SEYMOUR DEFEATED AT OLUSTEE. 531 It was very edge of the woods which con- | ten men for every one of the enemy cealed and sheltered the foe, so that it had even a chance to hit. their sharp-shooters picked off the soon demoralized; when Hawley orartillerists and shot down the horses dered up the 8th U. S. colored, Col. as though enjoying a sportsman's bat- Chaș. W. Fribley-a regiment never tue; while our infantry, half formed, before under fire. It held its posiand not well armed, were pushed into tion in front for an hour and a half, the slaughter-pen with equal stupid- losing 350 killed or wounded (its ity. Had our line been formed half Colonel mortally); when Col. Bara mile back from the enemy's, and ton led his brigade, consisting of the there simply held while our gunners 48th (his own), 49th, and 115th New shelled the woods, we might not have York, hitherto on the right, into the achieved a brilliant success, but we hottest forefront of the battle. Col.. could not have been beaten; but Sammons, of the 115th, was among Hamilton's battery went into action, the first of his regiment disabled; 7 under a heavy fire of musketry, barely of its captains or lieutenants were 150 yards from the Rebel front, and killed or wounded; one of its comin 20 minutes had lost 40 out of 50 panies lost 32 out of 59 men. The horses and 45 out of 82 men-when 47th had its Col. (Moore) wounded, what was left of it recoiled; leaving and 6 captains or lieutenants killed. 2 of its 4 guns where its life-blood or disabled. had been blunderingly squandered. And this was a fair specimen of the generalship displayed on our side throughout. Col. Henry's cavalry (40th Mass.), with Maj. Stevens's battalion, and the 7th Conn. (infantry), Col. J. R. Hawley, were in the advance, and drew the first fire of the mainly concealed enemy. Hawley, finding his regiment falling under a concentric fire, ordered up the 7th New Hampshire, Col. Abbott, to its support; Hamilton's, Elder's, and Langdon's batteries also coming into action. The 7th N. H. was a tried and trusty regiment; but it had been lately deprived of its beloved Spencer repeating rifles, and armed instead with Springfield muskets which it pronounced in bad order and unfit for service; so it was not in good condition for maintaining a position in which it was rapidly losing at least Our left column, Col. Montgomery, came last into the fight, just in time to stop a Rebel charge. The 54th Mass. went in first, followed by the 1st N. C. (both Black). They were of course overpowered; but the latter left its Col., Lt.-Col., Major, and Adjutant, dead on the field. It was admitted that these two regiments had saved our little army from being routed. For Seymour-who had fought with reckless gallantry throughout, rushing from point to point, wherever Rebel bullets flew thickest-profited by their charge to reestablish what remained of his batteries farther to the rear; and now, giving four parting volleys of grape and canister, he ordered a retreat; which was covered by the 7th Connecticut, and executed deliberately, and without effective pursuit." We brought off 1,000 of our wounded, and probably left 250 more, beside 10 Pollard says, "Just then [4 P. M.], our [Rebel] ammunition became exhausted." quite as many, dead or dying, to the mercy of the Rebels and the vultures." The enemy admitted a loss of but 80 killed and 650 wounded. Seymour retreated nearly or quite to Jacksonville, burning provisions, &c., worth at least $1,000,000. And that virtually ended all hope of the recovery of Florida to the Union before the entire collapse of the Rebellion. Few disasters were encountered during the War so utterly inexcusable. It was Braddock's defeat repeated, after the lapse of a century. Our soldiers fought as well as ever men ought to fight; they were abundantly able to have routed the enemy; they were simply sacrificed by a leader brave to rashness, and possessing every soldierly quality but the ability to plan and direct the movements of an independent force. Left 'to himself, he was fit only to afford fresh verification of the old axiom, that, against stupidity, even the gods are impotent. And now, President Lincoln-who had never dreamed of such a folly-was assailed and held up to execration as having fooled away 2,000 men in a sordid attempt to manufacture for himself three additional votes in the approaching Presidential election. During this Winter, extensive saltworks in West Bay, near St. Andrew's sound, belonging to the Confederate Government, and making 400 bushels per day, were destroyed by order of Rear-Admiral Bailey, with certain private salt-works in that vicinity; also, salt-works on Lake Ocola: the whole being valued at $3,000,000. 