October 18, 1863.
Sunday. We lay about camp until noon and the horse and his rider did not appear. The colonel was mad clear through. He had been told the nigger would not come back, but he believed he would, and as the time went on little was heard but comments on the slick trick the rogue had played on Colonel Parker. After dinner he told Gorton and me to saddle up and show him the way and he would see whether he could find him. We went to the house but found no one at home. We then rode on towards the swamp. We saw a man running across a cleared spot and soon overhauled him. It was the fellow himself. He said his horse had got away and he was trying to find him, had been looking for him all the morning. The colonel drew his revolver and told him to march ahead of him to a big tree a short distance away, at the same time telling me to get my picket rope ready, for he was going to find that horse, or else find a dead nigger. The nig was scared and began to beg, declaring the horse had gotten out of the stable in the night, and he and his wife both had been looking for him all day long. After he had got through, the colonel told me to throw the line over a limb, for he was going to keep his word. Whether he did really intend to hang him or not I don't know, but I thought he would stop short of the actual deed, so I proceeded to get the rope in position for a real hanging. Just then the rascal owned up. The horse was in the swamp where he had hidden him, and if the colonel would spare his life he would take us to him. We then went on and soon came to a beaten path that led directly to the dense forest before us. At the first turn in the path after we entered the woods the colonel dropped me off. At the next turn he left Gorton, and he himself with revolver in hand followed the fellow on and out of sight. He was gone perhaps fifteen minutes when out they came, horse and all, and we made tracks for camp, which we reached about sundown. The next morning the man's wife came into camp, and they both acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Where I waited in the woods the undergrowth was so dense I could not see a rod in any direction except along the path. Squirrels, both black and gray, came out of the bushes and looked at me. I counted five black squirrels in sight at one time. They are not quite so large as the grays, and are a dark brown rather than black. I wondered if they were as plenty all through the woods as where I sat. Gorton says he saw as many as I did. If all the stories I have heard about the Great Cypress Swamp are true, I don't care for any closer acquaintance than I now have. There are wild animals of all kinds common to this part of the country—bears, wildcats, opossum, deer and snakes as big as any in Barnum's menagerie. I can believe the snake part, for I have seen so many that I believe all the snake stories I hear. This same Great Cypress Swamp is said to be the home of outlaws, both white and black. That they have homes there where they live undisturbed by the laws made to govern other people. That runaway slaves find homes there, where they live and raise families which recruit the ranks of the lawless set living there, as fast as they are killed off by the fights they have among themselves and with the officers of the law that attempt to capture or subdue them.
Night. The work for to-morrow has been mapped out. Quartermaster Schemerhorn, Lieutenant Reynolds and myself are to start for Brashear City, taking with us the men we have enlisted. Two days' rations have been given out, and the darkies are having a farewell dance. This has been a busy Sunday, one I will long remember.