would go to meet them, but invariably it proved to be a false alarm or the enemy had retired.  Once in December the enemy made a demonstration to our right, and we were called out at night to support the line where the attack was made.  After a few rounds of shelling and a few bullets flying over our heads (no harm being done), at daylight we returned to our camp.  Our lines had been so extended that to man our works along our front we had not more than one man to every six feet.  Still with our breastworks so complete and the protection beyond the line, it is doubtful whether the enemy could have made much headway against us.  All the timber and debris in our front for more than one thousand yards had been felled or cleared away.

The ladies of Richmond had promised the soldiers a great Christmas dinner on Christmas day, but from some cause or other our dinner did not materialize.  But the soldiers fared very well.  Boxes from home were now in order, and almost every day a box or two from kind and loving friends would come in to cheer and comfort them.  Then, too, the blockaders at Wilmington and Charleston would escape the Argus eyes of the fleet and bring in a cargo of shoes, cloth, sugar, coffee, etc.  Even with all our watchfulness and the vigilance of the enemy on the James, that indefatigable and tireless Jew, with an eye to business, would get into Richmond with loads of delicacies, and this the soldier managed to buy with his “Confederate gray-backs.”  They were drawing now at the rate of seventeen dollars per month, worth at that time about one dollar in gold or one dollar and seventy cents in greenbacks.  The Jews in all countries and in all times seemed to fill a peculiar sphere of usefulness.  They were not much of fighters, but they were great “getters.”  They would undergo any hardships or risks for gain, and while our government may not have openly countenanced their traffic, still it was thought they “winked” at it.  I do know there were a lot of Jews in Richmond who could go in and out of our lines at will.  Sometimes they were caught, first by one army and then by another, and their goods or money confiscated, still they kept up their blockade running.  I was informed by one of General Gary’s staff officers since the war, that while they were doing outpost duty on the lower James, Jews came in daily with passports from the authorities at Richmond, authorizing them to pass the lines.  On many occasions they claimed they were robbed by our pickets.  Once this officer allowed two Jews to pass out of the lines, with orders to pass the pickets, but soon they returned, saying they were robbed.  General Gary, who could not tolerate such treachery, had the men called up and the Jews pointed out the men who had plundered them.  But the men stoutly denied the charge, and each supported the other in his denials, until a search was ordered, but nothing was found.  They cursed the “lieing Jew” and threatened that the next time they attempted to pass they would leave them in the woods with “key holes through them.”  “While at the same time,” continued the officer, “I and so was General Gary satisfied these same men had robbed them.”