1. R.
2. M.
3. W.

BATTLE OF PLYMOUTH.

F. Hoke, Major-General

W. Ransom, Brigadier-General.
G. Lewis, Lieut.-Colonel, Com-
manding Hoke’s Brigade.

4. J. W. Cooke, Commanding the “ Albe-
marle.”*

5. John W. Graham, Major, 56th N.C, T.,
Historian of the Battle.

THE CAPTUKE OF PLYMOUTH

ZO APRIL, 1664.

By MAJOR JOHN W. GRAHAM, Firry-Sixtn Reqaiment N. C. T.

The Confederate forces on this expedition under command
of Brigadier-General R. F. Hoke, were Kemper’s (Va.) Bri-
gade, under Colonel Terry; Hoke’s Brigade composed of the
Twenty-first Georgia, Sixth, Twenty-first and Forty-third
North Carolina Regiments under Colonel Mercer, of the
Twenty-first Georgia, the Senior Colonel; and Ransom’s Bri-
gade under Brigadier-General M. W. Ransom, composed of
the Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, Eighth and
Thirty-fifth North Carolina Regiments.

The Eighth, which belonged to Clingman’s Brigade, had
been temporarily substituted for the Forty-ninth, left on
picket duty on the Chowan river. There were also a part of
a regiment of cavalry under Colonel Dearing, and several
batteries of artillery, under Lieutenant-Colonel Branch and
Major Reid, all from Virginia, except a section of Captain
Miller’s (Co. E, 10th N. C. Regiment) Capt. Lee’s Mont-
gomery Blues, of Alabama, and Bradford’s (Miss. ).

The Federal forces under command of Brigadier-General
H. W. Wessels, consisted of the Eighty-fifth New York, Six-
teenth Connecticut, One Hundred and First and One Hun-
dred and Third Pennsylvania, two companies of Second Mas-
sachusetts Heavy Artillery, Twenty-fourth New York Inde-
pendent Battery of Light Artillery (six guns), two compa-
nies (A and F) of the Twelfth New York Cavalry, besides
two companies recruited in North Carolina, aided by the gun-
boats Miami, Southfield, Whitehead and Ceres.

The ram Albemarle, which had been partially completed
at Edwards’ Ferry on the Roanoke river, was expected to go
down and join in the attack, and especially to encounter the
four gunboats above named, commanded by Captain Flusser,
a Kentuckian, said to be an officer of rare intrepidity and