Library of CongressIn this illustration by Edwin Forbes, Union and Confederate pickets meet between the lines to chat and trade goods
“It did not seem as though we were at war with them.”
Union soldier Ezra G. Huntley, in his diary after he and comrades met with Confederates during a pause in the fighting for Petersburg, Virginia, March 20, 1865
USAHECMassachusetts officer Charles Fessenden Morse
“We never yet have been the victims of any treachery, but, on the contrary, have received warnings in time to look out for ourselves. They will call out, ‘Look out, Yanks, we’ve been ordered to fire,’ and plenty of time will be given to get behind our works.”
Massachusetts officer Charles Fessenden Morse on his men’s interaction with Confederate pickets, in a letter written during the Atlanta Campaign, July 15, 1864
Civil War soldiers trading goods.
The Soldier in Our Civil War, Vol. 2 (1893)
“Johnny Reb—Is the Fifty-third Virginia still on this line? I have two friends in that regiment—got acquainted with them while exchanging papers, and think they are nice fellows, from appearances. Toss your reply over as I do this.”
Note from a Union soldier, wrapped around a minie ball and tossed toward Cofederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia, as reported by a Confederate soldier in the September 15, 1864, issue of the Mobile Advertiser & Register.
Confederate and Union soldiers meeting on horseback.
Harper’s Weekly
“A … Yankee … called out, ‘We are mighty tired of this thing; how do you feel Rebs?’ ‘We haven’t been better off since the war commenced,’ was the reply.”
An unknown Confederate soldier, in a letter home about the Overland Campaign published in the Georgia newspaper Columbus Sun.
“It is the strangest picket I ever saw. Instead of cracking away at each other every time a head is visible each side lounges about carelessly, and talk and laugh with each other.”
Confederate soldier William Calder, in a letter to his mother shortly after the Battle of Fredericksburg, January 10, 1863.
Sources
Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank (1952); Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861–1865 (1898); Randall C. Jimerson, The Private Civil War (1988); Writing and Fighting from the Army of Northern Virginia ed. by William B. Styple (2003).
