OPERATIONS IN N. C. AND S. E. VA. [CHAP.XIII.

infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Crasen and Major Thompson, artillery, and Captain Meade, engineers, to assemble at New Berne on the 7th of March to examine the works, and to recommend such alterations and additions as might appear proper, and in order not to delay they were to indicate from time to time the proposed alterations and additions to General Branch, who was instructed to carry out the recommendations of the board as speedily as possible. This board would have been ordered to assemble at a much earlier day but for the impracticability of securing the services of Captain Meade, an engineer, in whose capacity I had great confidence, and who I had been compelled to send to erect batteries on the Roanoke, as before stated.

I went to New Berne on the 7th of March, and on the 8th inspected the river defenses in company with General Branch and the board. I had gone to New Berne with the intention of remaining there for several days, but found myself so unwell on the 9th as to render a return to Goldsborough advisable.

On the 13th of March I received a note from General Branch announcing the advance of the enemy up the Neuse. The fact was telegraphed to the governor and the War Department, and re-enforcements asked for. I sent orders to General Anderson to send up Lane's regiment, the only troops sufficiently near Wilmington to be available for the occasion, and I replied to General Branch's note that I would join him as soon as I had satisfied myself that I had done all I could at Goldsborough in collecting re-enforcements. Colonel Lane's regiment arrived and was forwarded on the night of the 13th; also Captain Atwood, of the Twentieth Regiment, with a part of his company, who, being on furlough and just arrived at Goldsborough, volunteering for the service, were armed and sent down. No other re-enforcements reached Goldsborough.

My intention of going to New Berne was frustrated by a painful attack of sickness, which confined me to my bed. The news of the fall of New Berne reached me on the evening of the 14th of March. General Branch's report of that affair has been published. As it was evident that we had been overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, I dispatched General Anderson to Richmond on the 15th of March, to represent to the President the necessity of sending a force sufficient to cope with that of the enemy, and desired him to say to the President that, not having confidence in my health or ability to command such a force, I hoped a general of superior rank would be sent with the troops.

After the fall of New Berne the troops retreated by the several roads leading to Kinston, hence that place was selected for reassembling General Branch's forces. General French arrived at Goldsborough on the 16th of March, and was sent on the 17th to take command of the District of the Pamlico. On the 18th, Clingman's and Radcliff's regiments, having arrived from South Carolina, were sent to the camp near Kinston, and General Ransom, having reported, was sent to the same point. I designed, as soon as the camp and garrison equipage lost at New Berne could be replaced, to push the troops as far down as Bachelor's Creek, and thus confine the enemy as near New Berne as possible. On the 19th of March, 1862, I was relieved from duty in the State of North Carolina on account of ill health.

I may be permitted to conclude this rapid sketch by stating that we failed to make timely efforts to maintain they ascendancy on the Pamlico Sound, and thus admitted Burnside's fleet without a contest; we failed to put a proper force on Roanoke Island, and thus lost the key