Having no artillery with which to reply, we made no answer to that challenge, but after a while some of the enemy's infantry began to show themselves incautiously, and we let them have it with our long range rifles, and a brisk fire opened from the rifle-pits on both sides, which lasted, with some intermission, for several hours.
Finally, the enemy concluded he would try the tactics of the day before, and commenced shelling with great fury our empty breastworks on the top of the hill behind us. Getting no response from the empty fortifications, after a good deal of waste of ammunition, the fire slackened and there was a lull all along both lines.
Just then occurred one of those episodes in the conflict peculiar, I believe, to that civil war of ours, and showing that the men who fought it were akin, despite all the blood that was shed. Looking far down the line to my right, I saw a Confederate walking boldly down the hill towards the creek carrying a white rag aloft on a stick. Startled, I called to a lieutenant and asked what that meant. Said he, ‘I don't understand it; he is not one of our company.’ In another moment, however, it was all plain. A ‘Yank’ was seen advancing to meet the ‘Johnny,’ as they called our boys, also carrying a white flag, and they were ‘on a trade.’ I understood afterwards, that during the lull in the firing one of the enemy's pickets had called across to his vis-a-vis. ‘Hello, Johnny! Got any good tobacco?’ ‘Yes; good as you ever chawed!’ ‘How'll you swap for some first-class Rio?’ ‘All right.’ ‘Well, meet meat the creek, and don't you fellows shoot till I get back, and we won't either.’ So the swap was made, whether with the consent of any officer, I never knew, but I dreaded the consequences of letting the Federal soldier get that near to our line, lest he should spy out its thinness. The whole thing may have been concocted on that side with that very end in view, for soon after the men had returned to their posts, there was an unusual stir among them over in the pines. Loud commands could be heard, and we could catch glimpses of moving lines of men in blue, which seemed to thicken near the edge of the ‘piney woods.’
At last a lieutenant near me cried, ‘There they come! get ready for them, boys!’ I called out, ‘And don't fire until you see their eyes!’ Soon a long, close battle-line, several ranks deep, moved out of the cover and marched rapidly down the hill toward the creek.