11 Pollard says we left 350 dead on the field, and that they took 500 prisoners-(including Next Summer," Gen. Birney, under orders from Gen. Foster, moved out from Jacksonville to Callahan station, on the Fernandina railroad, burning bridges, two cars, &c.; and a number of petty raids were made from Jacksonville to Whitesville, and to the south fork of the St. Mary's; while, ultimately, Baldwin and Camp Milton were occupied for a season by detachments of our forces; and several skirmishes took place, but with no decided advantage to either party. A meeting at Jacksonville, May 20th, had assumed the style and title of a State Convention of the Unionists of Florida, and deputed six delegates to represent her in the Union National Convention at Baltimorewhich some of them did, to their own undoubted satisfaction. But, to all practical intents, the battle of Olustee was the first and last event of consequence that happened in Florida during the year 1864, and thence to the close of the war. In South Carolina, while the longrange firing at Charleston from Morris island and the surrounding forts was lazily and irregularly kept up through most of the year, eliciting fitful responses from Rebel forts and batteries, there was no movement of importance; save that, in July, four brigades (Birney's, Saxton's, Hatch's, and Schimmelfennig's) were quietly assembled from the sea islands held by us and from Florida, pushed" over to Seabrook island, and thence, attended by two gunboats on the North Edisto, to John's island, and so to a place called Deckerville," two miles west of Legaréville. The weather wounded, of course;) with 5 guns and 2,000 small arms. July 20. 13 July 2. July 4. 12 14 HOKE BESIEGES WESSELLS IN PLYMOUTH. 15 was intensely hot; the dusty roads lined by thick brush, which excluded air, yet afforded little or no shade; so that marches of barely 5 or 6 miles per day were accomplished with great fatigue and peril. Our men had no cannon. A Rebel battery, well supported, was found in position three miles north-west of Legaréville; which the 26th C. S. Colored was finally sent forward to take, and made five spirited charges upon, losing 97 killed and wounded. But they were 600 without cannon, against an equal force strongly posted, with guns; so they were worsted, and their Col. (Silliman) falling from sunstroke, they were called off; and the expedition returned," after parading about the islands for another week. What it meant, if it meant any thing, or why force enough was not sent up to take the Rebel battery, if that was deemed desirable, remains among the mysteries of strategy. The foolish, wasteful fight was called by our men 'The Battle of Bloody Bridge.' In North Carolina-our forces here having been slender since Foster's 12,000 veterans were made over to the South Carolina department in 1863-the initiative was taken this year by Gen. Pickett, commanding the Rebel department, who suddenly struck" our outpost at Bachelor's creek, 8 miles above Newbern, held by the 132d New York, carrying it by assault, and making 100 prisoners. Following up his success, he threatened Newbern; and a force under Capt. Wood actually carried, by boarding from boats, the fine gunboat Underwriter, lying close to the wharf, and under the fire of three 533 batteries scarcely 100 yards distant. Those batteries opening upon her, while she had no steam up, the captors could do no better than fire and destroy her. Pickett now drew off, without trying his strength against the defenses of Newbern; claiming to have killed and wounded 100 of our men, captured 280, with two guns, 300 small arms, &c., and destroyed a gunboat of 800 horse-power, mounting 4 heavy guns--all at a cost of 35 killed and wounded. The next blow was struck at Plymouth, near the mouth of the Roanoke, which was held for the Union by Gen. Wessells, with the 85th New York, 101st and 103d Penn., 16th Conn., and 6 companies from other regiments-in all 2,400 men. It was a fairly fortified position; while the gunboats Southfield, Miami, and Bombshell, were anchored in the river opposite. Gen. R. F. Hoke, with three infantry brigades, a regiment of cavalry, and 7 batteries—in all, at least 7,000 men-advanced against it so stealthily that he was within two miles before Wessells was apprised of his danger. The mailed ram Albemarle, coming down the Roanoke, took part in the attack. 18 the enemy's infantry, with their guns but 200 yards distant, that it was forced to surrender. Hoke vigorously pressed the siege. Soon, the Albemarle, Capt. Cooke, ran down by Fort Warren and engaged our two remaining gunboats, of 8 guns each, striking the Southfield, Lt. French, so heavily as to sink her; then, turning on the Miami, killed Lt.-Com'r Flusser, and disabled many of her crew; when she fled down the river. The Albemarle then shelled the town with her rifled 32s, doing considerable execution. 