History of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers Part 3

The persistent and successful schemers were Corporal Sam Belden, (remembered by every one of his surviving comrades to-day and by many friends in this vicinity,) and Private John Quinn. And this was 'the way the fort was taken.' After much polis.h.i.+ng of b.u.t.tons and brus.h.i.+ng of uniforms, they obtained possession of the Company Clothing Book and another volume of similar size, which they found in the Orderly Sergeant's tent; and on a pleasant afternoon quietly left the camp, unnoticed, and proceeded to the scene of interest. A modest knock at the door brought out 'pater familias' or 'old tar heels' as the unsuccessful besiegers spitefully termed him. Corporal Sam coolly informed him, with that imperturbable gravity of countenance and manner for which he was celebrated, that they were deputed by General Wessells, who was in command of the Post, _to take the census of the town_. There was no getting around _that_, for an order emanating from such a source was not to be lightly disobeyed; so they were rather ungraciously admitted to the heretofore unvisited house--couldn't call it a mansion by any stretch of the imagination. Once seated inside, Corporal Sam as spokesman, commenced a series of questions which the U.S. Census Commissioners would have hard work to equal, private Q.

jotting down the replies of the blus.h.i.+ng and confused girls, and of the astonished father. Of course, by this cool and ingenious method they obtained the names of all, their ages, and other interesting information, and moreover they did it all with such suavity, and conducted themselves with such gentlemanly deportment, that, from that day they were invited, happy, envied, and regular visitors at the forbidden house."

On March 3d, at noon, the regiment was again on board the "John Farron," and on its way to Newbern, arriving there the next day evening and quartering in barracks near the Neuse River.

On the 11th the "Lancer" brought our baggage, and also the sad news of the drowning of Captain Mix, who in attempting to return to the regiment took a small schooner for Roanoke Island. While in Albemarle Sound, a squall struck the boat; and the boom knocked Capt. Mix overboard, as he sat smoking on deck. A boat was instantly lowered; but when within twenty-five feet, he sank. He was a good swimmer, but was enc.u.mbered with a heavy overcoat and large boots. He was well versed in tactics and military discipline, and was the last of the original captains of the Sixteenth.

On March 17th, Company "G," was ordered to Fort Stevenson, to relieve the Twenty-first, who were ordered to Little Was.h.i.+ngton.

On March 20th, a negro riot occurred across the Trent River. Captain Burke, with one hundred men of the Sixteenth, soon quelled it, bringing with him between two and three hundred prisoners, whom he turned over to the Provost Marshal.

_Pack up at once_, was the order soon after tattoo, and at midnight the regiment with all its baggage was aboard the "Thomas Collyer,"

returning to Plymouth. It was terribly stormy and rough; and at seven in the evening the vessel got out of the channel and ran aground in Albemarle Sound, a distance of about seven miles from Roanoke Island Landing. Here we lay until half past eleven on the morning of the 23d, the gale blowing terrifically, and the boat going higher and higher on the ground with every wave. The men were without rations, and suffering terribly from the cold and freezing spray. _A flag of distress_ was raised, but not until the storm abated did any vessel dare come for our rescue. Finally the "General Berry," which was at Roanoke Island and had been watching for twenty-four hours, came and took us to Plymouth. The "Thomas Collyer" was nearly dashed to pieces, and it was some months before she was got off the bank, and was put in running order. The regiment lost considerable camp and garrison equipage, and some ordnance stores, which were washed overboard.

BATTLE OF PLYMOUTH, 1864.

I find in my diary, as early as March 24, that our pickets were fired into by rebel scouting parties, and on the next day we were expecting to be attacked. This rumor probably arose from some contrabands whom we traded with at the picket post, on the Columbia road, and who reported the enemy in large numbers in two counties south of us. These reports, together with the information General Wessells received, that the ram Albemarle was about completed, led the General on the 13th of April to ask for more troops, in order to hold the place if attacked.

General Butler replied: "You will have to defend the district with your present force, and you will make such disposition of them as will in your judgment best subserve this end."

About the 14th of April, while officer of the picket, on the Lee's Mill road, an officer of General Wessells' staff and the officer of the day, invited me to accompany them outside of the lines, to see what information we could pick up. Mounting cavalry horses, we went out a distance of four or five miles, returning by the way of the Columbia road picket post. At one house where we stopped, a lady who had just arrived from the interior said that the rebels were concentrating, and it was reported that they were going to attack Plymouth. As I had heard these stories before, I paid but little attention to her report at the time.

