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 an unfrequent occurrence for the whole division to be called suddenly to arms at midnight and stand in line until morning. Skirmishes and sharpshooting continued with little intermission; bullets of rebel riflemen whizzing through our camps or unceremoniously entering our tents at all times. Rebel gunboats approached the mouth of the Warwick and by their assistance the rebel infantry attempted to turn our left flank, but the troops of our division gallantly met their attack and drove them back.