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tic. It is eighty-miles N. E. of Wilmington, and one hundred from Raleigh; has a population of six thousand, and considerable commerce.

The importance of Newbern was early appreciated by the rebels, who adopted vigorous means for its defence. The approaches to the city on the south bank of the Neuse, the only available route of an assailant, were defended by formidable earthworks, and, as a protection against gunboats, a line of vessels, backed by a chevaux-de-frise, was placed in the channel, commanded by heavy batteries.

The expedition designed to operate against Newbern sailed from Hatteras Inlet on the 12th of March, the land forces under General Burnside, and the naval forces under Commander Rowan. The land forces consisted of the brigades of Generals Foster, Reno and Parke, much reduced, however, by regiments left behind at Roanoke Island and Hatteras Inlet, and not exceeding eight thousand men. They were supported by McCook's battery of boat howitzers, three companies of marines, and a detachment of the Union Coast Guard. The distance from Hatteras Inlet to the entrance of Pamlico Sound is twenty-three miles; thence, through the sound and up the river to Newbern, about fifty miles. Early on the morning of the 12th the entire force started for Newbern, and that night anchored off the mouth of Slocum's Creek, some eighteen miles from Newbern, where General Burnside decided to make a landing. The landing commenced by seven o'clock the next morning, under cover of the naval fleet, and was effected with the greatest enthusiasm by the troops. Many, too impatient for the boats, leaped into the water, and waded waist deep to the shore; then, after a toilsome march through the mud, the head of the column moved within a mile and a half of the enemy's stronghold, at eight P. M., a distance of twelve miles from the point of landing, where they bivouacked for the night, the rear of the column coming up with the boat howitzers about three o'clock next morning. This detention was caused by the shocking condition of the roads, consequent upon the heavy rain that had fallen during the day and the whole of the night. It required a whole regiment to drag the eight pieces which had been landed from the navy and the vessels of General Burnside.

By signals agreed upon, the naval vessels, with the armed vessels carrying the land forces, were informed of each others' progress, and were thereby enabled to assist the march by shelling the road in advance.

At daylight on the morning of the 14th, an advance of the entire division was ordered. General Foster's brigade marched up the main country road to attack the enemy's left; General Reno up the railroad, to attack their right, and General Parke was to follow General Foster and attack the enemy in front, with instructions to support either or both brigades.

On the morning of the 14th, at seven o'clock, the column of General Reno, on the railroad, was the first to move, the Twenty-first Massachusetts, as the right flank regiment, leading the advance. The regiment had not proceeded far before it saw a train of cars standing or the track. In front of the locomotive, on a platform car, a large rifled gun was placed in position to rake the road. The men advanced at the double-quick and poured in a volley with such accuracy of aim that the enemy, who had already rolled the gun and caisson off the car, did not stop to unload the carriage, but ran into the intrenchments, and the train was backed towards Newbern, leaving the platform-car standing on the track. The Twenty-first had got within short range of the enemy's earthworks, but now fell back, and, forming line of battle in the woods, opened fire. The Fifty-first New York was moved to the left and ordered forward to engage a series of redans, the Ninth New Jersey occupying the left of the line, and the Fifty-first Pennsylvania held in reserve, in rear of the Ninth, a little to the left.

Meanwhile General Foster's brigade had advanced up the main road to the clearing, when the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts was sent into the woods to the right of the road, and opening a heavy fire on the enemy commenced the action of the first brigade. The Twenty-seventh was sent to their left to support them, and, news being received that the enemy were trying to outflank the Federals on the right, the Twentyfifth was sent to resist the movement. The Twenty-third being moved to the front next in line of battle, opened fire upon the enemy, which was replied to by very heavy volleys, and a cannonade from a park of field-pieces behind the breast work. The very first cannon-shot killed Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Merritt of the Twenty-third. General Foster's line of battle was completed by moving the Tenth Connecticut to the extreme left, a position which they were compelled to maintain under the most discouraging disadvantages. The ground was very wet, swampy, and cut up into gulleys and ravines, which opened toward the enemy, offering no protection from his fire.

General Parke's brigade, which had followed the first brigade up the main road, was placed in line between the Tenth Connecticut and Twenty-first Massachusetts, the Fourth Rhode Island holding the right of line, the Eighth Connecticut the next place, the Fifth Rhode Island, next, and the Eleventh Connecticut on the left. The line of battle was now complete, the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts on the extreme right, and the Fifty-first Pennsylvania at the extreme left, and extended more than a mile. The naval battery was in position at the centre, with Captain Bennett's and Captain Dayton's rifles alongside, and were all worked with the greatest gallantry throughout the day.

The fire of the enemy was now telling so severely upon the Twenty

first that Colonel Clark ordered the regiment forward on a doublequick, and at the head of four companies entered the breastworks from the railroad track in company with General Reno, and the colors were taken into a frame house which stood near, and waved from the roof. The men at the nearest guns seeing the movement, abandoned their pieces and fled, and the four companies being formed again in line of battle, charged down the line upon the battery. Colonel Clark mounted the first gun, waved the colors, and had nearly reached the second when two full regiments of the enemy emerged from a grove of young pines and advanced upon his men, who, seeing that they were likely to be captured or cut to pieces, leaped over the parapet and retired to their position in the woods.

On being driven from the battery, Colonel Clark informed Colonel Rodman of the Fourth Rhode Island of the state of affairs inside, and that officer decided upon a charge with the bayonet. His regiment had been firing, like the rest of the line, by companies and otherwise. When the command was given to charge, they advanced at the double-quick directly up to the battery, firing as they ran, and entered at the right flank, between a brick-yard and the end of the parapet. With a steady line of cold, sharp steel, the Rhode Islanders bore down upon the enemy, and, routing them, captured the whole battery, with its two flags, and planted the stars and stripes upon the parapet. The Eighth Connecticut, Fifth Rhode Island and Eleventh Connecticut, coming up to their support, the rebels fled with precipitation, and left the Union. troops in undisputed possession.

