THE NORTH CAROLINA CAMPAIGN
On shipbound. Burial at sea. At Hatteras Inlet. Battle of Roanoke Island. Battle of Newbern. Reading Johnnies’ love letters. Athletics. Battle of Camden. Went to the relief of the 2d Maryland.
Although we went on board ship the 6th of January, 1862, we did not leave port until the 9th. General Reno, our brigade commander, came on board the 7th and we were much pleased that he was to be with us on our ship during the voyage.
The morning of the 9th we moved down the bay; late in the afternoon the weather grew thick and we anchored for the night. The next day about noon, the fog having lifted, we moved on and about sunset sailed into Hampton Roads and anchored with a number of other ships of the squadron not far from Fortress Monroe.
The “Northerner” was a large boat, but a thousand men aboard made her very much crowded.
Between ten and eleven o’clock the night of the 11th, amid a furore of signals, whistles, ringing of bells, etc., we left Hampton Roads and headed out to sea. I had turned in when we started but soon realized that we had left the placid waters of Chesapeake Bay, and that the good ship “Northerner” was plowing its way through the waves of the open ocean.
It was midwinter. The wind was blowing strongly; the ship rolled and plunged and as I lay in my bunk I soon became aware that many of the boys were sea-sick. I felt a little peculiar myself, but decided the best thing for me to do was to lie right still in my bunk. I soon went to sleep and slept until morning. As soon as I got up I was sick, too. I ate no breakfast and was sick most of the forenoon, but during the afternoon my stomach became settled and during the rest of the voyage I was able to eat and was as well as usual.
The next day our destination was revealed. We were bound for Hatteras Inlet and the North Carolina coast. The cape, a narrow belt of sand, came into view. The waves breaking on the sand made a white line all along the cape and we could hear the roar of the breaking waves. The forts at the inlet that looked like two piles of earth could be distinguished but the sea was too rough to attempt to enter the inlet so we anchored in a sheltered place and waited until the next day when the wind and sea having quieted down we were able to pass safely through the inlet.
Cape Hatteras is known to mariners as a rough, stormy place. The wind blows almost a gale there nearly all the time. We were thus heartily glad when we found ourselves safely inside the inlet. Our ship was among the first to arrive inside; for many days ships of the squadron continued to come in.
This was the first trip on the ocean for many of us, but while it was very rough and fraught with exposure and danger, the spirit of adventure was so strong among the boys that on the whole it was welcome experience.
After we arrived in harbor we learned that the captain of the ship was found dead drunk, by General Reno, the night of the 12th, at the very most critical time when we were approaching the inlet. He was put under arrest and command of the ship was turned over to the first mate. The captain intended to run into the inlet that night, which would have been a very perilous thing to attempt.
Just before running into the inlet we witnessed a new and weird ceremony,—burial at sea. The night of January 12th and 13th two men had died on board; one a Company A man, and a Company B man. They were each put into a canvas sack with a 32-pound ball at the feet and dropped overboard.
The basin where we were anchored was simply a deep hole just inside the inlet. It was large enough to accommodate ten or fifteen ships comfortably, but towards the last of our stay there, when all or nearly all the ships of the squadron had arrived, and there were seventy or eighty ships there, the place became dangerously crowded.
Soon after reaching the inlet it was discovered that the “Northerner” and some other vessels drew too much water (nine feet) to cross the bar which had only eight feet of water at high tide, to admit of their passing into the sound. We lay there from the 13th until the 26th when, after the regiment and everything else that was movable had been transferred to other vessels, three tugs succeeded in dragging the “Northerner” across the bar. The two weeks we lay anchored in that basin seemed like months. All one could see was sky, water and the cape, a narrow strip of sand stretching off to the north and south, the whole a picture of desolation. The ocean waves came pouring and thundering unceasingly in from the east, pounding the cape as if determined to force their way into the sound. The wind blew a gale and it rained most of the time. The sun shone only twice during the two weeks. On account of the delay, the water supply ran short and but for the rain we would have suffered for water.
Two ships of the squadron never made the inlet. The “City of New York,” a freighter loaded with tents, ammunition, etc., ran onto the rocks and went to pieces trying to make the inlet. The “Pocahontas,” another freighter, loaded with horses, went ashore some distance up the coast. One day the colonel and surgeon of the 9th New Jersey Regiment came into the inlet in a rowboat from their ship outside, for orders. They got their orders and started back, but were swamped in the breakers in plain sight of us. The ships were continually dragging anchor and running into each other. Just before we got across the bar it became known that we were bound up Pamlico Sound to attack Roanoke Island.
