From the Richmond Dispatch, 4/12/1862, p. 2, c. 3

Unsuccessful Attempt to Escape. – About 6 o'clock last evening, two of the prisoners in Castle Godwin, one named Geo. White, incarcerated for desertion, and another, name unknown, cut their bed quilt into strips and ascending to the roof, made preparations for letting themselves down on terra firma. The proceeding became known to parties on Franklin street, seeing the men on the roof, by whom the alarm was raised. Geo. White, the most daring of the two, placed the rope over the side wall fronting on Franklin street, and commenced descending, but had not gone very far before the rope slipped out of his hand, and he fell heavily to the ground, a distance of perhaps forty feet, breaking one thigh bone, and badly bruising himself. His companion, seeing how matters were, made himself scarce. White was raised from the ground and conveyed into the Castle, groaning in a loud manner. Shortly after the rope was hauled up and the trap in the roof secured. Prisoners in Castle Godwin, in their anxiety to enlarge their arcs of freedom, seem to forget that the sentinels have orders to fire on any of them found trying to extend the experiment.

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