Break For Liberty

Story of the Uprising of Convicts In Represa Prison, California.

Armed with rifles the Prisoners attacked the guard. Terrible work of the Gatling Gun.

Represa prison, California, is dreaded by criminals, When a prisoner appears for sentence in any of the courts of California, he is in a most apprehensive mood, fearing that the judge may send him to Represa. his attorney usually asks that judicial clemency be granted the prisoner by sending him to San Quentin. The reason that convicts fear an imprisonment in Represa is due to a few erroneous traditions that have been long circulated and never wholly wiped out. It is true that the judges send the desperate and dangerous men to Represa. But the stories afloat among the criminal class that it is an unhealthful spot, that its food is not up to the average prison standard and that the labor imposed is hard and unendurable are stores without foundation concocted by dissatisfied and malignant ex-convicts.

Represa, which was originally a branch prison of San Quentin, is now one of the finest penitentiaries of the world and the only one of its kind in the United States. It differs from all others in its method of guarding without a wall. The nature of the convict labor and the large area over which the prison work extends make a prison wall an impossibility.

Represa has been fortunate in losing few of her convicts by escape, and only a few attempts have been made. But on June 27, 1893, a bloody battle took place between prisoners and guards that tested the pluck of both. The leader of this break for liberty was George Contant, alias Sontag. He is the brother of John Sontag, the bandit, who, with Chris Evans, in the Coast range mountains, held the state of California at bay for several months. The break took place at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Eight desperate convicts, headed by Contant and armed with rifles and ammunition that has been smuggled into the prison quarry by an ex-convict, seized Lieutenant Briare and forced him to pilot them outside the guard line. Realizing the dangerous position of the lieutenant, the guards retained from firing. 

Slowly and surely the escaping gang moved toward their goal. Suddenly  the crack of a Winchester rang out, and a convict fell dead. It was one of the two men who held the lieutenant. Guard Prigmore had taken a chance shot, and it was a successful one. Briare now struggled with the remaining convict, who held him and succeeded in jumping over a steep bank, pulling the prisoner with him. This was the opportunity that the guards longed for. The moment Briare was out of their way they opened fire from Gatling gun and rifle. Just as the firing began Captain Murphy arrived on the scene and, with Warden Aull, joined in the battle. 

These two officers and a guard named Fitch were human targets for the convict fire for twenty minutes. When the first shot was fired, the escaping prisoners took refuge among the granite rocks and returned the fire of the guards. After a fusillade which lasted for nearly twenty-five minutes a hat placed upon a gun barrel suddenly appeared from the convicts' lair as a signal of surrender. Upon examination it was found that three prisoners were killed, two of them being literally chopped to pieces by the Gatling gun fire. One was hit by thirty-two bullets and another by twenty-nine. Of the remaining five men three were severely wounded and two were unhurt. No guard or officer was injured. The convicts believed that the guards would be intimidated by the audacity of their plan and the presence of their weapons. Sontag remarked when he was placed on the operating table of the prison hospital: "We played our cards wrong and lost. But we have another game coming, and we'll win." The interpretation of this was that when they next attempted an escape they would conceal themselves first and shoot down unsuspecting men that guarded their way of exit. 

Prisoners have tried to escape in various ways. They resort to all kinds of strategy. One fellow lived for a couple of days in a sewer, hoping to eventually get away. But he was finally located in a half dead condition and received the "red shirt degree," which means that when a prisoners attempts to escape he is made to don a bright scarlet shirt, so that he can be distinguished more readily from the convicts with the regulation striped shirt. A white band is sewed across the back of this cardinal shirt, and the convict's number is displayed upon it in large black figures.

Another instance of convict strategy occurred at Represa eight years ago. A prisoner employed in the paint shop secretly secured and sewed together a number of burlap sacks and painted them the color of alfalfa. Shrouded in this disguise, which resembled a great green lizard, he crawled through an alfalfa field and would have escaped had not a guard discovered his trail. Sometimes convicts concealed themselves in the trucks of prison train. A few have boldly jumped into the river. One convict plunged in above the dam and went over the eighty foot falls. His body was never found. Another prisoner concealed himself in a refuse barrel and had an accomplice cover him over with garbage, but at an important moment he put his head out for air and was discovered. Every train and vehicle that leaves the prison grounds is thoroughly searched, and escape by that means is practically impossible.