Life became more bearable after we got across the bar out into the sound. The storm had passed off, the sun came out. We received our first mail from home the 28th. The gunboats practiced firing at targets and we boys practiced firing at ducks and gulls with our revolvers.
February 5th we started up the sound, the gunboats taking the lead. It was a handsome sight, eighty ships in all, forty gunboats, and about the same number of other ships carrying the troops, baggage, provisions, ammunition, etc. The naval part was under the command of Flag Officer Goldsborough. At about five o’clock we anchored in plain sight of Roanoke Island. We were enveloped in a dense fog all day the 6th and did not move, and saw nothing. To break the monotony, Colonel Maggi got us together on the hurricane deck and made a speech. Considering their brevity, as well as his accent which was very Italian, his speeches were very funny. This one was about like the following: “Soldiers ob de 21st, to-day you be 21st, tomorrow you be 1st.”
February 7th at nine o’clock we moved on, the gunboats leading the way, and they were soon engaged first with some Confederate gunboats, then with the forts on the island, the rebel gunboats retiring behind a line of obstructions.
The battle between our gunboats and the forts continued more or less fiercely all day. In the middle of the afternoon Fort Bartou, the fort nearest us, was practically silenced. At four o’clock we began to load into small boats preparatory to making a landing, and at five o’clock three or four thousand Union troops were on the island.
We landed at Ashby’s Cove, on the edge of a large field, where the water was sufficiently shallow to enable us to get ashore from small boats there being no landing of any kind on that side of the island. The boat I was in ran up into a lot of bogs and grass. As I sprang from the boat I made a good jump and landed on a large bog and got ashore with only wet feet, but one of the boys who followed me made a less successful jump and landed in three feet of water. Just at that moment we saw the light flash on bayonets just across the field in the edge of the wood, and we expected the Johnnies would open fire on us every minute, but they did not, nor did we open fire on them. Soon we were up to the edge of the wood where we had seen the flashes of light on the bayonets. There was a road there and what we had seen evidently was flashes on the guns of a company of soldiers passing along that road.
Early in the evening it began to rain and it rained most of the night. By putting on my rubber blanket which protected my body, arms and legs, my havelock kept the rain out of my face and neck, then with a stick of wood on which to sit on the leeward side of a tree trunk, I kept myself dry and got through the night fairly comfortably and got quite a little rest.
About seven o’clock the morning of the 8th the first brigade moved past us down the road leading to the Confederate barracks and forts. About half a mile down that road the Johnnies had built an earthwork and mounted cannon. The first brigade, as it approached the earthwork, moved to the right to attack the fort on the left flank. Two little brass howitzers manned by sailors went next and we followed them until we were in sight of the fort, when we moved to the left to attack the fort on the right flank. As we got into position the Confederates finding themselves out-flanked on both sides, retreated. The road in front of the fort was the only dry land on that side and it was occupied by the sailors and their howitzers. The fort, however, was built at the end of a tongue of dry land extending toward us. This tongue of land was completely enveloped in front and the two sides with shallow water, the troops on both sides thus operated in water from one to three feet deep.
Directly after losing their entrenched position, the rebels surrendered, we marched over to their barracks and went into camp. That night we had a fine supper and slept in fine, comfortable quarters, the first time we had slept in a real comfortable place since leaving Annapolis.
Just before we started to charge, the moment intervening between the order to cease firing and the order to advance, George Booth was wounded in the mouth; he was talking to me at the time and the ball entered his mouth, leaving no mark on his lips, knocked out two or three teeth and passed through his neck. He died in the hospital about a month and a half later.
It is always interesting to analyze the feelings one had when going into battle, especially the first one; the feelings of the same man differ so much, however, on going into different battles my belief is that much depends upon the state of the nervous system at the time.
It is very well known that the bravest men have on certain occasions been very much depressed before going into certain battles, yet went through them doing very brave things and came out unscratched. On some occasions, I do not remember that my feelings were exceptional at all, while on other occasions I remember distinctly feeling very nervous. The times that were the most difficult for me to control myself were when we were ordered to hold a position and being without ammunition we had nothing to do to employ our minds but just stay there and take the enemy’s fire, such an instance as occurred at Antietam on the ridge in the afternoon of the fight.
