646 - Norra Caroxtina Troops, 1861-65. educated, and one of the largest planters on the Roanoke. He was father of the editor of this work. Lieutenant Colonel P. M. Edmonston, a West Pointer, was his chief of staff, and Major Edward Conigland Brigade Quartermaster. By special order No. 65, dated 29 March, 1862, from Gen- eral T. H. Holmes, General Clark was charged with the ex- ciusive control of the obstruction and defences of the Roanoke river, and placed in charge of the militia of Bertie, Martin and Washington counties, in addition to his own brigade, and authorized to impress wagons, teams and boats, of every de- scription necessary for his purpose and to arrest spies and all suspected persons. This was a reiteration of previous orders to him of 20 February, direct from the Governor and from General Gatlin. Early as December, 1861, General Clark, while still Colo- rel Clark, had been vested with the same authority by General Martin, Adjutant-General, and had visited both Norfolk and Raleigh to get ammunition, guns and supplies, and by 8 Jan- uary had established a line of couriers from Plymouth under command of Captain W. H. Smith. It was not till 9 Feb- ruary, the day after the fall of Roanoke Island, that we were ordered down the river. After the fall of Roanoke Island the militia were also called out in the counties north of Albemarle Sound, 14 Off. Ree. Union and Confed. Armies, 402, and also about and above Washington. Some 200 or more of the Militia north of the Sound were under Colonel Ferebee in the action at South Mills 19 April, 1862. 9 Off. Rec. Union and Confed. Armies, 3278. The battle of New Bern, 14 March, 1862, and the hard- ships of militia service reduced largely the forces under Gen- eral Clark (who had fallen back to Williamston) by stimu- lating volunteering. The remainder staid to their post, how- ever, till General Clark was relieved in the latter part of April by Colonel Collett Leventhorpe, of the Thirty-fourth Regiment, who, with his own regiment and the Thirty-eighth, had been sent to reinforce us in March. Our services must have been satisfactory, as Governor Clark wrote President Weldon N. Edwards, of the State Convention, that General Tue Mirirtra. 647 David Clark, “in charge of the defences of Roanoke river, has been very diligent and energetic in the discharge of his duty.” At the battle of New Bern, 14 March, 1862, a regiment of militia commanded by Colonel H. J. B. Clark, was placed in the center of the line and at a point where by reason of a re- entering angle the enemy in advancing on our right necessa- rily passed the right of the regiment of militia and by a flank fire enfiladed and broke it. It was due doubtless to the military inexperience of General Branch that there should have been such a fault in his line, but it was a want of prac- tical judgment that his least disciplined troops should have been thus placed at the most exposed point. The rout of the militia was immediately followed by that of the Thirty-fifth regiment on their left (afterwards one of the best regiments in Lee’s army) as soon as in its turn it was subjected to the same flank fire and the battle of New Bern was lost. Colonel H. J. B. Clark gave a very clear account of the share of his regiment in that engagement, which is printed 9 Off. Rec. Union and Oonfed. Armies, 267. He mentions two of his companies, the “Athens Guards” and the “Cow Creek Volunteers,” and says he had four killed and fifteen wounded, out of 264 present on that part of the line, there being sixty-five others on other duty on that day. He naively added that “there are many missing,” which we may well believe. Aside from some assistance in enforcing the conscript law and furnishing information as to those subject thereto (which assistance the militia officers rendered to the end), the mili- tia were of little further service. Their rank and file being de- pleted by the conscript law, the Home Guards, whose age limit was 50 years, took their place after 7 July, 1863. Jas. M. Grizzarp. Haurax, N. C., 9 February, 1901. Nors.—This article would probably have been more complete but for the lamented death of Capt. Grizzard. Since the war he was a member of the Legislature from Halifax county.