loss was more severe Captain Foster and sixteen men had fallen; but there they stood, apparently as strong as ever, every man in the firm and even line eagerly watching for rebel heads. On their left stood General Reno and Colonel Maggi, and, at the colonel's side, Adjutant Stearns, with his fresh, beautiful face lit up by the excitement of his novel experience. As Stearns was saying a word or two to me as I passed by, he fell, but in an instant was on his feet again, and tying his handkerchief around his forehead, which was now covered with blood, called out gayly, "A man never gets hit twice in the same fight does he, captain?" Just as the last word left his mouth, cloth flew from the collar of his overcoat, and he fell again with a slight bullet wound across the back of his neck. As the fresh companies moved rapidly to the front over the open ground to within two hundred yards of the battery, they were greeted with a heavy but ill directed fire of musketry and artillery. The regiment now came rapidly into line of battle, and started for the battery with a shout of exultation as Reno gave the order to charge. The rebel garrison and reserves, firing one more volley, turned and fled before our strong unwavering line, and we poured into the battery, captured the rebel flag, and planted our State color-borne by gallant Corporal Ethan Blodgett, of Company A on the parapet. Our color-sergeant, with our United States flag, had fallen into a deep pit full of water, and, before he could extricate himself, the United States flag of the 51st New York-three companies of which regiment entered the battery next after the 21st-floated on the parapet beside our Massachusetts flag. Then, with our two flags in plain sight upon the parapet, the fort full of our men, and the last running rebel well out of sight, the 9th New York (Hawkins' Zouaves) came running up the narrow corduroy road by the flank, and, with a great shout of “Zou, Zou," swarmed into the battery, for all the world as if they were capturing it. The only bayonet charge on fighting rebels at Roanoke was made by the 21st, supported by the rest of the brigade, none of which, however, was in sight except

three companies of the 51st New York; and great was our disgust when we read in the Boston papers, a month or so afterwards, that the colonel of the Zou Zous had had the effrontery to put himself on exhibition there as the hero of the bayonet charge at Roanoke Island.

The captured battery (the key to the whole rebel position) was an earth-work, thirty-five yards wide, built on an island in the swamp, directly across the road. The three fine brass guns forming its armament were mounted in embrasure, and consisted of a twenty-four-pounder howitzer, a long eighteenpounder field-gun, and a twelve-pounder field-gun.

We hastily examined the interior and armament of the captured fort, gazing with particular interest upon the bodies of the rebel dead - Lieutenant Selden, C. S. A., Captain Coles, of the 46th Virginia, and half a dozen private soldiers,

who were lying amongst the litter of knapsacks, muskets, clothing, and equipments with which the ground was strewn ; and in a few minutes the jubilant and eager Union troops were in hot pursuit of the enemy, the 21st still in the advance, moving by the road immediately behind the battery. Our Company E, deployed in our front, were soon exchanging the last shots fired in the battle. A retreating rebel regiment had turned and stood at bay across the road in the thick woods, and for a few minutes made a noisy but wild return to the deadly fire delivered by Company E; then, with a loss of three killed and five wounded, they abandoned the field, and Colonel Shaw, the commandant of the entire post, without further resistance, made unconditional surrender of all the rebel troops and defenses.

As it was now discovered that the rebels were escaping from the island in boats, the 21st hastened to the shore, with other troops, to bag our game, and, firing over several boats which were making good time for the main land, compelled them to return. As the bullets from our long range Enfield rifles struck the water beyond the boats, it was comical to see how soon every rebel in them displayed a handkerchief,

or something white, as the boats turned to come back.1 Moving on rapidly a mile or two we came to the main rebel camp, which was now in full possession of our troops, and assisted in disarming the rebels. Most of them were tall, lank fellows, with blankets and pieces of carpet instead of overcoats. The man who shot Howard, of Company G, the night before, was with them, still carrying the wounded man's Harper's Ferry rifle, and, to the honor of Howard's comrades, received no ill treatment or indignity. We found the rebels very willing to admit the fighting capacity of the Yankees, and very complimentary to the unrelenting obstinacy of the regulars in gray overcoats who would n't be driven away from their right flank.2 We felt and knew that we deserved the compliment, for Colonel Maggi's prediction that he would make the 21st a regiment of regulars had come true, and we had proved it that day. In the attack upon the battery, General Reno and the 21st had been the nerve and backbone of our army, the unflinching, steady force which had driven the enemy out of the key of his position and compelled his entire surrender.