At Roanoke Island the idea most prominent in my mind as we went into our first fight was the desire to see a Johnnie and then perhaps to get a shot at him. Any fear of going in or possible result did not occur to me. It is impossible to say this in relation to some of the great battles in which I took part later on, for my desire to see Johnnies was satisfied long before the war ended.
The day after the fight, Colonel Maggi took the regiment over into a big fort on the west side of the island, formed us around a big cannon there, then climbed up onto the gun carriage and with a big black cannon for a back ground made speech number two. This was like speech number one delivered on the “Northerner,” but with variations. It was about as follows: “Soldiers ob de 21st, yesterday you be 21st. I tol you to-day you be 1st, you be 1st.” Flag Officer Gouldsborough, Commander of the Naval Squadron, was in the fort and he also made a speech to us. He was a big massively built, handsome man with a large full beard. He made the impression of being every inch a naval commander.
The day we landed on Roanoke Island, February 7th, there died on the steamer, “Northerner” one of the most interesting men in the regiment, Charles Plummer Tidd. He was a personal friend of Dr. Cutter, the surgeon and had been a personal friend and follower of John Brown. He had been in Kansas with them and with the latter at Harper’s Ferry from which place he, with two others, made their escape. He enlisted in the 21st because Dr. Cutter was there, under the name of Charles Plummer; he enlisted as a private in Company K, and soon after was its orderly sergeant which office he held at the time of his death. Plummer was buried on Roanoke Island, and Miss Cutter, to whom he had just become engaged, was buried beside him. Later, however, both were taken up and buried in the National Cemetery at Newbern.
Just before we left the island, Colonel Maggi resigned. Colonel Maggi was a military educated Italian, and it was said had seen service under Garibaldi. He wished to enforce the same kind of military discipline in our regiment that is maintained in the regular army. Our boys, as volunteers, would not submit to it; there was trouble and he resigned. It was a very unfortunate thing; he was a fine officer and his loss was very much regretted. In addition to this, all our company officers left us. Captain Washburn and Lieutenant Williams disobeyed orders and were dismissed. Lieutenant Sermondy, who enlisted in the company in the hope that he might become Chaplain of the regiment, having failed in obtaining the appointment, and doubtless having seen all the fighting he cared to, resigned and went home. This put Company K in an awkward position. Second Lieutenant Charles W. Davis of Company A, was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant, and put in command of the company.
During the time we remained on the island we drilled a little in addition to guarding the prisoners who were soon sent to Elizabeth City and paroled. March 4th we went on board the “Northerner” again. The sailors of the old ship had her gaily decorated for the occasion and we were welcomed on board again most cordially.
Not until the 11th did we move, then at night we dropped down the sound to near Hatteras Inlet. On the morning of the 12th we started down Pamlico Sound toward the mouth of the Neuse River. We were then told we were headed for Newbern, and up the river we sailed until we came to the mouth of Slocum’s Creek, a small stream emptying its waters into the right side of the Neuse about fifteen miles below Newbern. Here we anchored for the night.
The next day we were engaged most of the forenoon in landing, which was accomplished without interference, and about noon we started up the right bank of the river toward Newbern. We soon struck the railroad connecting Newbern and Beaufort and an extensive earthwork, and farther on toward Newbern still another, and a cavalry camp with a considerable quantity of provisions. Later on in the afternoon we reached the immediate front of the enemy’s last line of works filled with soldiers and a fort with cannon mounted. Here they evidently intended to make a stand. We halted for the night and our company was thrown out in front of us as a picket line. That was the first time I had been on picket duty right in front of the enemy, and if I remember rightly, I kept very much awake that night. Early in the morning we had coffee and directly started forward to the attack. The ground in our immediate front was uneven and as we passed over a little hill we came in sight of the Johnnies filing into their works in front of us. As we moved down the hill and across a narrow valley with a small stream winding through it, other troops appeared on the little hill we had just passed over. The Johnnies opened fire on them, we moved up to the brow of the next rise of ground and opened fire. Thus the battle in that part of the line began.
