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Updated: June 9, 2025
Roaming in the cane-brake, or sunning himself on a log like the juvenile alligators, while Master Archy took his walk, or even pulling the boat, was much more to his taste than rubbing down the horses and digging weeds out of the gravel walks in front of the mansion.
East of Demopolis, the line passed through the cane-brake country, a land of fatness. The army of Lee, starving in the trenches before Richmond and Petersburg, could have been liberally supplied from this district but for lack of transportation. Here it may be asserted that we suffered less from inferiority of numbers than from want of mechanical resources.
In the gray light of the morning I discovered that I was opposite an island of considerable length, separated from the mainland by a narrow and shallow channel, which I promptly waded. The island was low and flat, covered with an almost impenetrable cane-brake interlaced with vines. Working my way through these to the other side, I obtained another look at God's country Shermany, so to speak.
As we ride through the wagon-roads, of which there are not less than thirty miles in this confederation of four plantations held together by the purse and the life of our host, the unwavering exactitude of the rows of cane, which run without deviation at right angles with the river down to the cane-brake, two miles off, proves that the negro would be a formidable rival in a ploughing-match.
Presently a new sound! a crashing iteration assailed the air. A frantic crowd was beating the bushes about the margin of the lake and the verges of the almost impenetrable cane-brake. Here, however, there could be no hope of discovery, and suddenly a cry arose, unanimously iterated the next instant, "Fire the cane-brake! Fire the cane-brake!"
Then they named the places they had seen. The reef Helen had discovered off the northwest coast they called "White Water Island," because of the breakers. They called the cane-brake "Wild Duck Swamp," and the spot where they lunched "Cochineal Clearing." The mountain was named "Mount Cavity."
Some distance beyond appeared a settler's cabin in an oasis of cultivated land in the midst of the dense cane-brake; then others, now dull and dusky in the blue twilight, with the afterglow of the sunset redly aflare above in the amber sky and below in the gray and glimmering water; now with a lucent yellow flicker from the wide-open door gemming the night with the scintillations of the hearthstone, set like a jewel in the center of the wilderness; now sending forth a babbling of childish voices where the roof-tree had been planted close by the river-side and the passing of the boats had drawn all the household to the brink.
As the British army progressed, passing through the Steele Creek neighborhood, they encamped about three days on Spratt's plantation, waiting to cross the swollen Catawba, and for the collection of additional supplies. A guard was placed around the encampment, and one of the number assigned to a position between the Charlotte road and a neighboring cane-brake.
With fresh hope I turned once more towards the water, and gazed in the direction in which I expected the pirogue to come. Alas! there was no sign of it. No sound came from the lake save the wild calling of the affrighted birds. I turned once more to the land. I saw the cane-brake in motion.
Supplies from the fertile "cane-brake" region of Alabama and the prairies of eastern Mississippi were abundant. Before they abandoned Pensacola, the Confederates had taken up fifty miles of rails from the Pensacola and Montgomery line, and used them to make a connection between the latter place and Blakeley, at the eastern head of the bay, opposite Mobile.
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