sneaking and cowardly when alone, fierce and bold when
in packs. Each pack was managed by a well-armed man, who rode a mule;
and carried, slung over his shoulders by a cord, a cow horn, scraped
very thin, with which he controlled the band by signals.

What always puzzled me much was why the hounds took only Yankee trails,
in the vicinity of the prison. There was about the Stockade from six
thousand to ten thousand Rebels and negros, including guards, officers,
servants, workmen, etc. These were, of course, continually in motion and
must have daily made trails leading in every direction. It was the
custom of the Rebels to send a pack of hounds around the prison every
morning, to examine if any Yankees had escaped during the night. It was
believed that they rarely failed to find a prisoner's tracks, and still
more rarely ran off upon a Rebel's. If those outside the Stockade had
been confined to certain path and roads we could have understood this,
but, as I understand, they were not. It was part of the interest of the
day, for us, to watch the packs go yelping around the pen searching for
tracks. We got information in this way whether any tunnel had been
successfully opened during the night.

The use of hounds furnished us a crushing reply to the ever recurring
Rebel question:

"Why are you-uns puttin' niggers in the field to fight we-uns for?"

The questioner was always silenced by the return interrogatory:

"Is that as bad as running white men down with blood hounds?"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MAY--INFLUX OF NEW PRISONERS--DISPARITY IN NUMBERS BETWEEN THE EASTERN
AND WESTERN ARMIES--TERRIBLE CROWDING--SLAUGHTER OF MEN AT THE CREEK.

In May the long gathering storm of war burst with angry violence all
along the line held by the contending armies. The campaign began which
was to terminate eleven months later in the obliteration of the Southern
Confederacy. May 1, Sigel moved up the Shenandoah Valley with thirty
thousand men; May 3, Butler began his blundering movement against
Petersburg; May 3, the Army of the Potomac left Culpeper, and on the 5th
began its deadly grapple with Lee, in the Wilderness; May 6, Sherman
moved from Chattanooga, and engaged Joe Johnston at Rocky Face Ridge and
Tunnel Hill.

Each of these columns lost heavily in prisoners. It could not be
otherwise; it was a consequence of the aggressive movements. An army
acting offensively usually suffers more from capture than one on the
de