History of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers

by B. F. Blakeslee

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 Saturday, 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. Rushing 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 Washington and Lee's Mill roads simultaneously, and so sudden was the attack on the Washington 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 Massachusetts 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 "Massasoit," 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 assault 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 succumb, 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, passing our batteries, sank the Southfield, and drove off the balance of the fleet of gunboats. The Bombshell 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.