310

EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT MACON.

against Fort Macon, that commanded the important harbor of Beaufort, North Carolina, and Bogue Sound.' That fort, with others, it will be remembered, was seized by Governor Ellis, early in 1861, before the so-called secession of the State. Its possession by the Government would secure the use of another fine harbor on the Atlantic coast to the National vessels engaged in the blockading and other service, an object of great importance. It stands upon a long spit or ridge of sand, cast up by the waves, called Bogue Island, and separated from the main by Bogue Sound, which is navigable for small vessels. At the head of the deeper part of Beaufort harbor, and at the terminus of the railway from New Berne, is Morehead City, thirty-six miles from the former; and on the northern side of the harbor is Beaufort, the capital of Carteret County, and an old and pleasant town, which was a popular place of resort for the North Carolinians in the summer. Into that harbor blockade-runners had for some time been carrying supplies for the Confederates.3

General Burnside intrusted the expedition against Fort Macon to the command of General Parke, at the same time sending General Reno to make further demonstrations in the rear of Norfolk. Parke's forces were transferred by water to Slocum's Creek, from which point they marched across the

1862.

country and invested Morehead City, nine days after the fall of March 23, New Berne." The latter place was evacuated. On the 25th, a detachment, composed of the Fourth Rhode Island and Eighth Connecticut, took possession of Beaufort without opposition, for there was no military force there.

In the mean time a flag had been sent to Fort Macon with a demand for its surrender. It was refused, the commander, Colonel Moses T. White (nephew of Jefferson Davis), declaring that he would not yield until he had eaten his last biscuit and slain his last horse. Vigorous preparations were at once made to capture it, and on the 11th of April General Parke made a reconnoissance in force on Bogue Spit, drove in the Confederate pickets, and selected good points for the planting of siege-guns. At that time regular siege operations commenced, and the garrison was confined within the limits of the fort, closely watched, for it was expected that in their supposed des

withheld for some months, for prudential reasons.-See Mr. Colyer's Report of the Christian Mission to the United States Army, from August, 1861, to August, 1862. In that report may be found most interesting details of work and experience among the freedmen on the Atlantic coast.

1 "Having gained possession of which [New Berne], and the railroad passing through it, you will at once throw a sufficient force upon Beaufort, and take the steps necessary to reduce Fort Macon and open that port."— McClellan's Instructions, January 7th, 1862.

2 See page 161, volume I.

3 The Confederates owned a war steamer called the Nashville, commanded by Captain R. P. Pegram. At the beginning of February, 1862, she was lying in the harbor of Southampton, England, with a cargo of stores valued at $3,000,000. Near her was the United States gun-boat Tuscarora, Captain Craven, carrying nine heavy guns, which had been sent over for the special purpose of watching the Nashville, and capturing her when she should put to sea. The British authorities, sympathizing with the Confederates, notified Captain Craven that the Tuscarora would not be allowed to leave the port until twenty-four hours after the Nashville should depart. The British war-ship Dauntless lay near, ready to enforce the order, and the armored ship Warrior was within call, if necessity should require its presence. The result was, that on the 3d of February the Nashville left Southampton, eluded the chase of the Tuscarora, that commenced twenty-four hours afterward, and ran the blockade into Beaufort harbor on the 28th of the same month, with her valuable cargo. She had coaled on the way at the friendly English port of Bermuda, where, on the 22d of February, an order was promulgated prohibiting the use of that port as a coal dépôt by the United States. This was one of many similar exhibitions of the professed neutrality of Great Britain during the war. The Nashville remained in Beaufort until the night of the 17th of March, when she again ran the blockade, and went to sea to depredate upon American merchantVessels.

PREPARATIONS TO ASSAIL FORT MACON.

311

perate strait they might make a sudden and fierce sortie, but there was only some picket skirmishing occasionally. Ordnance and ordnance stores were rafted over from a wooded point near Carolina City by General Parke, and batteries were constructed behind sand dunes on Bogue Spit. Gun-boats

were co-operating with them, and the garrison, composed of about five hundred North Carolinians, was cut off from all communication by sea and

land.

Three siege batteries were erected on Bogue Spit behind sand-hills, the sides and front being formed by sand-bags. The most distant, under Lieutenant Flagler, of the New York Third Artillery, was in the borders of a marsh, about fourteen hundred yards from the fort, and mounted four ten

This is a view looking westward of the causeway, on which lies the railway track from the main at Morehead City to the wharf at deep water. Morehead City is seen in the distance, and Bogue Sound and Spit appear on the left, where the vessels are seen. The single bird indicates the place of Morehead City; the two birds, the site of a fort erected by the Nationals; the three birds, the wooded point at Carolina City from which ordnance and supplies were sent over to the Spit; and the four birds show the position of the landing-place on the Spit from which the siege-guns were taken to their proper places. The picture is from a sketch made by the writer from the deck of the Ben Deford, in December, 1864.

