But later on, as the siege progressed, this murderous state of affairs gradually disappeared. Neither side found it pleasant or profitable, and nothing was gained by it. It decided nothing, and only wasted powder and ball. And so, gradually the pickets on both sides began to be on quite friendly terms. It was no unusual thing to see a Johnny picket—who would be posted scarcely a hundred yards away, so near were the lines—lay down his gun, wave a piece of white paper as a signal of truce, walk out into the neutral ground between the picket-lines, and meet one of our own pickets, who, also dropping his gun, would go out to inquire what Johnny might want to-day.
"Well, Yank, I want some coffee, and I'll trade tobacco for it."
"Has any of you fellows back there some coffee to trade for tobacco? 'Johnny Picket,' here, wants some coffee."
Or maybe he wanted to trade papers, a Richmond Enquirer for a New York Herald or Tribune, "even up and no odds." Or he only wanted to talk about the news of the day—how "we 'uns whipped you 'uns up the valley the other day;" or how "if we had Stonewall Jackson yet, we'd be in Washington before winter;" or maybe he only wished to have a friendly game of cards!
There was a certain chivalrous etiquette developed through this social intercourse of deadly foemen, and it was really admirable. Seldom was there breach of confidence on either side. It would have gone hard with the comrade who should have ventured to shoot down a man in gray who had left his gun and come out of his pit under the sacred protection of a piece of white paper. If disagreement ever occurred in bartering, or high words arose in discussion, shots were never fired until due notice had been given. And I find mentioned in one of my old army letters that a general fire along our entire front grew out of some disagreement on the picket-line about trading coffee for tobacco. The two pickets couldn't agree, jumped into their pits, and began firing, the one calling out: "Look out, Yank, here comes your tobacco." Bang!
And the other replying: "All right, Johnny, here comes your coffee." Bang!
Scene among the Rifle-Pits before Petersburg.
Great forts stood at intervals all along the line as far as the eye could see, and at these the men toiled day and night all summer long, adding defence to defence, and making "assurance doubly sure," until the forts stood out to the eye of the beholder, with their sharp angles and well-defined outlines, formidable structures indeed. Without attempting to describe them in technical military language, I will simply ask you to imagine a piece of level ground, say two hundred feet square, surrounded by a bank of earth about twenty feet in height, with rows of gabions[4] and sand-bags arranged on top of the embankment, and at intervals along the sides embrasures or port-holes, at which the great cannon were planted,—and you will have some rough notion of what one of our forts looked like. Somewhere within the inclosure, usually near the centre of it, was the magazine, where the powder and shells were stored. This was made by digging a deep place something like a cellar, covering it over with heavy logs, and piling up earth and sand-bags on the logs, the whole, when finished, having the shape of a small round-topped pyramid. At the rear was left a small passage, like a cellar-way, and through this the ammunition was brought up. If ever the enemy could succeed in dropping a shell down that little cellar-door, or in otherwise piercing the magazine, then good by to the fort and all and everybody in and around it!