IN one week from the day on which Somers made the acquaintance of Colonel Roman, he was inside of the stockade at Andersonville. It so happened that the general officer with whom rested the decision in the case of the prisoner, was a personal and political opponent of the planter, and the colonel had no influence with him. An appeal was made to higher authority, but it was unavailing; and Somers was hurried away to that miserable place, where officers and soldiers died by thousands, of sheer inhumanity.

Colonel Roman promised to continue his exertions for the release of his friend, or, if he could not obtain that, for better treatment than had usually been accorded to prisoners of war by the Confederacy. It is quite probable that he did so, but the subject of his intercession obtained no favor on account of it. His experience at Andersonville was that of thousands of others. It would require a volume to narrate it; and the sad story has been so often told, that it needs not a repetition here. The whole civilized world condemns the barbarous treatment of prisoners by the Confederacy.

Week after week, and month after month, dragged away amid suffering and privation, until Sherman’s grand march to the sea filled the rebels with terror; and a portion of the prisoners remaining in their hands were sent to Columbia, South Carolina. Somers was among the number. He had been a prisoner for nearly five months, and his health was already much impaired by his sufferings; by the scanty and mean food, but quite as much by being compelled to witness the misery and death which prevailed in the horrid slaughter-pen in which he had been confined. Once he had made an attempt to escape, but had been hunted down and recaptured.

He arrived at Columbia; but he had made up his mind not to stay there. It was sure death to one of his temperament to live such a dog’s life as that to which he had been doomed. It was better to be shot down by the sentinels, or even to be torn in pieces by the fangs of the merciless blood-hounds, than to die by inches within the camp of the prisoners.

Every day a certain number of prisoners, paroled for the purpose, were allowed to go out after wood, for two hours. Those who were thus favored were obliged to sign a parole, and their names were handed to the officer of the day, who was authorized to permit them to pass. When Somers found an opportunity to join one of these parties, he gave his parole, as others did; and even his sufferings had not so far demoralized him that he could violate the solemn pledge. He went out with the others, but immediately returned with his load of wood. Hastening to the officer of the day, he told him he had done his share of the work, and requested to be released from his parole, which was then given back to him. He was now free from his obligation, and having destroyed the paper, if he should happen to be recaptured in his attempt to escape, it could not be brought against him to subject him to the penalty of its violation.

Others were bringing in wood and timber, and passing out again for more. Somers walked out with the rest. When they came to the guard they were carefully examined again, to see that none but paroled officers passed out. They gave their names, and the sentinel referred to the list of those paroled for that day, and if it was all right, they were allowed to pass.

“Your name?” said the guard to Somers.

The prisoner gave it.

“All right,” replied the sentinel, who, of course, found the name in the list.

Somers was now outside of the camp, and discharged from his parole; but his difficulties had only just commenced, for a guard of eighty men was stretched around the tract of woods in which the prisoners were at work. He walked away from the stockade animated by a hope, though it was but a dim one, of breathing once more the air of freedom. Intent upon the object before him, he passed a group of emaciated forms, whose constitutions were strong enough to enable them to overcome the horrors of the hospital, in which they were still patients.

“Somers!” exclaimed one of them, rushing towards him.

The young officer turned, and in the tall, pale, attenuated person who addressed him, he recognized his friend De Banyan. He looked like a wreck, and there was little to remind him of the manly and noble form of the major, as he had known him five months before.

“De Banyan!” cried Somers, rushing into the arms of his friend, and weeping like a child with the joy he could not conceal.

It was a tender and a touching reunion, and even the rebel sentinels did not interpose to separate them.

“How came you here?” demanded De Banyan, when the first emotions of the happy meeting had subsided.

“I was captured at the time you were shot; but I have been at Andersonville till a week ago,” replied Somers.

“I have been in the hospital; that’s the reason I did not see you.”

“That must be the reason,” replied Somers, in a loud tone; and then, dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, “I am going to escape to-day.”

“I have been quite sick,” continued the major, aloud. “I am on parole”—in a whisper.

“Are you better?”

“Much better; I feel pretty well now,” said the major. “Wait half an hour for me in the woods.”

“I will,” replied Somers, as he moved on.

De Banyan soon joined him. At his own request the surgeon had discharged him, and he had taken up his parole. With a basket of vials, which he found in an ante-room of the hospital, he walked boldly through the guards, who, believing him still to be a paroled prisoner, permitted him to pass. During his convalescence, he had been employed in various light duties connected with the hospital, and had had frequent occasion to pass the sentries, so that no suspicion attached to him after he had been relieved from his parole.