A thing happened as we were making our way across the little stream just mentioned that afforded the boys some amusement. The stream was too wide to ford but there were places where one could jump across. Picking their way across in that way, to be sure, broke the line up pretty badly. It was just at that time the Johnnies opened fire on the troops in our immediate rear on the little hill. The Johnnies’ opening fire was vigorous. There was a terrific roar of musketry and the way the balls tore through the treetops over our heads sounded peculiar enough, but we were protected, being so low down. One of the officers of our company had been a member of a country band at home, furnishing music for balls and dancing parties about the country. He had been the prompter, had called off the different dances. As we were getting across that stream in the midst of the roar from the Confederate musketry the officer referred to, became very much excited and danced around furiously ordering the company to keep in line, etc. None of the boys were particularly disturbed, but the officer referred to was very much excited. The boys noticed this, and directly some one piped up “All promenade.” Instantly another sang out, “Ladies, grand change.” That had the most remarkable effect on that officer. He saw at once that was banter aimed at him. He quieted down and behaved himself like a little man through the rest of the fight.
We lay there and fired away until about eleven o’clock, when General Reno saw a favorable opportunity to make an advance. With the right wing of the 21st a charge was made breaking the enemy’s lines and capturing a battery; our right wing was forced back somewhat but the Johnnies were not able to recover their line entirely, nor get the guns of the battery away. Our boys shot down the horses and we all advanced. Directly, the Confederates saw their line was broken and they began to retreat all along the line. During the fight I had visible evidence of three close calls. I was lying with Brig. Barnes behind a little log that partly protected us, firing away. First the bayonet of my gun was hit, then a ball passed through my roll of blankets, and last the stock of my gun was shot away. Those hits were each made an instant after I fired. I think a Johnnie saw the smoke puff out from where I lay and fired at it.
When my gun-stock was shot away I had to go back and get another. Pat Martin had been killed. I saw him lying on the ground with a bullet hole through his forehead. I was given his gun and went back to my place again. The bullet that went through my roll of blankets also made two holes through my blouse on my shoulder underneath the blankets.
Captain Frazier of Company H did a clever piece of work at this time. He was in the right wing, his company was one of those that made the charge breaking the enemy’s line and capturing the battery. When he was in the most advanced position, he was hit and fell to the ground; a few minutes later after the Johnnies had retaken the ground, he came to, the wound being a scalp wound, the bullet not penetrating the skull only stunned him for a moment. He was made prisoner and sent to the rear under guard. He was soon all right. He took in the situation and determined to play opossum. He feigned very sick, induced the guard to let him lie down in the shade of some bushes a little way from the road. He then kept a sharp watch out, saw the Confederates were retreating and at the proper moment pulled out his revolver, got the drop on his guard, made them lay down their guns and marched them back to the place where we were.
We moved on a quarter or a half a mile where we came to the Johnnies’ barracks. In front of the cook-house the tables were all set for breakfast but apparently not a thing had been eaten. The poor devils had been obliged to fall into line before they could eat their breakfasts and had fought the battle on empty stomachs. That must have been the reason why they lost.
As we got over the excitement and had a chance to look around we discovered we were as black as a lot of niggers. Our powder was bad, the air was thick and heavy, forcing the smoke down to the ground and as we perspired it stuck to us; my gun had kicked so my shoulder was dreadfully sore, and my head had been nearly snapped off every time I fired, toward the last, and it ached enough to split open.
We occupied the Johnnies’ camp for a few days and had no end of fun going through their things and reading the love letters they had received from the girls they had left behind them. The next day we buried our four boys who were killed. They were Pat Martin, James Fessenden, Joseph E. Stone and James Sullivan.
Of the four men killed in our company, I felt in only one a personal loss. Jimmy Sullivan of Westboro, was an exceptional boy, two years my junior. His was a light-hearted, joyous nature. He was the pet of the company and without an enemy in it. How he was killed I never knew; from the advanced position I occupied during the action it was impossible for me to know what was going on in the company.
We remained in the rebs barracks three days, then went into camp in tents on the south side of a large field stretching along the right bank of the Trent River about a mile and a half from Newbern. That was not a bad place and we enjoyed the time we stayed there very well. Up to that time we had used the Sibley tent quite a little, a tent of the same form as the Indian tepee and doubtless designed from it, but they have evidently been given up, for from this time on we saw no more of them. The tents we were supplied with there were the wall tent used by the officers, hospitals and for commissary stores, and the small shelter tents for the men. The snakes were rather thick and too neighborly to suit some tastes. It was not at all uncommon to find one comfortably asleep in one’s pocket or shoe as he dressed in the morning, or sunning himself under the edge of the tent in the afternoon, but they were not dangerous. I never heard of any one being bitten by one of them.