On Sat.u.r.day, April 16th, two days after, I was again officer of the picket on the Columbia road. The next morning (Sunday) at dawn, while asleep at the reserve post, I was awakened by the discharge of a musket by the picket at the bridge. Rus.h.i.+ng to the spot, I found the picket to be William Maxwell, of Company A. He reported five or six scouts who had come to the edge of the woods suddenly, but fled on being fired at. I reported the fact to General Wessells, on being relieved at nine o'clock A.M. He seemed to think them guerrillas, but they proved to be advance guards, for in the afternoon when most of the soldiers were in church, the pickets were attacked by cavalry on the Was.h.i.+ngton and Lee's Mill roads simultaneously, and so sudden was the attack on the Was.h.i.+ngton road that the entire reserve picket were taken prisoners.

The "long roll" was sounded, and the troops prepared for the attack.

Light artillery and cavalry were immediately sent out to ascertain the strength of the enemy. They had a short engagement, resulting in one killed, and Lieutenant Russell of New York Cavalry badly wounded. In the garrison, there were besides the Sixteenth Conn. Vols., the Eighty-fifth New York Volunteers, One Hundred and First, and One Hundred and Third Pennsylvania Volunteers, Twenty-fourth New York Independent Battery, two companies of the Second Ma.s.sachusetts Heavy Artillery, two companies of New York Cavalry, and two companies Second North Carolina Volunteers, making in all 1,600 effective men. Early in the evening the enemy made a furious attack upon Fort Gray, on the river, a mile above the town. By eleven o'clock in the evening it was ascertained that the enemy had a force of between ten and twelve thousand men, and all loyal women and children in the place were embarked on board the "Ma.s.sasoit," and sent to Roanoke Island. It was very evident to us that we must either be killed or go to "Libby."

Company "H," Captain Barnum, had been sent that morning to Roanoke Island for duty, and therefore a remnant of the regiment avoided the fate of prison life in the south.

The next day the enemy opened with artillery at an early hour, and the firing on the skirmish line was very lively until eleven o'clock.

Captain Burke was wounded in the shoulder during the morning. At five o'clock in the afternoon I was detailed with fifty men to skirmish with the enemy on the Lee's Mill road for an hour or two to allow the regular picket line a little rest and time to eat. I had hardly got the line properly deployed, when it seems the enemy were ready to make their a.s.sault on the town. From the woods emerged the Confederates in great numbers. The loyal line fired a few regular shots, but the enemy came pouring out of the woods in such numbers that the Union line withered and shrank back. The enemy's artillery came to the crest of the hill, and so well was it manned that our camps were completely riddled, and Fort Williams partially silenced.

It was a regular artillery fight, and many old army officers said it was the handsomest artillery duel they ever witnessed. Three of the Sixteenth were wounded in the engagements in the skirmish line, one of whom was A.P. Forbes, of Company B. The enemy came on so rapidly, and we retired so slowly, that the two lines nearly met. One of the Sixteenth was pressed so closely that, in the dusk of the evening, he dodged behind a stump and thereby saved himself from capture. He was so near the Confederate battery that he overheard a staff officer give the order, "It is no use, captain, we cannot endure this fire,--limber to the rear." The enemy retiring, he returned inside our ranks.

Heavy artillery firing was kept up until eleven o'clock P.M., and under cover of the darkness, the enemy advanced up to Fort Wessells, a work about ten hundred yards in front of the line of fortifications.

Fort Wessells was furiously stormed three separate times, by a very superior force with great loss of life. The third time it had to succ.u.mb, and sixty men were captured. The fort was well supplied with hand grenades, which were used with great effectiveness. It was during this night that the famous ram, "Albemarle," came down the Roanoke river, pa.s.sing our batteries, sank the Southfield, and drove off the balance of the fleet of gunboats. The Bombsh.e.l.l had previously gone up the river, and in returning was so completely riddled by the enemy's batteries, that she sank on arriving at the dock.

The next day their artillery opened on the right of the town, but the lay of the ground in front of our works was such that it was really our strongest point. A few of their infantry advanced into a ravine in our front, and were unable to extricate themselves until dark.

