Among the cotton thieves.: By Edward Bacon.

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AMONG TtH

howitzer mounted in the bow, have been brought with us.
Soldiers, with their arms, are sent into the row boats, and by
main strength our schooners are towed slowly up the sluggish
Tickfaw-the steamer and the gunboat showing no anxiety to
run ahead of us very far. I have the men and arms all in readiness, and make a sort of breastwork of planks and boxes along
each side of my schooner. The soldiers dispose of their hard
breakfast, with their loaded E..fields and Springfields beside
them. The procession of masts and smoke stacks, with the
decks loaded with blue-coated federals, winds slowly up its
crooked way through the dense, dark forest. At last we see a
few pine trees, at a place where our bayou divides again.
This place, the first ground which does not belong to the
swamp, is called Whisky Point. Here are fresh indications of
a hostile picket, and it is said that rebels have been seen running
away to give news of our approach; but our flotilla still goes
on, with the splash of oars and the puffs of the steamers. We
are emerging from the swamp, and entering the rebel country,
by them called the piney woods. A field and a log cabin
appear on the north bank, which has raised itself with at least
ten feet of sand above the river, that now shows a slight current. Hopes have been entertained of catching some richly
loaded cotton schooners at Wadesborough, which we are rapidly
approaching. A strong detachment, commanded by the energetic young Lieutenant James Brainard, of Company H, Sixth
Michigan, is sent by land across a horse-shoe bend, while the
rest of us are going round to where the cotton schooners are.
A few shots are heard. The gunboat hurries forward, followed
by the Savary. No more firing is heard, and when our
slow going schooner comes struggling along within sight
of the group of cheap buildings making the frontier village of
Wadesborough, a great smoke announces to us that the cotton
has fallen a prize to fire, instead of being left an honest capture
for the court of New Orleans.
The Barataria, having brass guns ready, and men with Enfield
rifles at the loop-holes in the iron plating, watches over us as