d in full cry. We obeyed our first impulse; rushed back into
the swamp, forced our way for a few yards through the flesh-tearing
impediments, until we gained a large cypress, upon whose great knees we
climbed--thoroughly exhausted--just as the yelping pack reached the edge
of the water, and stopped there and bayed at us. It was a physical
impossibility for us to go another step.

In a moment the low-browed villain who had charge of the hounds came
galloping up on his mule, tooting signals to his dogs as he came, on the
cow-horn slung from his shoulders.

He immediately discovered us, covered us with his revolver, and yelled
out:

"Come ashore, there, quick: you---- ---- ---- ----s!"

There was no help for it. We climbed down off the knees and started
towards the land. As we neared it, the hounds became almost frantic,
and it seemed as if we would be torn to pieces the moment they could
reach us. But the master dismounted and drove them back. He was surly
--even savage--to us, but seemed in too much hurry to get back to waste any
time annoying us with the dogs. He ordered us to get around in front of
the mule, and start back to camp. We moved as rapidly as our fatigue and
our lacerated feet would allow us, and before midnight were again in the
hospital, fatigued, filthy, torn, bruised and wretched beyond description
or conception.

The next morning we were turned back into the Stockade as punishment.

CHAPTER XLIX.

AUGUST--GOOD LUCK IN NOT MEETING CAPTAIN WIRZ--THAT WORTHY'S TREATMENT OF
RECAPTURED PRISONERS--SECRET SOCIETIES IN PRISON--SINGULAR MEETING AND
ITS RESULT--DISCOVERY AND REMOVAL OF THE OFFICERS AMONG THE ENLISTED MEN.

Harney and I were specially fortunate in being turned back into the
Stockade without being brought before Captain Wirz.

We subsequently learned that we owed this good luck to Wirz's absence on
sick leave--his place being supplied by Lieutenant Davis, a moderate
brained Baltimorean, and one of that horde of Marylanders in the Rebel
Army, whose principal service to the Confederacy consisted in working
themselves into "bomb-proof" places, and forcing those whom they
displaced into the field. Winder was the illustrious head of this crowd
of bomb-proof Rebels from "Maryland, My Maryland!" whose enthusiasm for
the Southern cause and consistency in serving it only in such places as
were out of range of the Yankee artillery, was the subject of many bitter
jibes by the Rebels-