During the day the town was pretty effectually sh.e.l.led, and a caisson was blown up on each side. Our navy being entirely gone, the ram "Albemarle" did good service for the enemy, with ninety and two hundred pound shot.

Three separate times were we asked to surrender and save further sacrifice of life, but each was peremptorily declined. General Hoke (rebel) the last time replying, "I will fill your citadel _full_ of iron; I will compel your surrender, if I have to fight to the last man."

There was no doubt now but what we must succ.u.mb sooner or later. There was no hope unless reinforced, and that could not be as long as the ram was in the river. The men built bombproofs and traverses, which were a great protection.

Late in the evening, Co. "G" was ordered to the left of the town, on the Columbia road. They lay there during the night, preventing the gunners on the ram from sighting their guns and coming on deck; they also had two little brushes with cavalry, who broke through the line to procure beef that was in a yard near by. The enemy, meanwhile, were concentrating nearly half their force opposite this point.

By 4.30 o'clock on the morning of the 20th, (I find from their accounts,) they had ten regiments of infantry, four battalions of artillery, (Pegram's, Blunt's, Marshall's, and Lee's,) and two companies of cavalry, besides the "Albemarle" and "Cotton Plant." This must have made a force of five or six thousand in line about six hundred yards in front of our works. At this hour a rocket was sent up as the signal for the attack, and a more furious charge we never witnessed. Instantly over our heads came a peal of thunder from the ram. Up rose a curling wreath of smoke--the batteries had opened, and quickly flashed fierce forks of flame--loud and earth-shaking roars in quick succession. Lines of men came forth from the woods--the battle had begun.

Company G, being on the skirmish line, fell back and entered "Coneby redoubt," properly barred the gate and manned the works. The enemy, with yells, charged on the works, in heavy column, jumped into the ditch, climbed the parapet, and, with the artillery company (who had previously occupied the redoubt), for fifteen murderous minutes, were shot down like mown gra.s.s. The conflict was b.l.o.o.d.y, short, and decisive. The enemy were in such numbers that we had to yield. The gate had been crushed down by rebel shot, and the enemy poured in to the number of five or six hundred, with thousands on the outside.

Great confusion then ensued; guns were spiked, musket barrels bent, and all sorts of mischief practiced by the Union soldiers, while the enemy were swearing at a terrible rate, because we would not take off equipments and inform them if the guns could be turned on the town, and in trying to reorganize their troops, who were badly mixed, to take the next work. We were prisoners, and as we marched out of the fort we could see at what a fearful cost it was to them. There were in the fort at the time, forty artillery men, who fired grape and canister, and forty-two of Company "G," (two being unable to get in, or not hearing the orders, went back to town,) making a total of eighty-two men, against five or six thousand. Our loss was one wounded, an artillery man, while the rebel loss, from their latest accounts, was five hundred killed and wounded. The enemy then pa.s.sed in the rear and on the bank of the river, to the right of the town, and while part of their force was on the right working towards the center, those on the left were doing the same. Every position was obstinately maintained. A squad of men here, and a squad there, the redoubts and forts were but slowly captured. For three or four hours, Fort Williams, with guns turned, did murderous execution, nearly two hours of which was in the streets of Plymouth. By half-past ten o'clock the last gun had been fired, the flag over our citadel lowered, and _Plymouth had fallen_.

The troops were captured by an overwhelming force, after one of the severest fights of the war. In the words of J.W. Merrill, the author of "Records of the Twenty-fourth N.Y. Battery," "there is no question that the defense of Plymouth by its garrison of 1,600 men against a besieging force of 12,000 men, was one of the hardest fought battles of the war." The rebels raised the "black flag" against the negroes found in uniform, and mercilessly shot them down.

The shooting in cold blood of three or four hundred negroes and two companies of North Carolina troops who had joined our army, and even murdering peaceable citizens (as I have the personal knowledge of the killing, with the b.u.t.t-end of a musket, of Mr. Spruell, the man whom I boarded with, and by the way, a secessionist, for objecting to the plundering of a trunk which he had packed), were scenes of which the Confederates make no mention, except the hanging of one person, but of which many of us were eye-witnesses, was but the Fort Pillow ma.s.sacre re-enacted.

