We were quickly disembarked, and soon closely packed on the open freight cars, rather a novel mode of conveyance to most of us, but one to be recommended as admirably adapted to sight-seeing, and in pleasant weather both airy and agreeable. Leaving the 43d and 46th to pass another night on shipboard, our train was soon on its way to Newbern, distant about forty miles. Our first stop was at Morehead City, though why called "city" it would be hard to say, as it contains but a few miserable houses and a forlorn-looking hotel, famous as the residence, for a time, of Company C of the 45th, who were quartered there as garrison. Every little while a picket-station would come in view, and now and then a camp whose occupants greeted us with shouts of welcome and inquiries as to our State, number of our regiment, latest news, etc. A blockhouse commanding the bridge over a small creek was a novelty, and, as long as daylight lasted, we found enough that was new and interesting to keep our eyes fully occupied. The country itself through which the road passes is wholly devoid of interest—in fact, a vast swamp covered with pine forests, which extend over a great part of the eastern section of the state; tar, pitch and turpentine being correctly given by the geography as among the principal productions.
It was quite dark when the train drew near the town of Newbern, and slowly crossing the long bridge which spans the river Trent, passed up what we afterwards discovered to be Hancock street, lighted, to our great astonishment, with gas. We finally came to a halt before a long freight-house, where a quantity of oats was stored in bags. This building was assigned to the right wing as their quarters for the night, and after our cramped bunks on shipboard, we found the oat-bags very acceptable. The left wing passed the night in some vacant tents near at hand.
As we were decidedly cold and hungry after our ride, the arrival of some of the 44th Mass., with pails of hot coffee, was very opportune, and we regaled them with the latest news from home in return for their kindness. Their description of the hardships endured on the Tarboro' expedition, from which they had just returned, did not tend to heighten our already very far from pleasant impressions of North Carolina as a place of abode.
As we were taught the productions of North Carolina in our youth, the negro stood first on the list, and certainly we had seen no reason to belie that statement. We had not ceased laughing from the time we landed, at the comical figures which met us on every hand. It was the first object to meet our eye at the wharf, and I doubt not the last thing visible as we left the shores of Beaufort on our return. We no longer wondered where the minstrels at the north procured their absurd costumes; here was material for an endless variety. It was better than any play simply to walk about and examine the different styles of dress, for this was before anything had been done at the north for the contrabands, and they appeared in the rags they had brought from their plantations. It was amusing to listen to the questions which greeted them from all sides, the bright answers often displaying more sense than did the questions. Some of our men seemed to have taken it for granted that all the tales they had read of the horrors of slavery were the general rule, and that the great aim and object of every master's life was to abuse and maltreat the slave in every possible way. The erroneous and absurd notions at first entertained by them of the state of southern society, could only be equalled by the opinions of our southern friends about the north. One question asked will serve as an illustration. We were grouped around a fire that first night, talking with some bright little contrabands, when one of our number asked one "If his master ever let him stand by such a nice fire as that," which in that land of pines certainly was rather ridiculous, and, for a Boston boy, rather an insult to his bringing up.
We employed the two or three hours of leisure the next morning in a tour of inspection through the town. With our eyes still dazzled with the bright effulgence of the New England metropolis, and unaccustomed to the darkness of that benighted land, we unhesitatingly pronounced it the meanest, dirtiest spot we had ever set foot in. But it did not take many weeks of camp life, where the only houses visible were the barracks and a few miserable negro hovels, to create a very decided change in our views upon this subject, as well as on many others of like nature.
The town is very prettily situated at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent, the former between one and two miles wide at this point, the latter something less than a mile. It is laid out quite regularly and abounds in elms and flower gardens, many of them very beautiful, and relieving the otherwise ugly streets. We became better, in fact most intimately, acquainted with the place when we were quartered there, and a more minute description will be found further on. Our first impressions received that morning were, however, certainly the reverse of pleasant.
Camp Amory on the Trent, Dec. 1862.
A Bunk in the Barracks.