efforts are constantly being made to escape from
this prison and that it is only by unceasing vigilance that they are
prevented. The next party discovered trying to get out are to be shot.
Col. [Maj.] Thomas J. Jordan, of the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry, who
was detained from going North on the last flag of truce because charges
had been preferred against him by the citizens of Sparta, Tenn., that he
allowed his men to commit the most unheard of atrocities on the citizens
of that place, was yesterday removed from the Libby Prison and put in
Castle Thunder, in company with four Yankees belonging to the First
Maryland Cavalry, who are charged with committing a willful murder on an
unarmed citizen of the Valley of Virginia. Colonel [Major] Jordan was
captured at Tompkinsville, Ky., on the 7th of July. Yesterday seventeen
deserters were received into the Castle from the South, sent thither by
Major Mallett. Among the other inhabitants there is Capt. Arnold Harris,
a Yankee. The cage was empty last night, the city police having made no
arrests.