a native, had seen a riderless horse resembling his grey mare on the far side of a crevasse in the levee of the plantation of Mr. Smedes, about four miles below Vicksburg. On hearing this, General Maury, accompanied by several officers and couriers, rode to the point indicated by General Stevenson, and there found his young kinsman's horse with saddle on and bridle hanging loose. A strong levee had been built by Mr. Smedes from the Highlands, more than a mile distant, down to the Mississippi River, in order to shut out the waters of a bayou, which at some seasons would otherwise inundate his plantation. Recently this bayou had torn its way through this levee, making a breach of about twenty yards width, through which the water was now running deep. The trail of the mare led from the Highlands along the levee, entered the bayou at the crevasse, and passed out on the other side. From the point of exit the mare had been running back and forth so much that the party were unable to follow the trail further, but concluded that Maury had been drowned in the attempt to cross the water, and immediately procured boats and commenced an active search for his body. This was continued without ever discovering any trace of the missing man until the next evening, when Colonel Burnett, an experienced Texas hunter, reported that he had been carefully examining the trail of the mare, and that he observed she was evidently mounted when she emerged from the bayou beyond the crevasse; that she had then been ridden at a trot along the levee to a point not far from the river; that at this point her footprints on the levee ceased, she having turned off from it into the overflow, made a detour, and come up upon it again nearer to the crevasse; that from that point where she had thus come upon the levee she had galloped (riderless) back to the brink of the crevasse, near which she remained until she was found there; that, at the point where the mare had turned off, he found the paper cases of several cartridges, different from any used in our army; also a piece of india-rubber or gutta-percha, such as Confederates could not procure, which had been used to cover the cone of a rifle. There were also at this point evidences of a scuffle, and on the brink of the Mississippi River, a few hundred yards distant, he found the edge of the bank freshly broken off, and signs that several men had there embarked in a small boat.
Although the space in which the body must lie—had the
