of small-pox, Corporal Andrew M. Brock, of Company D, December 2; and Corporal William McLeon, of Company F, December 9: Private Lyman Converse, of Company H, also died of disease January 8th.

About thirty of our men, whose physical disability unfitted them for severe service, had been weeded out and discharged; and leaving scarcely an enlisted man on our rolls behind at Annapolis, the regiment was going to take the chances of war in good drill and robust and vigorous strength.

Sunday, January 5, 1862, was to be our last day in Annapolis, as orders had been issued for our embarkation for we knew not where early in the morning of the 6th; consider⚫able liberty was therefore allowed to the men in circulating about the city, and many a canteen among the drinking ones was filled with a parting gift of vile and potent spirit.

DEPARTURE OF THE BURNSIDE EXPEDITION. HATTERAS INLET.—

TROOPS AND VESSELS IN PAMLICO SOUND.
ISLAND.

JANUARY 6, 1862. o'clock A. M., ready to

MOVING ON ROANOKE

The regiment formed line at nine embark, and Colonel Morse bade us good-by (for he was to remain at Annapolis in command of the post), telling us if we got into a fight to stay till we “lost some men."

As we could not be put on board ship until afternoon, ranks were broken again, and many of the men took a final ramble about Annapolis (and a final drink).

At two o'clock P. M. the whole regiment, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Maggi, went on board the large steamer "Northerner," and entered on rather a tumultuous afternoon and evening, as somewhere from twenty to fifty men of fine fighting instincts, well developed by the glass which inebriates, made things howl to the best of their ability; but the liveliest of the boys were soon got in hand, canteens were emptied overboard, and no very serious disturbances occurred.

January 7th. The "Northerner" still lay at anchor close off the Naval School Grounds, which looked very pleasantly from our crowded decks.

During the day Colonel Morse came on board to pay us a visit; he was no longer our commander, and was not received with any special demonstrations of honor or regard; he evidently felt a little ashamed to have his regiment go without him on a service of unknown perils, carrying with them the

beautiful flag presented by the ladies of Worcester, which was plainly not destined to be either his martial cloak or shroud.

Soon after the colonel had left us, General Reno came on board and looked us over. We were much pleased to learn from him that he should go on the "Northerner" with us.

FIELD OF OPERATIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA.

A sad affair occurred on the vessel to-day, in which a poor fellow lost an eye by the thrust of a sabre bayonet.

On the morning of January 9th, we got under way for somewhere, we hoped not far by sea, as our overloaded old vessel, with more than a thousand men on board, originally built for lake navigation, had been laid up quietly rotting for

some years before she was bought by the government for a transport.

We steamed down Chesapeake Bay during the day, but stopped at night on account of a heavy fog which did not clear up until the next day at noon, when we again got under way, and with several other vessels of our fleet came to anchor off Fortress Monroe just at sunset, close to the great frigates "Minnesota," "Cumberland," and "Congress." The future victims of the "Merrimac," majestic in beauty and strength, were no more ignorant of their future fate than was the 21st, although it was now reported that sealed orders would be given the expedition at Fort Monroe, to be opened and announced as soon as we proceeded to sea.

At about eleven o'clock on the following night (the 11th of January), the blowing of steam-whistles and every imaginable complication of arrangement of signal lanterns gave indications of a movement, and in an hour the whole expedition was under way and running out to sea. It was officially announced to us in the morning that we were bound for Hatteras Inlet, a passage into Pamlico Sound through the narrow spit of land which forms Cape Hatteras. We moved down the Virginia and North Carolina coast, rounded Cape Hatteras in a gale of wind, and late in the afternoon of Sunday, the 12th, arrived off the light-house near the Inlet. The old "Northerner" was wallowing in the heavy sea, and her course had become very erratic, one minute heading to the sea, and the next rolling in the trough. Most of the officers and men were too sea-sick to care much what happened; but General Reno went into the pilot-house himself, and, finding Captain Masson (the master of the ship) so drunk as to be entirely incapable of handling the vessel, put the mate in command of her. As the captain refused to recognize the general's authority, I had the great pleasure, as officer of the day, of arresting the miserable fellow and putting him in close confinement. Finding that it was hardly possible to run into the Inlet through the terrible surf that night, the ship was ordered back under shelter of the land; and as she

was being turned round, parted her starboard hog brace (a heavy timber frame which helps to support the weight of the boilers and engines): if the brace on the port side had gone also, the tale of the 21st would have been a short one; but theNortherner came round without further accident, and was run back a few miles and anchored in a sheltered position. There was no panic, as most of the men were too seasick to be frightened at anything, and Colonel Maggi, on being notified of the extent of the danger, distracted the attention of the inquisitive by singing the "Marseillaise" with a splendid voice, at the stern of the vessel.

During the night of the 12th and 13th, privates Otis L. Sweet, of Company A, and Joseph Lebarnes, of Company H, died of typhoid fever on the "Northerner," and their bodies, encased in canvas, with a 32-pound shot at the feet, were buried in the sea, with simple but impressive ceremonies.

On the 13th the sea had quieted down somewhat, and early in the afternoon the "Northerner" ran into Hatteras Inlet through the narrow, crooked, and dangerous passage among the breakers, arriving at the place of rendezvous among the very first of the fleet.

We came to anchor a mile or so off forts Hatteras and Clark, which the rebels had built to command the Inlet, and which the frigate "Minnesota," lying beyond the reach of their guns, had pounded into surrender some four months before. General Butler also won some laurels by landing troops and cutting off the retreat of the garrisons, capturing about seven hundred men. The rebels taken in these forts were carried to New York, and made to serve as a buncombe advertisement of the prowess and superiority of the North; for being a peculiarly small-sized, squalid, and sickly looking lot, they were paraded from Annapolis to New York, in charge of a guard composed of the largest and most soldierly looking men that could be picked out, to which the 21st had contributed several handsome six-footers. The forts were small, water-flooded, insignificant looking earth-works, and we felt