A party of us boys built a trapeze and a vaulting bar, and started quite a little interest in athletics and had a lot of good fun there.
We had been at Newbern but a few days when Miss Carrie Cutter, the daughter of the surgeon died of spotted fever. She went south with us from Annapolis to assist her father in the care of the sick and wounded men of the regiment. She was a delicate girl of eighteen years and could not withstand the exposure incident to army life. Her body was taken to Roanoke Island and buried beside that of her friend, Charles Plummer Tidd.
There was a good deal of sickness in the regiment at this time. The water we drank was surface water: many of the boys had chills and fever and a great deal of quinine and whiskey was taken. Some of the boys used to turn out quite regularly and go up to the surgeon’s tent for the quinine and whiskey. Others of the fellows were unkind enough to intimate that they really went up for the whiskey, which was, of course, unjust and wrong.
We had been here but a few weeks when a batch of recruits arrived at the regiment, two of which were assigned to our company. One of them had a few locks of rusty red hair hanging down over his shoulders, while his face was partially covered with a faded yellowish red beard. He was at once dubbed the Collie. The day after his arrival he was met by a friend of Harding Witt. This friend suggested to the newcomer that he could not have been informed of the regulations of the service or he would have been to the barber-shop and that soldiers who did not have their hair cut and their whiskers trimmed within forty-eight hours after joining the company were liable to imprisonment for five days. Our friend with the yellow hair innocently fell into the trap and begged his comrade to conduct him to the company barber. This was precisely what was wanted, and the newcomer was escorted to the tent occupied by Harding Witt and his friend, which had been ordered to give the impression of a barber-shop. A large chair had been placed in the center of the tent with a mirror in the front of it, and near the chair was improvised a table on which was arranged a razor, scissors, cologne water and perfumery. Harding impersonated the barber, with coat off, a large white towel pinned in front of him like an apron. He sat reading a novel as the two entered. On seeing them he sprang to his feet and shouted “Next!” The recruit took the chair and Harding commenced operations. He took out his watch and laid it on the table, explaining as he did so, that the time was short but he would try and have him shaved and his hair cut by parade time. He had trimmed the beard from one side of his face and had cut the hair from one side of his head, when the drum beat. The recruit was dismissed till after the parade when he was told to return and the job would be finished.
When the Captain took command of the company his eyes fastened on the recruit instantly, and he ordered him three paces to the front. As the man lumbered forward, for he was as awkward in actions as he was rustic in looks, the boys were ready to burst with laughter. Indeed some of them did shout. The captain took in the situation, saw the poor fellow was the butt of some one’s joke, smiled and ordered him to his quarters. After parade, Harding finished his job.
Later Tom Winn and I found a large cotton field a mile and a half or two miles to the west of the camp, where the ground was just covered with running blackberries. We noised it around the camp and directly a fourth of the regiment could be seen out there picking blackberries. Dr Cutter heard about the berries and believing them beneficial to the health of the boys, recommended the giving of passes liberally, and extra large rations of sugar were also served to eat with them and for a while we had all the berries to eat we wanted.
April 17, we went on board the old “Northerner” again. We were told we were going on a special expedition to the rear of Norfolk, Va. We moved down the river along Pamlico Sound, past Roanoke Island up Albermarle Sound to near Elizabeth City and landed on the opposite side of the sound near Camden at just sunrise April 19. We started off into the country. At eleven o’clock we had marched a distance of eighteen miles through the dismal swamp, parts of the way over a corduroy road in a terrific heat. A number of the boys were sunstruck. E. B. Richardson of our company received a partial sunstroke. At eleven o’clock we struck the Johnnies at a place near South Mills. Our errand was the destruction of the stone locks of the Dismal Swamp Canal at that place. At four o’clock we had accomplished our purpose, the Johnnies had been driven away and the locks of the canal destroyed. From four to eight o’clock we rested, had coffee and supper, then started back and arrived at the boat and went aboard at sunrise the next morning.
