Capture and Escape: A Narrative of Army and Prison Life

In Short

First published in 1908 by the Wisconsin History Commission, Capture and Escape: A Narrative of Army and Prison Life is a Union officer’s clear-eyed memoir of wartime captivity and evasion. John Azor Kellogg, commander of the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, details his capture in the Wilderness, his months in Southern prison pens, and his perilous journey through enemy territory. Written decades after the conflict, the book endures because it eschews self-glorifying melodrama in favor of practical detail, showcasing how discipline, camaraderie, and the aid of enslaved Americans and mountain Unionists carried fugitives back to safety.

The Story

The narrative opens in May 1864 during the bloody opening hours of the Battle of the Wilderness. Captain John Azor Kellogg receives orders to take his company from the famous Iron Brigade and advance the skirmish line to engage the enemy. He moves through dense scrub pine, encounters a advancing Confederate line of battle, and is cut off. Suffocation, head injuries, and immediate capture follow. Stripped of his command, Kellogg is marched alongside other wounded Union officers to Gordonsville and eventually transported south to Macon, Georgia.

At the Macon prison pen, Kellogg confronts the grim realities of long-term captivity: overcrowding, starvation rations, and absolute deprivation. He throws himself into escape efforts, participating in a secret tunneling project. The operation comes close to catastrophe when guards approach and the tunnel entrance is hurriedly sealed over him, leaving him buried alive until he manages to drill a air-hole through the hard clay with a metal hinge. After the tunnel is betrayed, the prisoners are transferred by rail to Charleston, South Carolina.

En route to Charleston, Kellogg and five companions leap from a moving train, only to be hunted down by bloodhounds and returned to custody. Placed in the Charleston jail yard and later Roper Hospital, the captives find themselves under the direct fire of Union artillery bombarding the city. Despite the shelling, treatment in Charleston proves surprisingly humane compared to Macon, thanks to local commanders. Yet the desire for freedom remains paramount. When transferred again toward Columbia, Kellogg and his allies scheme to disarm their guards by surreptitiously removing the percussion caps from their muskets in the dark.

Kellogg jumps from the speeding train a second time, plunging into the South Carolina woods. This time, the leap marks the start of a grueling journey on foot toward Union lines. Traveling exclusively by night to avoid patrols and hound packs, the fugitives rely entirely on the clandestine network of the enslaved population. Black men and women feed them, guide them across rivers, and hide them in thickets, risking their own lives to protect the escapees.

Moving through South Carolina and Georgia, Kellogg navigates constant close calls—interrupting a roadside church service, dodging mounted home guards, and hiding in rainstorms to deaden their scent from tracking dogs. High in the Georgia mountains, they finally contact anti-Confederate Southern Unionists, who shelter them and even invite them to a mountain wedding. Escorted by armed Unionist irregulars to the federal perimeter near Atlanta, Kellogg makes a triumphant return to Union lines. After a brief medical recovery in Wisconsin that leaves his hair prematurely white, he rejoins his regiment, rises to brigade command, and witnesses the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.

How It Unfolds

The net closes Advancing through the thick brush of the Wilderness, Kellogg's skirmishers engage a heavy enemy line and are quickly overwhelmed. Captured and suffering from head injuries, Kellogg is marched to Gordonsville and loaded into freight cars bound for Georgia.

Life in the pen Arriving at Macon, Kellogg experiences the horrors of prison life, encountering desperate, emaciated comrades and cruel guards. He joins a covert digging crew, barely surviving a tunnel collapse before a informant exposes the scheme.

Leaping in the dark Transferred toward Charleston, Kellogg and five others jump from the moving train into a sandbank, but hound packs quickly track them down. Re-confined in Charleston, they endure Union bombardment while quietly plotting their next break.

Uncapping the muskets During another train movement, the prisoners systematically disable their guards' weapons in the dim light by picking off the percussion caps. Kellogg leaps into the night forest, initiating a long, dangerous trek north.

Friends on the underground line Hiding in thickets by day and marching by night, Kellogg relies on enslaved families who provide food, river crossings, and critical intelligence. Divine rainstorms scatter their scent just as armed search parties with hounds pass within feet of their hideout.

The mountain sanctuary Entering the Georgia highlands, the fugitives link up with armed white Unionists and Home Guards hiding out in the brush. After resting, attending a local wedding under armed watch, and navigating local roads, they are escorted directly to the Union lines.

The People

• John Azor Kellogg: The narrator and commander in the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. Driven by an overwhelming desire to return to his regiment, he refuses to accept captivity, risking his life through tunnels, train jumps, and wilderness evasions until he successfully returns to command a white-haired veteran.
• Captain Tabb: A Confederate prison officer at Macon whom Kellogg visually compares to a vicious baboon. Driven by petty greed, he personally searches incoming prisoners for valuables, embodying the casual cruelty of the prison administration.
• Major McCreary: A leader among the Georgia mountain Unionists. Pragmatic, cautious, and intensely loyal to the Federal cause, he guides Kellogg's party through treacherous territory while carefully managing the safety of his own guerrilla fighters.
• The Enslaved Allies (Jake, Tom, and unnamed friends): A network of Black men and women along the flight path. Driven by a desire for freedom and solidarity with the Union cause, they share their meager rations, operate night ferries, and outwit Confederate searchers to keep the fugitives alive.

In Its Own Voice

"Inserting the point of the hinge in the roof of the tunnel, and turning and pushing it with the energy of despair, I worked at the hard clay two feet or more above my head."

(Kellogg describes his desperate attempt to drill for air after being buried alive inside an escape tunnel.)

"I confess that it makes all the difference in the world to me, which end of the dog is toward me when the hunting is being done."

(Reflecting on his capture by a South Carolina dog-driver and his pack of bloodhounds.)

"May my right hand wither, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, when I forget to be grateful to that people, or fail to advocate their cause, when their cause is just!"

(Kellogg records his permanent gratitude to the enslaved Southerners who risked their lives to feed and guide him.)

What It's Really About

Beneath the steady pulse of an adventure tale, Capture and Escape is an exploration of resourcefulness and human reliance under extreme pressure. Kellogg examines how formal military discipline adapts when authority structures vanish, transforming soldiers into improvising fugitives. The memoir directly addresses the socio-economic divides of the Civil War South, highlighting the stark contrast between wealthy slaveholders, impoverished "poor whites," and enslaved populations. Crucially, the text serves as a deliberate testimony to the intelligence, agency, and courage of Black Americans, framing their underground network not merely as a auxiliary aid, but as the essential lifeline that sustained Union escapees.

Why Read It Today

Capture and Escape appeals to readers of military history, survival stories, and Civil War memoirs who value unpretentious, eyewitness accuracy over romanticized legend. Kellogg writes with modest good humor, crisp observation, and a complete absence of bombast. The narrative moves at a brisk pace, focusing heavily on operational logistics—how to disable a musket without noise, how rain affects bloodhound scent, how to read primitive maps by matchlight, and how local communities organized resistance.

The book presents few difficulties for modern readers. Its prose is clean, direct, and remarkably free of Victorian floridity, though it occasionally captures period dialect when recording spoken conversations with Southern locals and slaves. What lingers long after reading is Kellogg's absolute clear-headedness in moments of extreme peril, paired with his profound, enduring respect for the enslaved men and women whose quiet heroism made his freedom possible.