CHAPTER IX.[ToC]
1865.
NEW BERNE,—HARTFORD, CONN.
Company "H," (Captain Barnum,) who escaped capture at Plymouth, by being detached and sent to Roanoke Island for duty in April, 1864, was reinforced now and then by men who had previously been detached for special service, or were absent sick, also by a few who were exchanged from time to time, representing every company, and this composed the 16th regiment in actual service. Captain Barnum labored with much zeal under many difficulties, to preserve the former prestige of the regiment. During December the regiment proceeded to Plymouth, and went thence on an expedition to Poster's Mills, about ten miles, destroying the mills and a large quantity of grain, and returning with various spoils. On another occasion the regiment went to Hertford, where they captured large quantities of cotton, tobacco, finished carriages, and buggies, several thousand feet of lumber, several mules, and forty contrabands. And again one bright night Captain Pomeroy with sixty men proceeded by steamer up the Alligator river, capturing a barge and three small sail vessels containing twenty-five hundred bushels of shelled corn, together with the outfit of fifteen men with their mules and carts. They were intending to take the corn to a mill near by to be ground. The regiment also made several unimportant raids to Columbia, Edenton, and the adjoining country, until March 4th, 1865, when they were ordered to New Berne, N.C., where the exchanged prisoners joined them and remained on provost duty. Most of the officers were quartered in the houses at the corner of Craven and Union streets. Colonel Beach having been released from Libby Prison in May, 1864, was assigned to various duties in Washington, only once rejoining what remained of the regiment. That was at New Berne, where he was taken sick and soon departed on sick-leave.
Colonel Frank Beach was a graduate of West Point Academy, class '57. He was stationed at first at Fortress Monroe, as a brevet second lieutenant of artillery.
At a later date he was ordered to the far west with General Gibbon, and took part in the well-known Utah expedition in 1858. The sufferings of that campaign and the winter encampment on the prairie were shared by him, as well as the almost unendurable ennui of later days, when Digger Indians or inimical Mormons were the only society accessible to the small garrison.
When the war broke out Colonel Beach was post adjutant at Port McHenry near Baltimore, and remained in that position for some time. He took some share in McClellan's advance, and was stationed at Yorktown as an officer of artillery. But in the summer of 1862, he was permitted, by special order of the war department, to accept the colonelcy of the Sixteenth Connecticut regiment which had been tendered him by Governor Buckingham. He commanded the regiment at the battle of Antietam, showing great personal bravery and heroism during the engagement. He galloped hither and thither on his white horse over the field, trying in vain to draw the men out of the desperate charge into which they had been ordered, and sad and full of woe was his heart on the night after the struggle, when the broken remnants of the Sixteenth gathered around him in the rear of the battle ground. He made personal inquiry after each of the wounded, and visited a number of them on that evening and the following days, doing for them all that was possible.