We do not disparage the rest of the army. Other gallant regiments were on the field, and bravely met the enemy earlier in the day than we, but their attack upon the battery had ceased when our brigade took the front, and General Reno, beyond comparison as a fighting officer with any other officer upon the field, personally led the 21st in the advance; and during the rest of the fight, on our part of the field, the fire which our r own troops in the rear in some cases continued to deliver was far more annoying to us than it possibly could have been to the enemy. The gallant 23d and 27th Massachusetts regiments, of the 1st brigade, who fought in the swamp on our right, drove back the rebel force which was ad

1 In one of the boats brought back by the fire of the 21st was the gallant O. Jennings Wise, captain of the Richmond Blues, who had been severely wounded near the battery, and died next day. — ED.

2 The 21st was the only regiment engaged at the battery who wore gray overcoats similar to the old regular army overcoat, and entirely different in appearance from the sky-blue coats worn by our other troops. — ED.

vanced on the enemy's left; and, when the battery was carried by our charge, had cut the line of rebel retreat towards an earth-work on the eastern shore of the island, built with the guns pointing inland, under cover of which they had made arrangements to ferry their men over to the main land, if defeated in the action; but the great distinguishing and honored feature of the victory at Roanoke Island was the bayonet charge upon the battery while its brave garrison were standing to their guns, and the glory of that no man can fairly deny to the 21st.

To return to the rebel camp. We found spacious new wooden barracks and other buildings, and plenty of commissary supplies. The wounded were at once housed in a comfortable hospital; the three thousand rebel prisoners were packed snugly away, and placed under close guard; and before night the weary 21st were taking their ease in warm and comfortable quarters, with all the rations that they wanted. It was a novel and interesting time: crowds of merry darkies, who had been brought to the island by the rebels to work on the forts, were singing, dancing, and waiting on our men, or giving graphic accounts of the rebel boastings before the fight. Our men also had a good deal of fun in unearthing, and playing with the bloody looking bowie knives (some of them two feet long), which the rebels had carried besides their muskets, and which, when they found that they must surrender, they had thrown into the wells, under the barracks, or buried in the earth.

The rebels, as the negroes told us, had cut many a fine caper with their knives before groups of awe-struck darkies, but a single fight had shown them the wisdom of the rule, that a soldier should be made to put his whole reliance upon the regular weapon of his arm of the service, and be allowed to carry no other, for while almost every rebel at Roanoke Island carried a bowie knife, we never saw them generally carried in any subsequent battle.

The number of prisoners who fell into our hands at Roanoke Island was 2,677, fifty of whom were wounded; in addi

tion to these prisoners, nearly if not quite an equal number of men escaped from the island in boats, or concealed themselves on it, after the battle and before we bagged them. Colonel Anderson and a large part of his regiment (59th Virginia) are known to have escaped in boats.

Colonel Henry M. Shaw, of the 8th North Carolina Volunteers, the rebel commandant,1 said, when he surrendered the rebel post and forces, "I give up my sword and surrender to you five thousand men." The rebel organizations which took part in the fight were the 59th Virginia regiment (2d regiment Wise Legion), commanded by Colonel Frank Anderson; two battalions of the 46th Virginia regiment (1st regiment Wise Legion), one being of two companies under command of Captain O. J. Wise, the other of four companies under Major Fry; the 2d North Carolina regiment, the 8th North Carolina regiment, commanded by Colonel Shaw; a battalion of two companies of the 17th North Carolina regiment, commanded by Major Hill (the rest of the 17th having been captured in the forts at Hatteras Inlet during the previous summer); and the 31st North Carolina regiment, commanded by Colonel Jordan. All these troops were engaged in the fight at and around the battery in the swamp, except the battalion of the 17th regiment, which garrisoned Fort Bartow. A reinforcement of five hundred men of the North Carolina State Guards, under Colonel Green, landed too late to take part in the action; and, being unable to get away, as their boats had been taken by the rebels flying from the battle-field, surrendered without firing a shot. The battery in the swamp was garrisoned by three hundred men; the other troops were advanced on the flanks, and posted in reserve. The rebel loss in killed and wounded in the fight does not seem to have been officially reported, owing to their disorganized and scattered condition after the battle. The fullest list of their casualties that I have been able to obtain was pub

1 The noted rebel fire-eater, Henry A. Wise, was the regular commander of the post of Roanoke Island, but fortunately for him was absent sick on the day of the fight. Ed.