EXPEDITION AGAINST NEW BERNE.

305

CHAPTER XII.

OPERATIONS ON THE COASTS OF THE ATLANTIC AND THE GULF OF MEXICO.

E left General Burnside in Albemarle Sound, after the capture of Roanoke Island and the operations at Elizabeth City, Edenton, and Plymouth,' preparing for other conquests on the North Carolina coast. For that purpose he concentrated his forces, with the fleet now in command of Commodore Rowan (Goldsborough having been ordered to Hampton Roads), at Hatteras Inlet. New Berne, the capital of Craven County, at the confluence of the rivers Trent and Neuse, was his first object of attack.2

a 1862.

His troops

6 March 13.

The land and naval forces left Hatteras Inlet on the morning of the 12th of March, and at sunset the gun-boats and transports anchored off the mouth of Slocum's Creek, about eighteen miles from New Berne, where Burnside had determined to make a landing. numbered about fifteen thousand. The landing was begun at seven o'clock the next morning,' under cover of the gun-boats; and so eager were the men to get ashore, that many, too impatient to wait for the boats, leaped into the water, waist deep, and waded to the land. Then they pushed on in the direction of New Berne, in a copious rain, dragging their heavy cannon,3 with great difficulty and fatigue, through the wet clay, into which men often sank knee deep. The head of the column was within a mile and a half of the Confederate works at sunset, when it halted and bivouacked. During the night the remainder of the army came up in detachments hour after hour, meeting no resistance. The gun-boats meanwhile had moved up the river abreast the army, the flag-ship Delaware leading. A shore-battery opened upon her at four o'clock in the afternoon, but was soon quieted by her reply.

The main body of the Confederates, under the command of General Branch, consisted of eight regiments of infantry and five hundred cavalry, with three batteries of field-artillery of six guns each. These occupied a line of intrenchments extending more than a mile from near the river across the railway, supported by another line, on the inland flank, of rifle-pits and detached intrenchments in the form of curvettes and redans, for more than a mile, and terminating in a two-gun redoubt. On the river-bank and cover

1 See Chapter VI. pages 170 to 175, inclusive.

2 New Berne was a point of much military importance. It was near the head of an extensive and navigable arm of the sea, and was connected by railway with Beaufort harbor at Morehead City, and Raleigh, the capital of the State.

Among them were six naval howitzers that Rowan put ashore, under Lieutenant R. S. McCook, to assist in the attack.

VOL. II.-58

306

BATTLE OF NEW BERNE.

ing their left was Fort Thompson, four miles from New Berne, armed with thirteen heavy guns; and other works and appliances, prepared by good engineering skill, for the defense of the river-channel against the passage of gun-boats, were numerous.'

1862.

At daylight on the morning of the 14th," the army moved forward in three columns, under Generals Foster, Reno, and Parke. A heavy a March, fog lay for a short time upon the land and water, but it was soon dissipated. Foster, with the first brigade, marched up the main country road to attack Fort Thompson and the Confederate left. Reno, with the second brigade, followed nearer the line of the railway, to fall upon their right; and Parke, with the third brigade, kept such position that he might attack their front or assist the other two brigades.

Foster began battle at eight o'clock. At the same time Reno pushed on toward the Confederate right flank, while Parke took position on their front. Foster was supported on his left by the boat-howitzers, manned by Lieutenants McCook, Hammond, Daniels, and Tillotson, with marines and a detachment of the Union Coast Guard. Before the Confederate center was placed a 12-pounder steel cannon, under Captain Bennett, of the Cossack, who was assisted in its management by twenty of that ship's crew; and on the left of the insurgents was Captain Dayton's battery, from the transport Highlander.

Foster's brigade bore the brunt of the battle for about four hours. In response to his first gun, the assailed ran up the Confederate flag with a shout, and opened a brisk fire which soon became most severe. There was a hard struggle for the position where their intrenchments crossed the railway, and in this the Second Massachusetts and Tenth Connecticut were conspicuous. General Parke gave support to Foster until it was evident that the latter could sustain himself, when the former, with his whole brigade excepting the Eleventh Connecticut, Colonel Mathews, went to the support of Reno in his flank movement, which that officer was carrying on with success. After he had fought about an hour, he ordered the Twenty-first Massachusetts, Colonel Clark, to charge a portion of the Confederate works. It dashed forward at the double-quick, accompanied by General Reno in person, and in a few moments was within the intrenchments, from which it was as speedily driven by two of Branch's regiments. This was followed by a charge of the Fourth Rhode Island upon a battery of five guns in its front, supported by rifle-pits. The battery was captured, the National flag was unfurled over it, and its occupants and supporters were driven pell-mell far away