The following order was issued the day after the capture by Gen. Peck:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY AND DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA, } NEWBERN, N.C., April 21, 1864. }

General Orders, } No. 66. }

With feelings of the deepest sorrow the commanding general announces the fall of Plymouth, N.C., and the capture of its gallant commander, Brigadier-General H.W. Wessels and his command. This result, however, was not obtained until after the most gallant and determined resistance had been made. Five times the enemy stormed the lines of the General, and as many times were they handsomely repulsed with great slaughter, and but for the powerful a.s.sistance of the Rebel iron clad ram and the floating sharp-shooter battery, the Cotton Plant, Plymouth would still have been in our hands. For their n.o.ble defense the gallant General Wessells and his brave band have and deserve the warmest thanks of the whole country, while all will sympathize with them in their misfortune. To officers and men of the navy the Commanding General tenders his thanks for their hearty co-operation with the army, and the bravery, determination and courage that marked their part of the unequal contest. With sorrow he records the death of the n.o.ble sailor and gallant patriot, Lieutenant Commander C.W. Flusser, U.S.N., who, in the heat of battle, fell dead on the deck of his s.h.i.+p, with the lanyard of his gun in his hand.

The Commanding General believes that these misfortunes will tend not to discourage but to nerve the Army of North Carolina to equal deeds of bravery and gallantry hereafter. Until further order, the headquarters of the sub-district of the Albemarle will be at Roanoke Island.

The command devolves upon Colonel D.W. Wardrop, of the Ninety-ninth New York Infantry.

By command of Major-General G. PECK.

J.A. JUDSON, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General.

While I have given an extended account of the position and service, of Company "G," the remaining companies were not less exposed, nor did less fighting. The losses in the Sixteenth were one killed and twelve wounded. The total losses in the garrison were fifteen killed and about one hundred wounded. The number captured was about sixteen hundred. The accounts in the northern papers were meagre and greatly exaggerated, giving generally the losses of killed and wounded equal to the entire garrison, and the losses of the enemy in equal proportion to their number. The Richmond papers gave long and very accurate accounts of each day's operations, but suppressed their losses and the killing in cold blood of the North Carolina soldiers, negroes, and citizens. Their latest accounts, however, admit from four to six hundred killed and from fifteen hundred to two thousand wounded. The Rebel Government considered Plymouth of great importance, and promised Gen. Hoke a Major-General's commission if he would take the place. It was this incentive that made him storm the works with such desperation. From the Richmond papers we find mentioned as operating against us sixteen regiments of infantry, eleven batteries divided into two battalions and commanded by Majors Reid and Mosely.

The artillery, together with two companies of cavalry, were commanded by Col. Deering. In addition to the above were the ram Albemarle and consort Cotton Plant. The whole force was divided into three brigades, (Hoke's, Ransom's, and Kemper's) commanded respectively by Col.

Mercer, Gen. Ransom, and Col. Terry.

EXTRACTS FROM RICHMOND PAPERS.

The comments and correspondence in regard to the capture of Plymouth contained in the Richmond Whig, Dispatch, Enquirer, and Examiner, would fill three volumes of the size of this. Only a few of them can be inserted:

From the _Enquirer_, April 22, 1864.

CAPTURE OF PLYMOUTH--ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED PRISONERS AND TWENTY-FIVE PIECES OF ARTILLERY CAPTURED.

The following is a copy of a dispatch received in Richmond, yesterday morning, by General Bragg:

"PLYMOUTH, April 20th.--To General Bragg.--I have stormed and carried this place, capturing one Brigadier, one thousand six hundred men, a quant.i.ty of stores, and twenty-five pieces of artillery.

R.D. HOKE, Brig-Gen.

From the _Enquirer_, April 25th:

PROMOTED.--Brigadier-General R.F. Hoke has been promoted to the rank of major-general, to date from the capture of Plymouth, N.C.

From the _Enquirer_, April 26th:

THE PLYMOUTH AFFAIR.--The Wilmington _Journal_, of Sat.u.r.day, says "our loss in killed and wounded is not large considering the magnitude of the enterprise; but, as might have been looked for from the character of the conflict, the works having been stormed, a large proportion of the wounds are of a desperate character." When a place is taken by storm, and there is resistance, as in this case, the fighting is done hand to hand--guns are fired off at a trifling distance and the wounds inflicted in most cases are serious if not mortal. We learn that some of our wounded who have been brought to Wilson, bear evidence of the desperate character of the struggle whilst it lasted. They are wounded in almost every imaginable way, and but few of their hurts can be called slight.

From the _Dispatch_, May 2d, 1864.