Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

July 17 — We were relieved from picket this evening, and returned to our camp on the Nottoway.

July 16 — Still on picket, but no game in sight.

July 15 — To-day our battery was ordered three miles north of Stony Creek Station on the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad, for picket duty. Stony Creek Station is in Sussex County about twenty miles south of Petersburg and seven miles from our camp on the Nottoway.

July 14 — We are still quietly camping on the Nottoway.

July 5 — We renewed our march this morning and moved about three miles. We are now camped on the Nottoway River in Sussex County, one mile from where the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad crosses the Nottoway.

The country here is low and flat, the land along the river being of good quality. The soil is a sandy alluvial, and produces well; but away from the river lowlands the land is poor and the general appearance of everything is uninteresting. The whole country here has a semblance of monotony that is at once tiresome to anyone who hails from the mountainous or hill country. The landscapes here are all alike and wear about the same aspect — a few level fields bounded with woods is oft repeated, and is all that one can see for miles and miles. No green mountain looms up in the distance to catch the wandering vision, and no verdant hills bound from the seemingly limitless expanse of sameness to lend enchantment to the view.

July 4 — Renewed our march this morning, still moving southward. We passed Dinwiddie Court House and came very near not seeing it as such, for it stands in the woods and looks like an isolated school building. There may be a village scattered around it somewhere, but I did not see it. The court house is about fifteen miles southwest of Petersburg, and in a poor and brushy portion of the county. All the country that we passed through to-day looks like as if the land is very poor and unproductive; some of it is nothing but white sand with a few briers trying to creep over it. The woodland is composed of low squatty pines on the little ridges, with oak timber in the low places, standing in an undergrowth of bushes so thick that a twisty wind can hardly creep through it.

We marched till midday, then camped in a forlorn, desolate-looking place where we can see nothing but the sun and bushes. This camp is about three miles from the Nottoway River, and about twenty-five miles south of Petersburg. Weather, boiling hot.

July 3 — To-day we moved in the direction of Dinwiddie Court House. We marched till noon, then grazed our horses the remainder of the day. Camped on Gravelly Run, five miles north of Dinwiddie Court House. The country that we passed through to-day was a little undulating, and poor land is in the majority, by far.

July 2 — The Yankees throw some shell into Petersburg every day, and from the way the cannons boomed in that direction they doubled the dose to-day.

June 28 — It seems that General Grant has settled down to a regular siege, and intends to fight the remainder of the war right in front of Petersburg, without any more by the left flank business in it. Some cannonading to-day east of Petersburg. Late this evening we moved about five miles west of Petersburg and camped on the Southside Railroad.