previous next   During this encampment the men learned through
some source on what point this portion of the army was expected
to move. It was whispered through the camp that the march was to
be on to New Berne, and it was further said that the land forces
were to be supported, or assisted, in the attack on the town by
men in long boats on the Neuse river, under command of Colonel
R. Taylor Wood. These boats, it was stated, were to be equipped
with all necessary appliances and the men were to be armed with
cutlasses, etc., for boarding vessels, and on arriving in sight
of the town, and if gunboats should be seen in the river, the
men were to lay to their oars and secrete themselves as best
they could under the over-hanging boughs of the trees on the
banks of the stream, when they were to remain until nightfall,
when a concerted move on the part of the crews of the several
boats was to be made on the Federal gunboats and the latter
taken, if possible, by boarding; or, finding that this would be
an impossibilit