“HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF North Carolina, NEWBERN, March 15th, 1862.

4th. Brigadier-General J. G. Foster is hereby appointed military governor of Newbern and its suburbs, and will be obeyed and respected accordingly.

Brigadier-General J. G. Foster, military governor of Newbern will direct that the churches be opened at a suitable hour tomorrow in order that the chaplains of the different regiments may hold divine services in them. The bells will be rung as usual.

*

By command of Brigadier-General

A. E. BURNSIDE. LEWIS RICHMOND, Assistant Adjutant General."

General Burnside also, wisely enough, ordered every liquor cask in the city and camp to be staved.

The part which the gunboats performed in this victory was not small. Commander Rowan in charge of the fleet proved himself most efficient.

The river was full of obstructions, the shore was bristling with batteries; but he conquered every difficulty. Led by the flag ship Delaware the fleet sailed away to win a golden fame. Fort Dixie, mounting four guns, was the first battery to contest their advance, but it was soon silenced by Union shot and shell, and the triumphant battle-flags were planted upon its ramparts. Here the gunners caught sight of some Rebel cavalry in the woods behind the fort and sent over a warm salute of shells which dispersed them. The next battery encountered was Fort Thompson, mounting fifteen guns. This also was effectually silenced by our well directed shot, its garrison scat

tered, and once more the National standard waved defiantly over the captured redans. The men, wild with enthusiasm, rent the air with their cheers.

Night came on after this conquest, and hostilities. were suspended until the next day. The morning of Saturday, the fourteenth, dawned murky with a dense fog. Soon, however, it lifted and the battle of the fleet was once more in progress.

Fort Brown, the next battery encountered, mounted two immense columbiads and protected the obstructions in the channels. In the right hand channel, twenty-four vessels interlacing each other had been sunk, while the left hand channel contained heavy upright timbers iron-pointed, designed to impale whatever craft might pass that way, at which point also were placed a number of destructive torpedoes.

These obstructions, covered by Fort Brown, were next in order, but Commander Rowan, nothing daunted, ordered the boats to follow his lead, and they succeeded in passing the impaling timbers and entangling masts, without serious injury. Singularly enough also, a shot from one of the gun-boats entering the embrasure of the fort, struck one of the columbiads directly upon the muzzle, dashing it from its carriage. The gunners fled in panic and consternation. The fort was immediately captured, the National banner raised, and the whole fleet passed on to the capture of the next battery, Fort Ellis, mounting nine guns. Here the dispersed Rebels had gathered for a last desperate effort and for a time the carnage went on fiercely enough. But a shell from the gunboats exploded the magazine of the fort, and when the smoke

lifted, none but the dead and the dying were there. The next battery, Fort Lane, was abandoned without firing a shot, and the brilliant passage was completed triumphantly, the fleet anchoring before the city just as the land troops entered it.

In this grand advance of the gunboat fleet to Newbern, the navy lost not a single man.

One or two individual instances of the coolness and daring with which our men passed through this maelstrom of war and death may be related.

Lieutenant Fearing, of Burnside's staff, seated on his horse, was standing in conversation with a lookeron. A thirty-two pound shot whizzed between his horse's legs, causing scarcely a halt in the conversation, the Lieutenant merely bending over to see that his horse was all right and making no allusion to the danger.

At another time during the battle, when a handful of men made a heroic dash through an embrasure and two Rebel regiments charged down upon them, Captain J. D. Frazer from a severe wound in the right arm was compelled to drop his sword. But with his left hand he seized the fallen weapon, continued the fight, and endeavored to extricate himself from the surrounding enemy. Stumbling, he fell and was taken prisoner, a guard of three being placed over him. A few moments after, when the Fourth Rhode Island made their brilliant and successful charge, rescued at their hands, Captain Frazer in turn captured the three Rebel guards placed over him and escorted them to the Union ranks.

In this victory our loss was eighty killed and two hundred and ninety wounded.

Six forts, thirty-four heavy guns, six steamboats, and two million dollars worth of public property were captured. The Rebel loss in killed and wounded was about the same as ours. The National sharp-shooters kept up such an accurate fire that the Confederate infantry after loading behind the ramparts, raised their guns over their heads and fired almost at random, thus throwing many of their bullets away. The capture of Newbern made the final reduction of Beaufort and Fort Macon sure, and also made Burnside commander of the Army of the Potomac.

CHAPTER X.

WINCHESTER.

Topography of the Battle-Ground.-General Banks' Occupation of Winchester.-Stonewall Jackson's Attack.-Disposition of Forces.— The Battle.-Unwavering Firmness of Union Troops.-Heroic Defence of the National Colors by the Fifth Ohio." "Tis sweet for One's Country to Die."-The Enemy put to Rout.-Stonewall Jackson in Retreat.-A Night of Sleep After a Day of Battle.— Kernstown.-Sheridan's Ride.

IN

N one of the most beautiful and fertile portions of Virginia, lying between the Blue Ridge and North Mountains and extending from the head waters of the Shenandoah River near Staunton to its confluence with the blue Potomac, is situated the far-famed Valley of the Shenandoah. From Strasburg a spur of the mountain chain called the Massanutten range divides the valley southward for a distance of fifty miles and abruptly ends near Harrisburg.

Strasburg commands the head of the western division which this range creates, and Front Royal the eastern, while Winchester, distant from Strasburg about twenty miles, holds the key, in a military sense, to the entire Valley. This ancient town, known in colonial times as Fort Loudon, is less than thirty miles from the Potomac River, and is a center, out of which well-made turnpikes diverge towards Romney, Sheppardstown, Martinsburg, Charlestown, and