ssed between one of our
pickets and one of the "Johnnies." Finally the rebel thrust his hand
beyond his tree holding in it a bottle, and shaking it, challenged the
Yankee to come and take it--"_crack_" went the Yankee's rifle at the
hand. "Ha, ha! why don't you hit it? What do you think of Bull Run?"
"How do you like Fort Donelson?" responded the Yankee.

While this colloquy was going on, Yankee number two crept round behind a
log, and drawing on the southerner, blazed away at him. The son of
chivalry clapped his hand to his shoulder and ran off howling. "There,
you fool," shouted Yankee number one, "I told you that blind man would
be shooting you pretty soon."

The country about us was uncultivated and unhealthy. The lands were low
and swampy, and mostly covered with a heavy growth of yellow pines. The
few remaining inhabitants were mostly women, negresses and children; now
and then a disabled specimen of poor white trash, or a farmer too infirm
to be of service in the rebel army, was to be met with. All were alike
destitute of enterprise, and the houses upon the "plantations" were of
the meanest order, raised three or four feet above the ground upon posts
without the usual foundation of stone. The "plantations" consisted
usually of about ten or twenty acres of cleared land in the midst of the
forest, with narrow roads among the pines leading to neighboring
plantations.

The writer inquired of the proprietor of one of these isolated spots,
who also had some forty negro women and children, how he managed to
support so large a family from the proceeds of so little land. "Well,"
said he, "I could not support them from the proceeds of the land alone,
but you see I sell a few negroes every year and buy corn with the money;
so with what we raise and what we get for the sale of the negroes, we
get along very well."

"But why do you not cut down some of this forest and till more land? You
own a large tract of land which is entirely worthless as it now is."

"There is where you are greatly mistaken, said the enterprising
southerner, my timber land is my best property." But of what use do you
make it? "Oh, I sell a great deal of wood. I take it to Fortress Monroe
and Hampton and get two dollars and a half a cord for it!"

The reader will perhaps understand the profits drawn from the wood
lands, when it is remembered that Fortress Monroe was twenty miles
distant.

Night attacks by the enemy became common; and it was not a