With Somers he walked to the woods, and with him chopped and gathered sticks. At a point near the centre of the space surrounded by the sentinels, they found a pine tree, whose dense foliage promised to afford them the shelter they required. At a favorable moment Somers sprang up into the tree, and the major followed him a few minutes later. Of course they were seen by their fellow-prisoners, and they were obliged to run the risk of being exposed by any one of them who was vile enough to do such a mean act. Men have been known at Andersonville, Columbia, and other prison camps, to stoop to the contemptible and cowardly meanness of betraying a comrade under such circumstances; but with only a few rare exceptions, the prisoners were too manly and noble to be guilty of such a base act.

They had escaped the observation of the soldiers, who were too indolent, or too far off, to notice what took place within their line. The only duty they were called upon to perform, as they seemed to regard it, was to prevent any of the prisoners from passing beyond the bounds allotted to them. The two hours in which the men were allowed to gather wood expired soon after Somers and De Banyan ascended the tree.

“Good by, Captain; report me at home, if you get through,” said a Massachusetts officer, who stood at the foot of the tree when the prisoners were ordered back to the camp.

“I will,” replied Somers, who knew the officer’s address.

The prisoners, laden with their sticks of timber and bundles of wood, were driven back to the camp, to endure other weeks and months of suffering, or to die there, as many had done before. Somers and the major kept perfectly still until the guard had passed the tree, and disappeared from their view.

“We shall be missed before long,” said Somers.

“We will not stop here,” replied De Banyan, as he descended the tree and lay down on the ground at the foot of it.

Somers followed him, lying down by his side. Having satisfied themselves that they had not been observed, they crawled away until the slope of a hill concealed them from the view of the camp, when they ventured to stand upright, like men, and press forward for life and liberty. They continued to walk in a southerly direction till they came to a creek, over which they swam, in the hope that the water would interrupt the scent of the blood-hounds which would be put on their track as soon as their absence was discovered.

It was a vain hope. They were in a kind of swampy jungle, not more than half a mile from the creek, when they heard the fearful cry of the dogs.

“We are lost!” exclaimed Somers, appalled at the horrible sounds.

“No!” replied De Banyan, with his old energy. “Don’t give it up!”

“I won’t, if you do not,” added Somers, inspired with courage by the firmness and self-possession of his friend.

“Find a club, if you can!”

They were fortunate enough to find a couple of sticks, soaked full of water, with which they hoped to make a good fight.

“Shall we climb a tree?” asked Somers.

“You are lost if you do,” replied De Banyan, as he took from his pocket a roll of cord, which he had appropriated in the hospital for another purpose.

Unrolling it, he cut it into two pieces, with one of which he made a slip-noose, and directed Somers to do the same with the other. The dogs were still some distance from the spot, and the men in pursuit seemed to be unable to follow them on their horses, which explained the major’s policy in choosing a swamp for his flight. Selecting a narrow pass between two clumps of bushes, which had been beaten into a path, he stretched the slip-noose over it, just as boys in the country set snares for foxes and rabbits. Somers did precisely the same thing in another locality.

De Banyan then bent down a small sapling, so that the top of it came over the snare, and attached the end of the cord to it. The little tree was held down by weaving the branches into the bushes, just strong enough to hold it down, but so that any force beyond its own elasticity would disengage it. The contrivance formed what is sometimes called a “twitch-up snare.” Somers knew all about it, and set his own in the same manner.

By this time the dogs were upon them, and each of them stepped behind the trap he had set. The hounds made directly towards them, two by one path and one by the other.

“Come on, doggy,” said De Banyan, as he stood coolly waiting the issue of the enterprise. “Stand by with your club, Somers, if it fails.”

“I am all ready,” replied Somers, as he nerved his arm for the conflict, if one should be necessary.

On rushed the blood-hounds, with their fiendish yelp the one that approached De Banyan being a few feet in advance of the others. He dashed into the narrow path, thrusting his head through the noose, drawing it tight around his neck, and detaching the tree. The elasticity of the sapling gave him a tremendous twitch, and lifted his fore legs from the ground. The spring was not strong enough to hold his whole weight, and the hound hung by the neck, partially supported by his hind legs.

Somers’s snare was not quite so successful; but the spring choked the dog, and held him fast. The third hound, dodging the obstruction in his path, rushed towards him from another direction; but De Banyan was at his side by this time, and with a few heavy blows, they killed the ugly beast. Of the other two, one was nearly choked to death, but both were quickly despatched with the clubs.

“That job is done,” said De Banyan.

“And well done,” replied Somers, as they resumed their flight.