After the camp had been selected, and our goods and chattels deposited, the band gave an impromptu concert, in honor of the victory, after which most of us started on a foraging expedition, seeking what we might devour. In this quest we were eminently successful. Our mess supped on broiled chicken and apple-jack, and others fared even more sumptuously. A large quantity of tobacco was also discovered and speedily confiscated.
Hardly had we finished supper, and laid ourselves out for the night, when the order came for four companies to "fall in," and patrol the town. A house in the middle of the town had been fired, and as the flames had extended to one or two of the surrounding buildings, there was a fair prospect of seeing the whole place in ashes before morning, unless the progress of the fire was arrested. Fortunately there were enough firemen to check any further spread of the mischief, and it devolved upon us to pass the greater half of the night patrolling the streets, preventing all disorder, and returning stragglers to their regiments. We found one fellow in a most happy frame of mind, seated in a horseless chaise, evidently enjoying his ride intensely, and urging on the imaginary steed, as if on a race track, apple-jack, without question, having got the better of him.
The moon came out in full splendor, to light us on our weary pilgrimage, as we traversed the streets back and forth, round and round. The captain occasionally coming to a halt, some of us employed the time by taking a nap on the sidewalk, or in the road, just as it happened. A colored gentleman accompanied us during part of our wanderings, showing off the place, pointing out the slave market, and other objects of interest. However, our desire for a more intimate acquaintance with the town was not so great but that we were ready to return to camp, somewhere in the small hours, and wrap up in our blankets for a short nap, after our day's work.
We were up bright and early the next morning, and to our surprise, and the enemy's as well, Kinston was abandoned, and the river recrossed. The rear guard destroyed the bridge, which had cost us so much effort to save the day before, and we started once more in the direction of Goldsboro. It was very warm and dusty, and the march long and wearisome, but the country grew pleasanter the further inland we advanced, and the plantations appeared much more flourishing, so that we were more than usually rejoiced to reach the camp that night, and rest after our two days of hard work.
After marching three or four miles the next morning, Tuesday, the 16th, the boom of cannon, now quite familiar, was heard in the distance, and orders came for the 45th to hasten forward to the scene of action. The road runs for some distance parallel to the river, through a large clearing, and then turns abruptly towards a bridge which spans the Neuse, leading to the town of Whitehall. The land rises to some height on the left side of the road, the brow of the hill being thinly covered with forest trees, while on the right it slopes to the wooded bank of the river.
On the approach of our cavalry advance, the previous night, the rebels had crossed the river, destroying the bridge in their retreat, and the fighting was now going on at this point, the apparent object being to rebuild the bridge, and cross the river. The part taken in this fight by our regiment was rather passive than active, but none the less trying for that reason.
A portion of a New York battery being put in position on the rise of the hill, we were ordered to their support; so, marching along the road till opposite the battery, we formed in line of battle, and then lay down, facing the river, and not many rods distant from it. Our situation was anything but an agreeable one, for not only did the rebel shot and bullets fall thick around us, but the shell from our own guns behind, passed so near as to render a recumbent posture very desirable. An hour passed in this condition, without firing a gun, seemed, from the very inaction, much more like two or three; but at length the order was passed along the line to fall back to the other side of the road. So, crawling through, or scrambling over the fence which separated us from the field, we took up a new position, two or three rods further back, and directly the 3d Rhode Island Battery came thundering down the road, and unlimbering on the spot we had just vacated, began to pour a deadly fire across the river. While we occupied this position, our gallant Color Sergeant, Theodore Parkman, was struck in the head by a fragment of a shell, and almost instantly killed. But before the colors fell to the ground they were seized by the colonel himself, and though a mark for the deadly missiles of the sharp-shooters, which whistled close around him, he supported them till relieved by one of the color-guard.
It is true we accomplished the destruction of a gun-boat, which was in process of construction at this place, but all this apparent effort to cross the river was merely a feint to occupy the attention of the enemy, and thereby cover a raid of the cavalry upon the Goldsboro and Wilmington Railroad. It was most successful, for a battalion of the 3d New York having struck the road at Mt. Olive Station, took the people wholly by surprise. They came upon a crowd of passengers waiting for the train, which was, however, unavoidably detained on that day, at least, as they destroyed the track and telegraph for some miles, rejoining the main command without the loss of a man.
We marched on some hours after the fight was over, finding the country much more hilly, and decidedly pleasanter. The latter part of the day, a few of us, wearying of the monotony of the march, started ahead on our own account, passing regiment after regiment. An occasional meeting with old friends among the Massachusetts troops, with whom we rehearsed the events of the past two or three days, created quite a pleasant diversion, and relieved to a great extent the tedium of the way.