A brilliant, well contested fight of two hours’ duration put the Federal forces in possession of Roanoke Island, with all the batteries, mounting thirty guns, and Fort Forrest, on the mainland, mounting eight guns. It resulted in the unconditional surrender of the rebel army on the island, numbering 2,500 men, with all their arms and munitions of war. Captain O. Jennings Wise, son of ex-Governor Wise of Virginia, lost his life in this engagement. The Governor himself, being absent from his command on the day of battle, escaped.
Colonel Russell, of the Tenth Connecticut, and Lieutenant-Colonel De Monteuil, of the New York Fifty-third, were killed.
The Federal loss was fifty killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. That of the rebels was about twenty killed, and sixty wounded.
EVACUATION OF BOWLING GREEN, KY.
February 14–16, 1862.
Before the commencement of hostilities in the State of Kentucky, the rebel General Buckner, Commander-in-Chief of the State militia, seized upon the town of Bowling Green, in Warren county, in the southern section of the State, and occupied it as the grand centre and depot of future military operations. The position was well chosen. It was situated on the line of the Louisville and Nashville railway, and connected also by rail with Memphis and Nashville; while water communication through the Barren river was open to the Green river, the Ohio, and Mississippi, and thus to all important points.
As a military post, its means of defence were also of the first importance. The town lies on the south bank of Barren river, at a point where the channel makes a bend not unlike a horse-shoe. The buildings are situated a distance of five hundred yards from the banks, which rise by jutted rocky sides fifty feet from the water level. A series of nine swelling hills, or knolls, completely encompass the town on the land side, and on these Buckner had erected a cordon of forts; some of stone, and others of earth, twenty feet in thickness—all of great magnitude. Forty-nine guns were mounted on the various fortifications, and great engineering skill had been displayed in their construction.
On learning the defeat of Zollicoffer’s troops at Mill Spring, on the 19th of January, General A. S. Johnson, on the 25th, ordered the evacuation of Bowling Green, and General Floyd’s brigade immediately marched from thence to Fort Donelson. Active measures were then taken to carry out the order further, by shipping heavy ordnance to Columbus, which place General Grant’s reconnoissance at that time had induced the Confederates to believe would be the first point of attack from the Federal army.
After the capture of Fort Henry, on the 6th of February, by which the enemy’s communication with Columbus was intercepted, the remaining troops were distributed, some to Fort Donelson, some to Nashville and other points; and a work of indiscriminate destruction of the buildings and property in the town commenced. The beautiful iron railway bridge, and the wooden turnpike bridge over the Barren river were first destroyed. The railway bridge over the Green river, some forty miles to the north-east, had long since been burned, and the forces of General Buell had been deterred from crossing that stream up to the present time.
On the 11th of February, however, General Mitchell’s division, encamped on Bacon creek, seven miles north of the Green river, were ordered to advance on Bowling Green, and on that day marched to Camp Madison, one mile north of the river; where receiving confirmatory information of the retreat of the rebel forces, they hastened forward.