ony,--burial at sea. The night of January 12th and 13th two men had
died on board; one a Company A man, and a Company B man. They were each
put into a canvas sack with a 32-pound ball at the feet and dropped
overboard.

The basin where we were anchored was simply a deep hole just inside the
inlet. It was large enough to accommodate ten or fifteen ships
comfortably, but towards the last of our stay there, when all or nearly
all the ships of the squadron had arrived, and there were seventy or
eighty ships there, the place became dangerously crowded.

Soon after reaching the inlet it was discovered that the "Northerner" and
some other vessels drew too much water (nine feet) to cross the bar which
had only eight feet of water at high tide, to admit of their passing into
the sound. We lay there from the 13th until the 26th when, after the
regiment and everything else that was movable had been transferred to
other vessels, three tugs succeeded in dragging the "Northerner" across
the bar. The two weeks we lay anchored in that basin seemed like months.
All one could see was sky, water and the cape, a narrow strip of sand
stretching off to the north and south, the whole a picture of desolation.
The ocean waves came pouring and thundering unceasingly in from the east,
pounding the cape as if determined to force their way into the sound. The
wind blew a gale and it rained most of the time. The sun shone only twice
during the two weeks. On account of the delay, the water supply ran short
and but for the rain we would have suffered for water.

Two ships of the squadron never made the inlet. The "City of New York," a
freighter loaded with tents, ammunition, etc., ran onto the rocks and
went to pieces trying to make the inlet. The "Pocahontas," another
freighter, loaded with horses, went ashore some distance up the coast. One
day the colonel and surgeon of the 9th New Jersey Regiment came into the
inlet in a rowboat from their ship outside, for orders. They got their
orders and started back, but were swamped in the breakers in plain sight
of us. The ships were continually dragging anchor and running into each
other. Just before we got across the bar it became known that we were
bound up Pamlico Sound to attack Roanoke Island.

Life became more bearable after we got across the bar out into the sound.
The storm had passed off, the sun came out. We received our first mail
from home the 28th. The gunboats practiced firing at targets and