1 A little below Fort Thompson was Fort Dixie, four guns. Between Fort Thompson and the city were Forts Brown, Ellis, and Lane, each mounting eight guns; and a mile from New Berne was Union Point Battery, of two guns, manned by a company of public singers. In the channel of the Neuse were twenty-four sunken vessels, several torpedoes,* and submerged iron-pointed spars, planted so as to pierce the bottoms of vessels ascending the river. On the left bank of the Neuse was a succession of redoubts, over half a mile in extent, in the midst of woods and swamps, for riflemen and field-pieces.

2 His troops consisted of the Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, and Twenty-seventh Massachusetts, commanded respectively by Colonels Kurtz, Stevenson, Upton, and Lee; and the Tenth Connecticut, Colonel Drake.

These torpedoes consisted of a cylinder of iron, about ten inches in diameter, into which fitted a heavily loaded bomb-shell, resting on springs. The torpedo was placed on the point of heavy timber, in the form and position of chevauz-de-frise, held firmly at the botton of the river by stones in a box, and lying at an angle of forty-five degrees in the direction of an approaching vessel. The shell was sỘ arranged, that when a vessel should strike the cylinder on the point of the timber, a percussion cap would be discharged and the shell exploded. These were very formidable missiles, but the gun-boats did not go near them,

CAPTURE OF NEW BERNE.

307

from their lost guns and breast-works. The victory was made com plete by the aid of the Fifth Rhode Island and Eighth and Eleventh Connecticut.

All this while, Reno was losing heavily from the effects of another battery. So he called up his reserve regiment (the Fifty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel Hartrauft), and ordered it

to charge the work. It was done gallantly, and the Fifty-first New York, Twenty-first Massachusetts, and Ninth New Jersey participated in the achievement and the triumph. Foster, meanwhile, hearing the shouts on the left when the order

to charge was given, had directed his brigade to advance along the whole line. Pressed at all points, on front and flank, the Confederates abandoned every thing and fled, pursued by Foster to the verge of the Trent. The fugitives were more fleet than he, and, burning the railway and turnpike bridges behind them that spanned the Trent (the first by sending a raft of flaming turpentine and cotton against it), they escaped. So ended the BATTLE OF NEW Berne.1

TU BEAUFORT

VER

TRANSPORTS

OPERATIONS NEAR NEW BERNE.

The National squadron, in the mean time, had co-operated with the army in the attack on Fort Thomp son, and in driving the Confederates from the other batteries on the shore. When these were evacuated, the gun-boats passed the obstructions and went up to the city. The Confederate troops had fired it in seven places, and then hurried to Tuscarora, about ten miles from New Berne, where they halted. Large numbers of the terrified citizens had abandoned their homes and fled to the interior. No less than seven railway trains, crowded to overflowing with men, women, and children, left New Berne for Goldsboro' on the day of the battle. "The town of New Berne," says Pollard, "originally contained twelve hundred people; when occupied by the enemy, it contained one hundred people, male and female, of the old population." Pollard did not count the large number of colored loyalists who remained as "people."

General Foster's brigade was taken over the Trent and to the city wharves by some of Rowan's boats, and took military possession of New Berne. General Burnside made the fine old mansion of the Stanley family,

1 See reports of General Burnside and his subordinate officers, and of Commodore Rowan.

308

EFFECT OF THE CAPTURE OF NEW BERNE.

in the suburbs of the town, his head-quarters, and there, on the fol lowing day, he issued an order, appointing General Foster military

BURNSIDE'S HEAD-QUARTERS, NEW BERNE.

governor of the city, and directing the places of public worship to be opened on Sunday, the 16th, at a suitable hour, in order that the chaplains of the different regiments might hold divine service in them; the bells to be rung as usual. On the same day Burnside issued an order, congratulating his troops on account of the "brilliant and hard-won victory," and directed each regiment

engaged in it to place the name of New Berne on its banner. In his report, he spoke in the highest terms of the courage and fidelity of his, troops, and gave to the general-in-chief (McClellan) the credit of planning the expedition.'

