706 NortH Carouina Troops, 1861-’65.

while they were in hearing and, as they afterward learned,
had General Palmer aboard.

Another party, under the lead of Levi Howland, of Car-
teret County, blew up and so damaged the lighthouse at
Cape Lookout that it was never of any further use. This en-
terprise was a daring and dangerous one. The party had to
cross the sound, seven or eight miles wide, in small boats, run-
ning the risk of capture by a steamer which the Federals kept
on guard constantly near the light house. Of course the
thing had to be done at night. Arriving at the light house
they first notified the persons in charge to keep in door and
make no alarm, at the peril of their lives. They then placed
a keg of powder, which they carried with them, in the light
house and connected it with a trail of powder to which they
applied a slow match. The match failed to ignite the pow-
der and as the steamer on guard had begun to move up near
to the light house, one of the party procured from the keeper’s
house a shovel of live coals and running near the door of the
light house, threw the coals on the trail of powder. The keg
of powder exploded and the tall structure was so badly
wrecked as to be unsafe for further use.

In June, 1864, a strong party of Federals and Buffaloes,
as the natives who joined the enemy, were called, attempted
to capture Captain Cogdell and his company. They were on
outpost duty ten miles below Kinston on the south side of the
Neuse. Captain Cogdell was on the alert and did not fall
into the trap set for him. They did, however, capture Colo-
nel G. N. Folk, of the Sixty-fifth North Carolina (Sixth Cav-
alry). At the time he was attempting to reach Cogdell.

As before stated, the Sixty-seventh was ordered to relieve
the troops stationed at Washington and Plymouth, N. C., in
October, 1864. The writer and three companies stopped in
Washington while Colonel and Major Whitford, with the
other seven companies proceeded to Plymouth.

Plymouth is oniy eight miles above the mouth of the Roan-
oke and was protected by the Confederate ram Albemarle,
which was anchored a short distance below the town and
which had done such fine service the previous spring at the
capture of the town from the Federals, though defended by

Srxty-SEVENTH REGIMENT. 707

several gunboats on the river and several thousand troops,
well fortified, on the land. It was a part of the duty of the
garrison to keep a strong guard on the ram day and night, to
protect it from any effort that might be made secretly to de-
stroy or injure it. About a week after Colonel Whitford
assumed command at Plymouth, during a dark night, a small
steam launch which had approached without noise or any
other sign of its presence, was suddenly discovered by the
sentinel on duty, very near the ram and approaching it rap-
idly. The sentinel immediately fired on the approaching
boat, but in an instant it struck the side of the ram and at
the same time exploded a torpedo or some explosive of great
force. The parties in the launch attempted to back it off,
but failed. In the darkness and confusion one of the boat’s
crew jumped into the river and escaped unnoticed. Two
others and the launch were captured. A large hole was torn
in the side of the ram by the explosion and it immediately
sank to the bottom, though a portion of it still remained above
water. Two days thereafter several Federal gunboats came
up the river and shelled the town until the garrison was with-
drawn. The party who escaped by swimming ashore was
Lieutenant Cushing, of the Federal navy, and was entitled to
the credit of planning and carrying out the attack on the ram.

Immediately after the abandonment of Plymouth, the
writer was ordered to remove all the military stores in Wash-
ington and withdraw from the place.

There were quite a large number of heavy guns mounted
in the several forts in and around the town—some weighing
10,000 pounds, and no means of getting them to a place of
safety except by hauling them seven miles into the country.
Two weeks were spent in executing the order.

After the evacuation of Plymouth and Washington, N. C.,
Colonel and Major Whitford, with the greater part of the
regiment, returned to Kinston, while the writer with the bal-
ance was stationed at Greenville for a few weeks. About this
time Colonel Whitford, with a part of the regiment, went to
Hamilton, on the Roanoke, to repel an invasion of that section
by the enemy who came up the river in gunboats. The en-

 

 

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