Two of the companies in the fort were young men from Beaufort, and there, in sight of their homes, they were really prisoners. They resorted to various devices to keep up communication with their friends. Among others, they would send out tiny vessels, with sails all set, to drift across the bay, around the marshes, to Beaufort, carrying letters or other kinds of messages. On a thin board, thus set afloat on the 20th of April, was inscribed the following message: "To the Ladys of Beaufort,-we are still induring the privations of War, with unexosted Hopes if this vessil due reach hur port of destiny you will find that we are still well and alive and will not leeve

till we

sea the ruins of theas old Walls we have had

several scurmish fights with the Yankee Piket Gard, the old topsail gards sends there best Respects to all there Lady friends of Beaufort and surrounding country."

Such contrivances for communication were used elsewhere. While the contending armies were on the Rappahannock, the pickets of both sides would send newspapers backward and forward across the stream in that Our little picture shows one in the possession of Lieutenant C. A. Alvord, Jr., of General Caldwell's staff, which he brought from the Rappahannock. It is made of a piece of thin board, about twenty-three inches in length, with a strip of the same for a keel, and a rudder

way.

of tin.

Two

small sticks formed masts, and the sails

were made of checked cotton cloth. On it a newspaper was sent over by the insurgents from the Fredericks

burg side of the river.

312

a 1862.

SIEGE AND BOMBARDMENT OF FORT MACON.

inch mortars. The second was about two hundred yards in front of it, under Captain Morris, of the First Regular Artillery, and mounted three long 30pound Parrott guns; and the third was one hundred yards still nearer the fort, composed of four 8-inch mortars, and commanded by Lieutenant Prouty, of the Third New York Artillery. When these batteries were completed, the gun-boats Daylight (flag-ship); State of Georgia, Commander Armstrong; and Chippewa, Lieutenant Bryson, and the barque Gemsbok, Lieutenant Cavendish, took position for battle outside the Spit, within range of the fort. Burnside came down from New Berne, and passed over to the batteries; and at six o'clock, on the morning of the 25th of April," Flagler opened fire with his 10-inch mortars, directed by Lieutenant Andrews of the Signal Corps, and his accomplished young assistant, Lieutenant Wait.' The other batteries followed, and in the course of ten minutes the fort replied with a shot from Captain Manney's 24-pounder battery on the terreplein. The heavy columbiads and 32-pounders en barbette joined in the cannonade, and at eight o'clock the fort, belching fire and smoke like an active volcano, was sending a shot every minute. The National batteries were responding with equal vigor, and the war vessels. were doing good service, maneuvering in an elliptical course, like Dupont's at Port Royal Entrance, and throwing heavy shot and shell upon the fortress. But the roughness of the sea, caused by a southwest wind, compelled them to withdraw after fighting an hour and a quarter. The land batteries kept at work until four o'clock in the afternoon, when a white flag, displayed on Fort Macon, caused their firing to cease. Captain Guion, of the garrison, came out with a proposition from Colonel White to surrender; and before ten o'clock the next morning the fort was in the possession of 6 April 26. the National forces, with about five hundred prisoners of war.' Burnside was present, and had the pleasure of seeing the ensign of the

1 In cases like this, where the mortars and guns were so situated behind obstructions to vision that the range could not be precisely known, nor the effects of missiles sent determined, the services of the members of the Signal Corps were most important. As an illustrative example, I quote from the report of Lieutenant Andrews on this occasion: "I was the only [Signal] officer on duty on Beaufort station, until Lieutenant Marvin Wait reported for duty. My station was at a right angle with the line of fire, so that I was enabled to judge with accuracy the distance over or short a shot fell. The 10-inch shell were falling, almost without exception, more than three hundred yards beyond the fort. Lieutenant Wait and myself continued to signal to the officer in charge until the correct range was obtained. The S-inch shell were falling short-we signaled to the officer in charge of that battery with the same effect. The same was the case with the battery of Parrott guns, which was too much elevated. From the position of our batteries, it was impossible for the officers in charge to see how their shots fell, but owing to the observations made by Lieutenant Wait and myself, and signaled to them from time to time, an accurate range was obtained by all the batteries, and was not lost during the day. After 12 M., every shot fired from our batteries fell in or on the fort."

Lieutenant Wait (son of John T. Wait, of Norwich, Connecticut) was then only a little more than nineteen years of age. He had acquired great skill in signaling, and, for his services on this occasion, Major Myer, the chief of the Signal Department, presented him with a very beautiful battle-flag. A few months later he gave his young life to his country, while gallantly battling with his regiment (Eighth Connecticut) on the field of Antietam.

2 The capitulation was signed by Colonel M. T. White, General J. G. Parke, and Commodore Samuel Lockwood. The troops of the garrison were held as prisoners of war on parole until duly exchanged. The officers were allowed to retain their side-arms; and both officers and men had the privilege of saving their private effects. In this conflict the Nationals lost only one man killed and two wounded. The Confederates lost seven killed and eighteen wounded. The fruits for the victors were-the important fort; the command of Beaufort Harbor; 20,000 pounds of powder; 150 10-inch shells; 250 32-pound shot; 150 8-inch shot, and 400 stand of arms.-See Reports of General Burnside and Commodore Lockwood, April 27, 1862,

On the day after the surrender Burnside issued a congratulatory order, in which he said he took particular pleasure in thanking General Parke and his brave command for the patient labor, fortitude, and courage displayed in the investment and reduction of Fort Macon," and declared that the troops had earned the right to wear upon their colors and guidons the words, FORT MACON, April 25, 1862.* **

FORT MACON AND ITS VICINITY.