Soon after we started on our return trip it began to rain and it rained in torrents all the first part of the night. That return march was something indescribable. The logs of the corduroy road became very slippery when wet and if I fell flat once I did twenty times that night. That march of thirty-six miles between sunrise and sunrise, fighting a battle, destroying a canal, eighteen miles through a swamp in a terrific heat, and the return eighteen miles in a dark, stormy night, part of the way over a corduroy road, was a test of our powers of endurance we never exceeded during the whole four years of our service.
We clambered aboard the boat, threw off our knapsacks and dropped, and I do not think I moved during the whole day. At night the cook came around and woke us up and we had a cup of coffee and something to eat. After that I unrolled my blanket and lay down on it and went to sleep again and slept straight on until the next morning. We arrived at Newbern early in the forenoon and at mid-day of the 22d we were back in our camp again.
That was the time when the dread Merrimac was receiving her finishing touches at the Gosport Navy Yard. The whole north quaked with fear of that huge iron monster. Government officials at Washington were very much disturbed about the mighty ironclad that so much was being written about in the public press. They were concerned lest she should steal down Dismal Swamp Canal from Norfolk to Elizabeth City, destroy our squadron in the sound, then escape to the high seas through Hatteras Inlet, hence our expedition, and destruction of the locks of the canal at South Mills.
Had the officials at Washington known then that the Merrimac drew 22 feet of water, that source of anxiety would have been dispelled at once, for no ship drawing such a depth of water could have manoeuvred in the shallow water of Albermarle and Pamlico Sound, much less passed over the bar at Hatteras Inlet where there is only eight feet of water at high tide.
I brought back from South Mills in my knapsack one thing I did not carry up there, namely, a Johnnie’s bullet. When we first reached the battle ground, as our picket-line was feeling the Johnnies’ position, the 21st was moved up just in their rear as a support and ordered to lie down. In a moment I was asleep, but directly something woke me. I had no idea what it was that started me. We were then ordered forward, and I thought no more of it until the next day on the boat, when I opened my knapsack I found a ball, a hole in my knapsack and holes through a number of other things. It had entered the side, passed about half way through and brought up against a little hand dictionary. Then I knew what it was that awoke me as I lay asleep just in the rear of our picket line.
A full blooded African, who was employed by Dr. Cutter about the hospital, was one day asked by the doctor his name. “Nathaniel” replied the negro. “Any other name?” said the doctor to which Sambo replied, “Why de last name is always de massa’s name, Massa Johnson.” “What do the people down here say this war is about?” asked the doctor. Nathaniel replied: “Why, sir, dey say dat some man called Linkum is going to kill all de women and de chilun an drive de massa away, and all de colored folks will be sold to Cuba.” Nathaniel then proceeded to give some new and highly interesting particulars respecting the genealogy of the President of the United States. “Dey say his wife is a black woman and dat his fadder and mudder came from Ireland,” said he, speaking with emphasis.
The doctor indignantly refuted the aspersions cast upon the family of the President and disabused the negro of the false impressions which he had received from his secessionist mistress.
On the night of May 16th, in the midst of a terrific thunder-storm, the long roll was beaten and we fell into line in light marching order. The night was as dark as a pocket but we formed line and dressed as readily as at mid-day, the lightning was so bright and so continuous. As soon as the line was formed we started off at a quick pace. After marching a few miles, one of the officers told us that the 2d Maryland Regiment was surrounded some miles back in the country, and we were going to their relief. They had been on a scouting expedition and had been entrapped. Soon after daylight having marched about fourteen miles, we met them on their way back to Newbern. They had extricated themselves from the trap they found themselves in, but they were well-nigh starved. Our cooks set to work and got them a rattling good breakfast, for we had taken a wagon load of provisions along. After the breakfast was disposed of we marched back to Newbern and the 2d Maryland was ever after a good friend of the 21st.
At sunrise, July 6, 1862, we left our old camp on the bank of the River Trent, went on board of a large schooner and started down the river. At night we anchored near Hatteras Inlet. The next day, after being towed over the bar and through the inlet we sailed for Fortress Monroe where we arrived the middle of the afternoon of the 8th. The 9th we were taken to a landing at Newport News and went ashore in plain sight of the masts of the “Cumberland” and “Congress” as they stuck up out of about sixteen feet of water.
It was just six months ago we started from this same place on the North Carolina campaign. When we leave here this time we shall join Pope to take part in his campaign in front of Washington.