June 27—We renewed our march this morning, and about the middle of the day we crossed the Appomattox River and passed through the western edge of Petersburg. The Yankees were shelling the eastern part of the city when we passed through.
Petersburg is twenty-two miles south of Richmond, and situated near the south bank of the Appomattox River and on the north edge of Dinwiddie County. It is about ten miles from City Point, where the Appomattox empties into the James. The country around Petersburg is level, and where the city stands it is almost as level as a floor and not much above tide-water. The weather is oppressively hot at present, and the ground is dry and dusty; this afternoon as we crossed the low dusty fields lying just south of Petersburg the hot sunshine poured down with scorching intensity, and as I looked across the low, level expanse the quivering heat danced like as if it were playing around the roasting point. I am truly glad that I am a horse artilleryman, for I do not perceive how our infantrymen can endure the oven-like heat in the trenches.
We are camped to-night one mile south of Petersburg.