2

In this battle the Nationals lost about one hundred in killed and four hundred and ninety-eight in wounded. Among the former were LieutenantColonel Henry Merritt, of the Twenty-third Massachusetts, and other gallant officers and men. The loss of the Confederates was much less in killed and wounded, but two hundred of them were made prisoners. The spoils of victory were many and important, ;3 and the possession of the town of New Berne, by which the Wilmington and Weldon Railway, the great line of travel between the North and the South, was exposed, gave to the National cause in that region an almost incalculable advantage. Its moral effect was prodigious, and greatly disheartened the enemies of the Government, who saw in it " a subject of keen mortification to the South."4

In the midst of the horrors of war at New Berne, and almost before the smoke of battle was dissipated, the Christian spirit of the friends of the Government was made conspicuous in acts of benevolence by the generous deeds of Vincent Colyer, a well-known citizen of New York, and the originator of the CHRISTIAN COMMISSION of the army, whose holy ministrations, nearly co-extensive with those of the UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION, in the camp, the field, and the hospital, throughout almost the entire period of the war, will be considered hereafter. Mr. Colyer was with Burnside's

1 I beg to say to the general commanding the army," he wrote, "that I have endeavored to carry out the very minute instructions given me by him before leaving Annapolis, and thus far events have been singularly coincident with his anticipations."

2 They reported their loss at 64 killed, 101 wounded, and 413 missing.

These were the important town and harbor of New Berne; eight batteries mounting forty-six heavy guns: three batteries of light artillery of six guns each; two steamboats; a number of sailing vessels; wagons, horses, and mules; a large quantity of ammunition and army supplies; the entire camp equipage of the Confederates; and much turpentine, rosin, and cotton,

4 Pollard's First Year of the War, i. 288.

CHRISTIAN WORK AT NEW BERNE.

309

expedition for the two-fold purpose of distributing to the sick and wounded the generous contributions of patriotic and charitable citizens, and to exercise a fostering care of the poor and ignorant colored people, from whose limbs the hand of the loyal victor had just unloosed the shackles of hopeless slavery.

March 30, 1862.

Mr. Colyer began his blessed work on Roanoke Island in February, and now, at the middle of March, he was made busy in the same high vocation at New Berne. When his labors in the hospitals were finished, he was placed in charge of the helpless of that town of every kind, by an order issued by Burnside," which read thus: "Mr. Vincent Colyer is hereby appointed Superintendent of the Poor, and will be obeyed and respected accordingly." Mr. Colyer took for his headquarters a respectable dwelling in the town, and at once began the exercise of the most commendable form of benevolence, in finding remunerative employment for the healthy destitute.2 He opened evening schools for the education of the colored people, in which over eight hundred of the most eager pupils were nightly seen, some of General Foster's New England soldiers acting as teachers. But this promising, benevolent work was suddenly stopped by Edward Stanley, who had been appointed' by the

May.

President military governor of North Carolina, and whose policy was that of a large class of Unionists in border slave-labor States, namely, to preserve slavery, and, if possible, the Union. The closing of the schools was the first administrative act of the new governor, in conformity with the barbarous laws of North Carolina, which made it, he said, "a criminal offense to teach the blacks to read." He also returned fugitive slaves to their masters; and the hopes of that down-trodden race in that region, which were so delightfully given in promises, were suddenly extinguished. Having taken possession of New Berne, Burnside proceeded at once to further carry out the instructions of General McClellan by leading a force

3

of the lines be respected at the outposts, and that all persons outside, inquiring for him, be sent to him On the 24th of April, General Foster issued an order that all passes given to negroes by Mr. Colyer to go out

unquestioned.

2 Mr. Colyer gave employment to every able-bodied man that could be found; and in the course of the four months that he administered the duties of his office under Burnside there, colored men built three first-class earthwork forts: one at New Berne, another on Roanoke Island, and a third at Washington, North Carolina They also performed much labor as carpenters and blacksmiths, and were made useful in loading and discharging cargoes for about three hundred Government vessels, serving as crews on about twenty steamers, and as gangs of laborers in several departments. More than fifty of them were employed in the perilous duty of spies, going sometimes three hundred miles within the Confederate lines, and bringing back the most reliable information, because the negroes were uniformly loyal to the National cause.

want and suffering over eight hundred people.

he and his assistants cared for and kept from

3 When this fact was told to President Lincoln. he said, with great earnestness, "Well, this I have always maintained and shall insist on, that no slave who once comes within our lines a fugitive from a rebel shall ever be returned to his master. For my part, I have hated slavery from my childhood." This was said at about the time when he had written a proclamation of emancipation, which, by the advice of the Secretary of State, was