718 NortH Carouina Troops, 1861-65.

but during the stay there a young officer by the name of Stock-
ton, from the central part of the State, who had but a short
time previous joined the regiment, was drowned in Roanoke
river while taking a swim, and so far as this writer knows,
his remains were never recovered. On 1 J une, 1864, the
regiment then at Weldon reported 548 present. 108 Vol.
Official Records Union and Confederate Armies, p- 988.

MORGANTON.

From this point the regiment was sent in July to Morgan-
ton, N. C., to protect property and citizens. We arrived there
only a few days too late to meet a band of bushwhacking guer-
rillas known as Kirk’s army. They had made a raid on an
encampment of Junior Reserves about three miles from Mor-
ganton, near the then terminus of the Western North Caro-
lina Railroad, and on 28 June had captured more than one
hundred of them. Hon. W. W. Avery was killed in the pur-
suit of Kirk’s army. Their attack upon the Juniors was
made in a silent hour of night.

After we had been encamped for awhile where the Juniors
had been, the Hon. Zebulon B. Vance, who was canvassing
the State for the gubernatorial chair for a second term, paid
us a call and made an address in his own humorous way.
After having delivered his speech relating to public affairs,
he said that he was glad that he had had the pleasure of
meeting us, and complimented our healthy, stalwart soldierly
appearance, and said that he hoped no one of the regiment.
would have to be sent to the hospital for want of drinking
water, as we were from the eastern part of the State, for
he had been informed that we had searched the hill and
mountain sides, and even the valleys, for tadpole water to
drink. This was too much for us to bear, our Colonel Hinton
thought, without a retort, who was much like the Governor
for wit and humor, and so he related a story that went with-
out contradiction. He said that shortly after the outbreak of
the war, while Roancke Island was being fortified, an ad-
ditional force of troops being necessary, it happened that the
troops sent were from the western part of our State. When
the steamer that transported them, having made the run

Sixty-Eieuta REGIMENT. 719

down the Albemarle sound in the night time, at the dawn
of day came in view of the island, the troops arousing
from their slumbers, began taking a view of their surround-
ings and discovered the men at the fort on the island getting
out to their work with wheelbarrows. One of them called
out to his comrade and exclaimed: ‘Boys, have those few
men over yonder dug this great ditch already ?”’ and then the
Governor surrendered himself amidst the cheers of the men,
and said he was captured.

EAST TENNESSEE.

Shortly after this event preparations were made under
marching orders to raid the section of country from which
KUurk’s army caine, and each comrade being provided with as
many rations as he could carry, together with a soldier’s other
equipment, we moved under command of our Lieutenant-Col-
onel, Ei. C. Yellowley, and went along the line most of the
way as far as graded, of the Western North Carolina Railroad
then turned off and crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains via
Bakersville, the county seat of Mitchell County, and on into
Tennessee, known as the Crab Apple section. We then re-
turned on nearly the same line of march as we went. Noth-
ing was accomplished so far as the writer has any knowledge,
further than to make an impression upon the people that
it would not be wise on the part of Kirk’s army to make an-
other raid as herein referred to. We did not meet an op-
posing foe nor were attacked save one gun shot that was
fired by an enemy in ambush, that was impenetrable at
night by reason of the campfires that shone against the thick-
est forest that ever grew on a mountain side, and no pursuit
could be made. The shot fired took effect in the thigh of the
camp servant of Lientenant W. P. Taylor, who was lying on
a log bench by a campfire, but the wound proved to be of no
consequence.

The marching over the rocky roads was hard to endure, yet
the picturesque mountain scenery, the good water, milk, but-
ter and honey that was found in great abundance, will ever
be remembered by the members of the Sixty-eighth Regi-

ment.