726 Norra Carotina Troops, 1861-65.

pany was not included in the regiment, but assigned to duty
at some obstructions on the Cape Fear river a few miles
below Wilmington, then known as Batteries or Forts Lee,
Davis, Campbell and Meares. While here the company per-
formed duty as heavy artillerists and infantry, furnishing
details for train guards on the Wilmington & Weldon Rail-
road, the Wilmington & Manchester Railroad, and the river
steamers that plied the Cape Fear river from Wilmington
to Fayetteville, and from Wilmington to Smithville, Fort Cas-
well and other points on the lower Cape Fear river, besides
other provost duties in Wilmington. Some time in the fall of
1864, this company was assigned to the Sixty-eighth Regiment
of North Carolina Troops as Company ©, and after the fall of
Fort Fisher and the evacuation of Wilmington in January,
1865, this company was ordered to join the regiment which
was then encamped on the Roanoke river near Fort Branch,
below the town of Hamilton.

ASSIGNED TO SIXTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT.

There we first joined the regiment and found it under the

command of Edward C. Yellowley, Lieutenant-Colonel, of
Pitt County. Remaining there for a few days the regi-
ment was ordered to Williamston, N.-C., to gather in some
commissary stores at that point; from there the regiment
was ordered to Tarboro, thence to Goldsboro, and from Golds-
boro to Kinston, N. C., where we met the advance of
General Schofield’s army on their line of march from New
Bern to Goldsboro to form a junction with General
Sherman. We met General Schofield at Wise’s Fork or
Cobb’s Mill, a few miles from Kinston, on the New Bern
road, and the regiment was engaged in that fight 8 and
9 March, 1865. We suffered some losses. I do not remem-
ber all of them. Ed. Sasser, of our company, was wounded
in the arm; Wm. Taylor, of Wilson, in leg, and one

Reid, of Company I, was wounded. They were on the sharp-
shooter line with the writer. There were other casualties.
Our regiment was then brigaded with the Sixty-seventh Regi-
ment, Sixty-fifth North Carolina (Sixth Cavalry) and some
other unattached troops, and placed under the command of

Srxty-E1icHTH RrGmMent. 727

General Lawrence S. Baker, and in that battle was on the ex-
treme left wing of our army, which was commanded by Gen-
eral R. F. Hoke. We then fell back to Goldsboro and were
engaged at the time of the Bentonville fight with Sherman’s
extreme right wing at Cox’s bridge on the Neuse river, be-
tween Goldsboro and Smithfield, in Johnston county. Here
we had quite a sharp encounter with the enemy. [I do not re-
member the casualties. The men fully realized now that fur-
ther continuance of the heroic struggle was useless. At this
place in one night our Orderly Sergeant with eighty men of
our company, went home, leaving only thirty-seven behind.
I, with several others of our regiment, was sent off as a guard
to the wagon train under the command of Captain 8. G. Bar-
rington, of the Sixty-seventh Regiment. From thence we
went to Smithfield. At this point the writer was de-
tailed as a guide to a scouting party composed of a part of
the Fifty-first Regiment of Alabama Cavalry, a part of
General Joseph Wheeler’s command, and was with this
command at the time of General Joseph E. Johnston’s sur-
render, receiving his parole at the Yadkin river bridge, near
Salisbury, and arrived home early in May, 1865. While with
the Fifty-first Regiment of Alabama cavalry as a guide he
led them through a portion of Wayne, Greene and Lenoir
counties to the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad at Fall-
ing creek, where they cut the railroad and burned the bridge
across Falling creek in the rear of General Schofield’s com-
mand, and made a successful escape or retreat with some pris-
oners and stores which they captured.

The writer did not, rejoin his regiment or company, but
learned that the regiment was mustered out of service or dis-
banded near Wilson, N. ©., within about fifteen miles of his
then home. While at Goldsboro in March, 1865, and a few
days before the engagement related at Cox’s bridge, the writer
was promoted from a private to Fourth Sergeant in his com-
pany. At the time the company joined the regiment at Fort
Branch it was officered then as follows: W. R. Bass, Captain ;
Redden C. Barden, First Lieutenant; Isaac V. Barden, Sec-
ond Lieutenant, and Alex. H. Hamilton, Junior Second