313

Republic, and the new colors of the Fifth Rhode Island battalion, which had just been presented to it by the women of Providence, unfurled over the fort.'

The writer visited and sketched Fort Macon in December, 1864, while accompanying the expedition under General Butler against Fort Fisher. The transports bearing his troops, and the Ben Deford, his head-quarters ship, had been furnished with water and fuel for only ten days. Having waited three days at the place of rendezvous, twenty-five miles at sea, off Fort Fisher, for the arrival of the war-vessels that were to co-operate with the soldiers, it was necessary to run up the coast seventy miles to Beaufort for a new supply of fuel and water. This gave the writer a wished for opportunity to visit Beaufort Harbor and its surroundings. We entered it during one of the heaviest gales known on that coast for thirty years, and were detained there four days, during which time we visited the old town of Beaufort, the more modern Morehead City, Carolina City, the Bogue Banks or Spit, and Fort Macon. The latter is at the eastern point of the Spit, upon an elevation above the common level, composed of a huge mound of sand thrown up for the purpose. The fort was built of brick and stone,

and named in honor of Nathaniel Macon, a distinguished statesman of North Carolina. Built for defense against a foreign foe, its principal strength in

The Confederate flag that was displaced by the National banner was made of the old United States flag that was over the fort when the insurgents seized it, more than a year before. The red and white stripes had been ripped apart, and then put together so as to form the broad bars of the Confederate flag. The superfluous stars had been cut out, and the holes thus made were left.

This view is from the ramparts, near the sally-port, looking seaward.

The lower and the upper terreplein,

of the outer works, and the second the surmounting of the walls of the citadel (eighteen feet in height), which of which forty-nine heavy guns and some mortars were then mounted, en barbette, are seen, the first being a part were casemated, covered with turf, and surrounded a large parade. In the foreground is seen an iron 32

pounder.

314

BATTLE OF SOUTH MILLS.

masonry and guns was toward the sea, and it perfectly commanded the narrow ship channel at the entrance to the harbor.

We found Fort Macon very much in the condition in which Burnside observed it when he entered it, excepting the absence of fragments of shot and shell and cannon and carriages, made by the National missiles. On its wall, landward (seen in shadow in the engraving), that bore the brunt of the bombardment, were the broad wounds made by shot and shell; and here and there the remains of furrows made by them were seen on the parades, the ramparts, and the glacis. After passing half an hour pleasantly with Captain King, the commandant, and other officers of the garrison, and making the sketch on the preceding page, we departed for the Ben Deford in the tug that took us from it and on the following day left the harbor for the waters in front of Fort Fisher.

While Parke and Lockwood were operating at Beaufort Harbor, troops under General Reno were quietly taking possession of important places on the waters of Albemarle Sound, and threatening Norfolk in the rear. The movement was partly for the purpose of assisting Parke in his siege of Fort Macon, and partly to gain some substantial advantages on the Sounds.

• April 19. 1862.

Reno's force consisted of the Twenty-first Massachusetts, Fifty-first Pennsylvania, the Sixth New Hampshire, and a part of the Ninth and Eighty-ninth New York. They advanced in transports up the Pasquotank to within three miles of Elizabeth City, and, landing cautiously in the night," a part of them under Colonel Hawkins were pushed forward to surprise and intercept a body of Confederates known to be about leaving that place for Norfolk. Hawkins took with him portions of the Ninth and Eighty-ninth New York, and Sixth New Hampshire; and a few hours later he was followed by General Reno and the remainder of the troops.

Hawkins was misled by a treacherous or incompetent guide, and, marching ten miles out of his way, lost so much time that in retracing his steps he came in behind General Reno. Meanwhile the Confederates had been apprised of the movement, and when the Nationals were within a mile and a half of South Mills, near Camden Court-house, they were assailed with grape and canister shot from the foe, who were in a good position with artillery, having a dense forest in their rear for a protection and cover, and swamps on their flanks. The attack was bravely met. Reno's superior numbers soon flanked the Confederates, and the latter hastily withdrew. A gunboat under Captain Flusser had, in the mean time, driven the foe out of the woods along the river-banks. Hawkins's Zouaves had made a gallant charge, but were repulsed, and in this the chief loss to the Nationals occurred. They had fifteen killed, ninety-six wounded, and two made prisoners. The loss of the Confederates is not known. They left thirty killed and wounded on the field. This engagement is called THE BATTLE OF SOUTH MILLS. The defeat of the Third Georgia regiment in the fight produced much consternation in Norfolk.

General Reno allowed his wearied troops to rest on the battle-field about six hours, when they returned to the boats. For want of transportation, he was compelled to leave some of his killed and wounded behind.

Winton, at the head of the Chowan; Plymouth, at the mouth of the