The basin where we were anchored was simply a deep hole just inside the inlet. It was large enough to accommodate ten or fifteen ships comfortably, but towards the last of our stay there, when all or nearly all the ships of the squadron had arrived, and there were seventy or eighty ships there, the place became dangerously crowded.
Soon after reaching the inlet it was discovered that the “Northerner” and some other vessels drew too much water (nine feet) to cross the bar which had only eight feet of water at high tide, to admit of their passing into the sound. We lay there from the 13th until the 26th when, after the regiment and everything else that was movable had been transferred to other vessels, three tugs succeeded in dragging the “Northerner” across the bar. The two weeks we lay anchored in that basin seemed like months. All one could see was sky, water and the cape, a narrow strip of sand stretching off to the north and south, the whole a picture of desolation. The ocean waves came pouring and thundering unceasingly in from the east, pounding the cape as if determined to force their way into the sound. The wind blew a gale and it rained most of the time. The sun shone only twice during the two weeks. On account of the delay, the water supply ran short and but for the rain we would have suffered for water.
Two ships of the squadron never made the inlet. The “City of New York,” a freighter loaded with tents, ammunition, etc., ran onto the rocks and went to pieces trying to make the inlet. The “Pocahontas,” another freighter, loaded with horses, went ashore some distance up the coast. One day the colonel and surgeon of the 9th New Jersey Regiment came into the inlet in a rowboat from their ship outside, for orders. They got their orders and started back, but were swamped in the breakers in plain sight of us. The ships were continually dragging anchor and running into each other. Just before we got across the bar it became known that we were bound up Pamlico Sound to attack Roanoke Island.
Life became more bearable after we got across the bar out into the sound. The storm had passed off, the sun came out. We received our first mail from home the 28th. The gunboats practiced firing at targets and we boys practiced firing at ducks and gulls with our revolvers.
February 5th we started up the sound, the gunboats taking the lead. It was a handsome sight, eighty ships in all, forty gunboats, and about the same number of other ships carrying the troops, baggage, provisions, ammunition, etc. The naval part was under the command of Flag Officer Goldsborough. At about five o’clock we anchored in plain sight of Roanoke Island. We were enveloped in a dense fog all day the 6th and did not move, and saw nothing. To break the monotony, Colonel Maggi got us together on the hurricane deck and made a speech. Considering their brevity, as well as his accent which was very Italian, his speeches were very funny. This one was about like the following: “Soldiers ob de 21st, to-day you be 21st, tomorrow you be 1st.”
February 7th at nine o’clock we moved on, the gunboats leading the way, and they were soon engaged first with some Confederate gunboats, then with the forts on the island, the rebel gunboats retiring behind a line of obstructions.
The battle between our gunboats and the forts continued more or less fiercely all day. In the middle of the afternoon Fort Bartou, the fort nearest us, was practically silenced. At four o’clock we began to load into small boats preparatory to making a landing, and at five o’clock three or four thousand Union troops were on the island.
We landed at Ashby’s Cove, on the edge of a large field, where the water was sufficiently shallow to enable us to get ashore from small boats there being no landing of any kind on that side of the island. The boat I was in ran up into a lot of bogs and grass. As I sprang from the boat I made a good jump and landed on a large bog and got ashore with only wet feet, but one of the boys who followed me made a less successful jump and landed in three feet of water. Just at that moment we saw the light flash on bayonets just across the field in the edge of the wood, and we expected the Johnnies would open fire on us every minute, but they did not, nor did we open fire on them. Soon we were up to the edge of the wood where we had seen the flashes of light on the bayonets. There was a road there and what we had seen evidently was flashes on the guns of a company of soldiers passing along that road.
Early in the evening it began to rain and it rained most of the night. By putting on my rubber blanket which protected my body, arms and legs, my havelock kept the rain out of my face and neck, then with a stick of wood on which to sit on the leeward side of a tree trunk, I kept myself dry and got through the night fairly comfortably and got quite a little rest.
About seven o’clock the morning of the 8th the first brigade moved past us down the road leading to the Confederate barracks and forts. About half a mile down that road the Johnnies had built an earthwork and mounted cannon. The first brigade, as it approached the earthwork, moved to the right to attack the fort on the left flank. Two little brass howitzers manned by sailors went next and we followed them until we were in sight of the fort, when we moved to the left to attack the fort on the right flank. As we got into position the Confederates finding themselves out-flanked on both sides, retreated. The road in front of the fort was the only dry land on that side and it was occupied by the sailors and their howitzers. The fort, however, was built at the end of a tongue of dry land extending toward us. This tongue of land was completely enveloped in front and the two sides with shallow water, the troops on both sides thus operated in water from one to three feet deep.