The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

finish their tunnel. I agreed ;
PA'/SON LIFE AND ESCAPE. 219
I always believed in trying all
such jsnterprises because they kept niy mind employed and
afforded some hope. They showed me into their tent, down
close by the brook, and pointing to a hole which was full
of water told me this was their tunnel. They then proceeded
to hail it out and one of tlu:m crawled into it to work. He was
armed with an old knife and a half canteen and drew an old
leather sack in with him to put tlirt in. We kept dipping the
water out continually and it was cold as spring water. This
tunnel was not over two and a half feet below the surface.
Their idea was to dig till they struck the stockade then go
under them and break out the other side, close to them. They
said if we waited to dig deep and go too far we should be
discovered and we woidd work quick and get through before
we were suspected. I soon took my turn in the miserable mud
hole. I worked with a will for it was so cold it nearly chilled
one to death. I soon came plump against a pitch pine's stump
roots and that ended that enter[)rise, but for misery and discom-
fort it was the worst I ever tried.
Ne.\t I was invited to join a party who had been digging a
big deep well. I did so and found they dug well by daylight
and tunnel by night. They had dug their well about forty
feet deep and at a depth of about twenty-five feet struck a
tunnel or "gopher hole." I worked in that by taking turns
with several others for nearly a week and one night after we
had dug forty-seven feet towards liberty wc dug upwards and
that night we got u[) six feet, I think. The ne.xt day it was
discovered and a trench dug from the surface down to the
gopher hole, and that finished it.
It may be interesting to you to know how men could dig
deep wells without tools. We were mostly Yankees and could
finrl a way somehow. We would make strings of bootlegs and
ever}thing else we could make strings of, tie them together and
lower a man down by it to the bottom of the well ; then
he
would attach that to an old haversack or something like it and
nil it with dirt dug up with pointed sticks or a knife and scooped