I. ON THE ROAD TO PETERSBURG. I. NOTES OF AN OFFICER OF THE C. 8. A. So June wears on in this good or bad year 1864, and our friend General Grant is leaving Cold Harbour for a "new base," I think. He has had a hard time of it since he crossed the Rapidan, and we also; fighting in the Wilderness, (I came near "going under" there); fighting at Spotsylvania Court-House (our Po is more famous now than the classic stream of Virgil); fighting on the North Anna, a maiden who stretched her arms between the fierce combatants and commanded the peace; fighting on the slopes of Hanover, when that Indian girl, the Tottapotamoi, did the same; and then fighting here, how fiercely! on the famous ground of old Cold Harbour, where the thunder of the guns has seemed to many like an echo of those guns of McClellan, which made such a racket hereabouts in June,1862, just two years since! A good many things have happened since that period, but we remain more faithful to our first loves than the blue people. Then the Federal commander-in-chief was called McClellannow he is called Grant. The leader of the South was then called Lee, and Lee is his name to-day. But each seems to have a constant, never-faltering attachment for the "good old place," Cold Harbour, just as they appear to have for the blooming parterres of the beautiful and smiling Manassas! The little affair near Stone Bridge, in July, 1861, was not sufficient; again in August, 1862, the blue and gray lovers of the historic locality must hug each other in the dear old place! "Malbrook s'en va-t en guerre," to the old tune on the old ground! The game is played here for the present, however. Every assault upon the Confederate lines has been repulsed with heavy loss, and Grant has evidently abandoned any further attempt to storm them; he is moving toward James river. The fighting has been heavy, incessant, deadly. Wind, rain, sunshine, heat, cold, nothing has stopped it. But the Southern lines have stood intact; so the war goes elsewhere. It is escorted on its way, as usual, with a salute. This morning a decided racket is going on. Boom! boom! whiz-z-z-z! pow-w-w-w! there is a shell which has burst near Won't our friends across the way permit an inoffensive Confederate to smoke his pipe in peace, without disturbance from these disgusting visitors? I have just dined on an infinitesimal ration, and am smoking peaceably when my reverie is thus invaded. That shell, which in bursting has raised a little cloud of dust, might have hurt me; it has interrupted me. Why do they fire so high, and why at me? I am not a general. My flag is not up. I am not even fighting to-day. I am smoking, and indulging no sort of spite against anybody. I am thinking of some scenes and faces an enormous distance from this spot, and am, in every sense of the words, "off duty." It is pleasure, not duty, which enthralls me. Recreation, not work, is my programme for the nonce. Respect, my friends, the rights of a neutral and non-combatant! The cannonade continues. They are having a hot artillery skirmish yonder, but I go on smoking without much excitement thereat, being used to it. The time was when we fought pitched battles once or twice a year, killed each other all day long secundem artem, and then relapsed into gentlemanly repose and amity, undisturbed save by the petite guerre of the pickets. At that remote period, the present elderly, battered, and unexcitable warrior, used to rush "to horse" at the first roar of the cannon; for the roar in question preceded a general and decisive engagement, in which every man ought to be “on |