The summer of 1864 was exceedingly hot; and, for that reason, the enterprise of military life somewhat flagged with the besiegers of the rebel citadel. Yet many skirmishes, and several heavy engagements, took place; and the rebels were watched with unceasing vigilance, and were pressed wherever a point of attack seemed to offer the chance of gaining desirable advantage. On the 14th, 15th, and 16th of August there was some fighting in the vicinity of Deep Bottom, the Union loss being between four and five hundred men. This engagement was brought on for the purpose of distracting the enemy’s attention from the other extreme of operations and to draw his forces partially away from Petersburg. The feint succeeded; and, the Weldon railroad being left exposed, the Fifth corps advanced, on the 18th of August, and took possession of Reams’s Station, surprising a body of the enemy that was guarding it, but losing, in the incidental fight, about three hundred men. The track was torn up for about one mile. Next day, the 19th, the rebels made a furious attack upon the National forces holding Reams’s Station, and a bloody battle ensued. The Union line, being extended to a great length, was quite thin in the centre. It had been hoped that the rebels would not discover this weakness; but they did, and their first charge broke through and divided the Union forces. The conflict that followed was characterized by the most desperate bravery. Reinforcements arriving—the First and Second divisions of the Ninth corps—the rebels were finally repulsed. The most notable feature of this fight was, that, in the course of events, it became necessary to train the Union artillery upon a struggling mass of patriots and rebels, and sacrifice friends as well as foes, in order to hold the position originally taken by the Fifth corps. This position was held; but the rebels recovered the railroad as far as Yellow Springs. The loss, on the Union side, including prisoners, was three thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine.