naval force of eight vessels lay behind a line of obstructions across the channel.
On February 7th, the National gunboats, advancing in three columns, shelled Fort Bartow—the principal fortification, on the west side of the island—and the Confederate gunboats. The latter were soon driven off, and in four hours the fort was silenced. The transports landed the troops on the west side of the island, two miles south of the fort, and in the morning of the 8th they began their march to the interior, which was made difficult and disagreeable by swamps and a lack of roads, and by a cold storm. On the 9th, the Confederate skirmishers were driven in, and the main line was assaulted, first with artillery, and then by the infantry. The Confederate left wing was turned; and when the national troops had nearly exhausted their ammunition they made a brilliant bayonet charge, led by Hawkins's New York zouave regiment, and stormed the works, which were hastily abandoned by the Confederates, who attempted to reach the northeast shore and cross to Nag's Head, but more than two thousand of them were captured. Fort Bartow still held out, but it was soon taken, its garrison surrendering. In this action the national loss was two hundred and thirty-five men killed or wounded in the army, and twenty-five in the navy.
On the 10th, a part of the fleet, under Captain Rowan, pursued the Confederate fleet up Albemarle Sound, and after a short engagement defeated it. The Confederates set fire to their vessels and deserted them, destroying all but one, which was captured. Rowan then took possession of Elizabeth City and Edenton. The flying Confederates had set fire to the former; but Rowan's men, with the help of the colored people who remained, put out the fire and saved the city.
In this naval battle one of the first medals of honor won in the war was earned by a sailor named John Davis. A shell thrown by the Confederates entered one of the vessels and set fire to it. This was near the magazine, and there was an open barrel of powder from which Davis was serving a gun. He at once sat down on the barrel, and remained there covering it until the fire was put out.
General Burnside next planned an expedition in the opposite direction, to attack Newbern. His forces, numbering about eight thousand men, sailed from Hatteras Inlet in the morning of March 12th, and that evening landed within eighteen miles of Newbern. The next day they marched toward the city, while the gunboats ascended the river and shelled such fortifications and Confederate troops as could be seen. The roads were miry, and the progress of the troops was slow. After removing elaborate obstructions and torpedoes from the channel, the fleet reached and silenced the forts near the city. The land forces then came up and attacked the Confederates, who were about five thousand strong and were commanded by General Branch. After hard fighting, the works were carried, and the enemy fled. They burned the railroad bridge over the Trent River, and set fire to the city; but the sailors succeeded in extinguishing the flames in time to save the greater part of the town. Burnside's loss in this battle was about five hundred and fifty killed or wounded; that of the Confederates, including prisoners, was about the same. Fifty-two guns and two steamers were captured.
Ten days later, Beaufort, N. C., and Morehead City were occupied by the National troops without opposition. Burnside's army was now broken up into comparatively small bodies, holding the various places that had been taken, which greatly diminished the facilities for blockade-running on the North Carolina coast.
The year 1862 opened with indications of lively and decisive work west of the mountains, and many movements were made that cannot be detailed here. One of the most gallant was in the region of the Big Sandy River in eastern Kentucky, where Humphrey Marshall had gathered a Confederate force of about two thousand five hundred (mostly Kentuckians) at Paintville. Col. James A. Garfield (afterward President), in command of one thousand eight hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry, drove him out of Paintville, pursued him beyond Prestonburg, came up with him at noon of January 10th, and fought him till night, when Marshall retreated under cover of the darkness, leaving his dead on the field.
|
|
In the autumn of 1861 a Confederate force, under Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer, had been pushed forward by way of Knoxville to eastern Kentucky, but was defeated at Camp Wildcat, October 21st, by seven thousand men under General Schoepff, and fell back to Mill Springs at the head of steamboat navigation on the Cumberland. Zollicoffer soon crossed to the northern bank, and fortified a position at Beech Grove, in the angle between the river and Fishing Creek. The National forces in the vicinity were commanded by Gen. George H. Thomas, who watched Zollicoffer so closely that when the latter was told by his superiors he should not have crossed the river, he could only answer that it was now too late to return. As Zollicoffer was only a journalist, with more zeal than military knowledge, Gen. George B. Crittenden was sent to supersede him. Thomas was slowly advancing, through rainy weather, over heavy roads, to drive this force out of the State, and had reached Logan's Cross-roads, within ten miles of the Confederate camp, when Crittenden determined to move out and attack him. The battle began early on the morning of January 19, 1862. Thomas was on the alert, and when his outposts were driven in he rapidly brought up one detachment after another and threw them into line. The attack was directed mainly against the National left, where the fighting was obstinate and bloody, much of the firing being at very close quarters. Here Zollicoffer, thinking the Fourth Kentucky was a Confederate regiment firing upon its friends, rode forward to correct the supposed mistake, and was shot dead by its colonel, Speed S. Fry. When, at length, the right of the Confederate line had been pressed back and broken, a steady fire having been kept up on the centre, the Ninth Ohio Regiment made a bayonet charge on its left flank, and the whole line was broken and routed. The Confederates took refuge in their intrenchments, where Thomas swiftly pursued and closely invested them, expecting to capture them all the next morning. But in the night they managed to cross the river, leaving behind their wounded, twelve guns, all their horses, mules, and wagons, and a large amount of stores. In the further retreat two of the Confederate regiments disbanded and scattered to their homes, while a large number from other regiments deserted individually. The National loss in killed and wounded was two hundred and forty-six; that of the Confederates, four hundred and seventy-one. Thomas received the thanks of the President for his victory. This action is variously called the Battle of Fishing Creek and the Battle of Mill Springs.
|
|
| BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION OFF FORT MONROE. |
When Gen. Henry W. Halleck was placed in command of the Department of Missouri, in November, 1861, he divided it into districts, giving to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant the District of Cairo, which included Southern Illinois, the counties of Missouri south of Cape Girardeau, and all of Kentucky that lies west of Cumberland River. Where the Tennessee and the Cumberland enter Kentucky from the south they are about ten miles apart, and here the Confederates had erected two considerable works to command the rivers—Fort Henry on the east bank of the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the west bank of the Cumberland. They had also fortified the high bluffs at Columbus, on the Mississippi, twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and Bowling Green, on the Big Barren. The general purpose was to establish a military frontier with a strong line of defence from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi.
|
|
A fleet of iron-clad gunboats had been prepared by the United States Government for service on the Western rivers, some of them being built new, while others were altered freight-boats.
After a reconnoissance in force by Gen. C. F. Smith, General Grant asked Halleck's permission to capture Fort Henry, and, after considerable delay, received it on the 30th of January. That work was garrisoned by three thousand men under Gen. Lloyd Tilghman. Its position was strong, the ravines through which little tributaries reached the river being