General Reno's brigade were still attacking the redans and small battery on the right of the railroad, and the firing was very heavy. The Twenty-first was engaging the battery of five small pieces, the Fifty-first New York the first of the redans, and the Ninth New Jersey the next two. The Fifty-first Pennsylvania was still in reserve, drawn up in a hollow or ravine, from which they would move up to the top of the eminence, discharge their volleys, and retire to such cover as the inequalities of ground might furnish. General Reno, becoming impatient at the loss of life which his regiments, particularly that of Colonel Ferrero, was suf fering, urged that regiment to advance as soon as possible; so Lieutenant-Colonel Potter took a color over the brow of the hill into another hollow, and from thence charged up an acclivity and over brushwood and abattis into the redan. The Fifty-first Pennsylvania was ordered up to participate in the decisive charge of the whole brigade upon the line of redans, and passing through the Fifty-first New York, as it was lying on the ground after having exhausted all its ammunition, came under the heaviest fire, and without flinching or wavering moved to its place, and rushed, with the other regiments, upon the defences of the enemy.

The movement of Colonel Hartranft's regiment was executed splendidly, and proved a complete success.

The movement of the Third brigade was supported by a charge of the Fourth Rhode Island from the captured main battery upon the works which were being assailed, and the enemy, already demoralized by the breaking of their centre, fell back before the grand charge upon the left and front of their position, and fled in confusion. On the extreme right the brave Twenty-fourth and its supporting regiments had been advancing inch by inch, standing up against the enemy's musketry and cannonade without faltering, and almost at the time when the Fourth Rhode Island charged in at the right flank, the colors of the Twentyfourth were planted on the parapet at the left, and the whole of the First brigade poured into the fortification. The whole line of earthworks was now in Union hands, and the cheers of the Federal men, from one end of it to the other, broke out with fresh spirit as each new regimental color was unfurled on the parapet.

The approaches to Newbern were defended by a line of water batteries or forts communicating with extensive field fortifications. The lower fort is about six miles from the city; the next communicates with the unfinished batteries and breastworks; the others were distributed about equal distances along the shore. The line of fortifications attacked and stormed was some three miles in extent. At the river bank a hexagonal fort, or water battery, with a large bomb-proof and thirteen heavy guns, commanded in addition, the river approach. By means of pivot carriages the cannon could be turned, upon an advancing land force, and even sweep the line of breast works itself in case the garrison should be driven out. From the fort to the centre of the line a wellmade breast work extended, with a deep moat in front. At the centre was a bastion and sallyport, after which the breastwork was continued to the railroad embankment, which was used as a means of defence. Beyond the railroad, but completely protecting the right flank of the main battery, was a small battery, of irregular shape, communicating with a system of thirteen redans, or rifle-pits, each pair of which were constructed on a knoll rising between ravines, the conformation of the ground furnishing in itself a most admirable basis for field-works. The locality was chosen with rare judgment, and all that engineering skill could accomplish was done to make these fortifications an impassable barrier to hostile troops. From the railroad westward, a swift, deep brook, with muddy bottom, and a wide border of swamp on both sides, ran in front of the redans; and on the side of approach, the timber was so very heavy, that, when felled, it presented a barricade which would seem enough of itself to stop any army of French Zouaves. On the brow of each mound, brushwood had been piled with regularity to the height

of four feet in front of the redans, rendering it extremely difficult to take them by assault from the front. The redans were constructed of heavy timbers, covered with at least five feet thickness of earth, while an interior ditch say three feet in depth gave complete protection to the garrison from volleys of musketry, or discharges of grape and canister shot.

Inside, the battery presented a most revolting appearance. Beneath the parapet, in the ditch, on the open ground under the gun-carriages, lay the dead and mangled bodies of rebels. On every side lay heaped the bleeding carcasses of artillery horses, killed by musket or rifle balls. Here and there a broken gun-carriage, or caisson, lay tilted into the mud. Stores of all kinds were scattered over the ground or trampled in the black mire. Muskets with broken stocks or bent barrels were thrown about in every direction. It was a scene of wild confusion on all sides. It was not known with certainty that there was no other battery erected formidable as this still further up the road; but thinking it best to increase the panic which had seized upon the enemy, General Burnside ordered an advance. General Foster immediately sent forward the Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-seventh, and the whole brigade by the straight road. In the charge on the rifle-pit about one hundred rebels, among them the Colonel of the Thirty-third North Carolina and a number of commissioned officers, were captured. When these were secured in an old brick-kiln and placed under guard, Generals Reno and Parke moved their brigades after General Foster's, the former going before up the railroad track and the latter by the country road. The march to Newbern was unobstructed, the enemy having apparently all he could do to get away on any terms, and early in the afternoon the Union forces reached the bank of the river immediately opposite the city. Long before they came in sight of it, however, dense volumes of smoke were seen rising in that direction, and the suspicion that the place had been fired by the enemy was fully realized when its steeples and houses came in view. Newbern had been fired in seven different places, and if the wind had not mercifully subsided there would hardly have been a house left standing by nightfall. The splendid railroad bridge, seven hundred yards long, had been set on fire by a scow load of turpentine which had drifted against it, and the great structure was wrapped in one grand sheet of flame. Preparations were made by General Foster to move his forces across the river. This was accomplished by the assistance of a light draft stern-wheel steamer which had been captured with four or five small side-wheel boats by the naval gunboats, which by this time were quite up to the city wharves.

To the eastward of the city a very large rebel camp, with barracks and tents, was found deserted and taken possession of. Stragglers

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