From this time forward until early in the month of December, 1862, the company was engaged in the regular camp and garrison duty, among which were company, battalion, and brigade drills. To vary the monotony of camp life somewhat, the company with Company C were detailed for picket duty on the railroad between Newbern and Beaufort, occupying a deserted rebel cavalry camp. The company remained there two weeks and then returned to Newbern.
On the evening of December 10, 1862, after dress parade, the colonel commanding gave orders to prepare three days’ cooked rations, and, upon the following day, to issue the same to the men, and also to see that they were provided with serviceable shoes and two pairs of new socks for each man, that forty rounds of ammunition be supplied each cartridge box, that the trunks of all officers and the knapsacks of enlisted men be packed with all necessary articles and made ready for the wagoners who would take them on the following afternoon. All these unusual orders could mean but one thing, and that was an expedition into the enemy’s country; and, acting upon these orders, Company D made requisitions upon the quartermaster and commissary for the requisite amount of supplies to comply with the order. The camp was stripped of everything not absolutely necessary for use by the men. Before daylight on the morning of the 11th, the regimental line was formed and troops marched out into the Neuse road that ran from Newbern out into the enemy’s country. Very little apparent progress was made that day, much time being consumed straightening out the column, and it was late when the company went into bivouac, passing under a magnificent arch of fire formed by the blazing trunks of turpentine trees that lined either side of the road and almost as far as the eye could reach on the right and left of the column. The next day the regiment was detailed to guard the baggage train and slow progress was made.
On the 14th occurred the battle of Kinston, and the company being in line of battle for the first time, it was attached to the brigade commanded by Colonel Lee of the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment, and was on the extreme left of the line, it being in close proximity to a field hospital. The sight of the wounded and dying being brought from the front and through the lines to the hospital was not a cheerful prospect, nor one calculated to enliven the spirits of the men while expecting at any moment to receive the order to advance into the circle of fire, but no man flinched and all were ready for whatever duty might be required of them. The brigade being in the rear line of battle was not actively engaged with the enemy. The enemy was defeated and the Union column entered Kinston early in the evening of that day and went into bivouac in a large field or common in front of the town. There they remained until the following morning. After going into bivouac strict orders were promulgated from general headquarters forbidding foraging in the town, but sometime in the middle of the night the company was mysteriously supplied with a most bountiful supply of all needful provisions and many of the luxuries of life in the shape of canned jellies, fruits, and preserves, and for once at least the company reveled in a grand banquet.
The next morning the company with the rest of the troops evacuated the town and took up the line of march toward Whitehall, which was reached the following day in the afternoon. Here a fierce artillery fight took place, the right brigade of the column and most, if not all of the artillery, being engaged with the enemy.
The brigade to which the Third Massachusetts Regiment and Company D was attached, passed around the base of a hill in the rear of the line of battle (but well within range of the enemy’s sharpshooters, as the singing of their rifle bullets passing just above the heads of the company so eloquently testified) to the right of the position held by the enemy, and which they evacuated that night. The company bivouacked the same night upon a sandy plain on the edge of a forest, with hungry stomachs and empty haversacks; but they were very fortunate in finding the commissary wagons that night and securing a fifty-pound box of hardtack and a few pounds of mixed coffee and sugar, which proved a very welcome supper.
On the next day, the 17th of December, the company met the enemy; the brigade to which the regiment was attached being upon the right of the column, found itself in the immediate vicinity of the enemy early in the forenoon, the skirmishers driving in their pickets and developing their position near a bridge on the Wilmington and Welden Railroad that crosses the Neuse River near the town of Goldsboro. After a sharp engagement the enemy retired; the Union Infantry Regiments were marched to a position near the railroad, stacked arms, and commenced to destroy the road, which was effectively accomplished for a number of miles. At the same time the bridge was fired and destroyed, thus for the time crippling the road, which was supposed to be one of the leading lines of communication of the Confederate army of Northern Virginia with the southern portion of the Confederacy.
When preparing to leave the field an alarm was made that the enemy had rallied, reformed their lines, and were about to make an attack. The alarm proved to be correct, our lines were hastily reformed to resist such attack. It was at this time that the company first met the enemy face to face, as they came down the railroad embankment like a swarm of immense gray ants. They formed line of battle in the open fields as on parade, and started with a yell to make a charge upon the Union lines some three hundred yards in their front. These lines were composed of troops of which Company D of the Third Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia formed a part.
Sections of the New York Artillery and Belger’s Rhode Island battery of Parrott guns were rapidly placed in position in the immediate front of the infantry lines formed to resist the charge of the enemy, and hurled such terrible charges of grape and canister into the faces of the enemy that no human courage could withstand, and, before more than half the distance that separated the contending lines had been traversed, the enemy’s lines were broken, and those of the enemy who were able to do so sought shelter in the thick woods on their left, followed by showers of bullets from the rifles of the infantry. While this scene was terribly exciting, so far as known not a man left the ranks of Company D, with the exception of one man slightly wounded by a fragment of an exploded shell.
This action ended the active hostilities of this expedition of the Eighteenth Army Corps into the enemy’s country. It failed of its co-operative purpose, as the Army of the Potomac had been disastrously defeated at Fredericksburg a short time previous, thus enabling the commander of the Confederate forces to reinforce at any point. The expedition returned to Newbern without incident, and shortly after were ordered to inscribe upon their colors the words “Kinston,” “Whitehall,” and “Goldsboro,” to commemorate the battles that were fought at the locations indicated.
An inspiring sight gladdened the hearts of the company when approaching Newbern on the return from the expedition, in the appearance of the Stars and Stripes floating in the air from the flagstaff on Fort Totten; it seemed to welcome the column home from the dangers and hardships it had endured in its defence.