21 Capt. Cooke, of the Albemarle, being naturally somewhat inflated by his easy triumph over two unmailed gunboats, our remaining gunboats in those waters, under Capt. Melancthon Smith, were disposed to tempt him to a fresh encounter, on more equal terms. They had not long to wait for it. The Mattabesett, Sassacus, and Wyalusing, were lying 20 miles off the mouth of the Roanoke, when our picket-boats, which had been sent up the river to decoy the ram from under the protecting batteries of Plymouth, reported her coming ;" and soon she was descried bearing down, accompanied by the river steamboat Cotton Plant, and what was lately our gunboat Bombshell. The former-being too frail for such an encounter-put back, with her 200 sharp-shooters and boarders, to Plymouth; and the contest began. The Albemarle was heavily iron-clad and armed with very large Whitworth guns; and our vessels of course played around her, seeking to inject their iron into her weakest quarter: the Sassacus taking occasion to pour one broadside at close range into the Bombshell, which compelled her to strike her flag and fall out of the range of fire. After a spirited cannonade at short range, the Sassacus struck the Albemarle at full speed, crowding her hull under water, but not sinking her. And now these life-and-death wrestlers exchanged 100-pound shots at five or six paces; the gunners of the Sassacus watching for the opening of a port by the Albemarle, and trying-sometimes with success-to fire a shell or shot into it before it could be closed again; as, from the ram's mailed sides or deck, 20 April 23. Next morning," Hoke pushed forward all his batteries, and opened on the town and our remaining forts at 1,100 yards: Ransom, with one brigade, assaulting on the right, and Hoke, with two, going in on the left. By: a desperate effort, in the face of a murderous fire, the two outer forts, mounting 8 guns, were carried at a heavy cost, and their garrisons made prisoners. A rush was then made on the town; which was likewise carried; and at length Fort Williams-which was still mowing down the assailants with grape and case-shot-was so enveloped and enfiladed that nothing remained for Wessells but to surrender. The fruits of the victory were 1,600 effective prisoners, 25 guns, at least 2,000 small arms, and some valuable stores. The Rebels admitted a loss here of only 300. Our combatants estimated it at fully 1,000, and say we had but 100 killed and wounded. As a consequence of this disaster, Washington, at the head of Pamlico sound, was soon evacuated by Gen. Palmer some of our departing soldiers disgracing themselves and their flag by arson and pillage ere they left. April 20. .20 19 21 May 5, 3 P. M. DESTRUCTION OF THE RAM ALBEMARLE. the largest bolts, fired at this distance, rebounded like dry peas. At length, the ram put a shot through one of of her adversary's boilers, killing 3 and wounding 6 of her men, and filling her with scalding steam, from out which the shrieks of the scalded were piercingly heard. And now the chief engineer of the Sassacus was compelled to call his men to follow him into the fire-room, and there to drag the fires from beneath the uninjured boiler, which was on the brink of explosion; while the engine had become entirely unmanageable. Out of the thick, white cloud which enveloped the two combatants, frequently irradiated by the flashes of guns, the Albemarle soon emerged, limping off toward her sheltering fort; still keeping up her fire; the Sassacus moving slowly in pursuit, working on a vacuum alone. We had the Bombshell, with her 4 rifled guns, as a trophy; while the siege of Newbern-which the Albemarle had set forth to form the naval part of, while that post had already been summoned by Hoke, on the assumption that "the river and sound were blockaded below"-was indefinitely postponed. The Albemarle made good her retreat, and never cared to renew the encounter. Months afterward, she was still 8 miles up the Roanoke, lying at a dock, behind a barricade of logs, when Lt. Wm. B. Cushing slipped" up the river in a steamlaunch and, under a fierce fire from the monster, lowered a torpedo-boat, rowed it to and under the overhang of the Albemarle and fired it, at the Oct. 27. 535 same instant that one of the enemy's shots crashed through the torpedoboat, utterly destroying it. The launch likewise was instantly disabled; but Cushing, spurning every call to surrender, ordered his men to save themselves as they best could; himself dropping into the water and swimming down stream half a mile, when he crawled out at daybreak, and hid in an adjacent swamp; through which he slowly, cautiously worked his way until he found a skiff in a creek, and, at 11 P. M., was on board one of our vessels in the offing. The Albemarle sunk like a stone, and was never more troublesome to friend or foe. Plymouth-Hoke being busy on the James-was now easily retaken " by our fleet under Com'r Macomb, who captured a few prisoners, some guns and warlike stores. Of Burnside's extensive conquests in North Carolina, but little more than Newbern and Roanoke island remained to us, after the loss of Plymouth and the abandonment of Washington; and Hoke was intent on reducing our possessions still further, when the pressure of our advance in Virginia summoned the greater part of his force to the defense of Richmond. Two or three unimportant raiding expeditions were sent out from Newbern during the Summer; and one from Roanoke island, led by Gen. Wild and composed of colored troops, penetrated far into Camden county; bringing off 2,500 slaves, many horses and cattle, and destroying much grain; at a total cost of 13 men. 23 Oct. 31. |