ine, and was the last of the
original captains of the Sixteenth.

On March 17th, Company "G," was ordered to Fort Stevenson, to relieve
the Twenty-first, who were ordered to Little Washington.

On March 20th, a negro riot occurred across the Trent River. Captain
Burke, with one hundred men of the Sixteenth, soon quelled it,
bringing with him between two and three hundred prisoners, whom he
turned over to the Provost Marshal.

_Pack up at once_, was the order soon after tattoo, and at midnight
the regiment with all its baggage was aboard the "Thomas Collyer,"
returning to Plymouth. It was terribly stormy and rough; and at seven
in the evening the vessel got out of the channel and ran aground in
Albemarle Sound, a distance of about seven miles from Roanoke Island
Landing. Here we lay until half past eleven on the morning of the 23d,
the gale blowing terrifically, and the boat going higher and higher on
the ground with every wave. The men were without rations, and
suffering terribly from the cold and freezing spray. _A flag of
distress_ was raised, but not until the storm abated did any vessel
dare come for our rescue. Finally the "General Berry," which was at
Roanoke Island and had been watching for twenty-four hours, came and
took us to Plymouth. The "Thomas Collyer" was nearly dashed to pieces,
and it was some months before she was got off the bank, and was put in
running order. The regiment lost considerable camp and garrison
equipage, and some ordnance stores, which were washed overboard.

BATTLE OF PLYMOUTH, 1864.

I find in my diary, as early as March 24, that our pickets were fired
into by rebel scouting parties, and on the next day we were expecting
to be attacked. This rumor probably arose from some contrabands whom
we traded with at the picket post, on the Columbia road, and who
reported the enemy in large numbers in two counties south of us. These
reports, together with the information General Wessells received, that
the ram Albemarle was about completed, led the General on the 13th of
April to ask for more troops, in order to hold the place if attacked.
General Butler replied: "You will have to defend the district with
your present force, and you will make such disposition of them as will
in your judgment best subserve this end."

About the 14th of April, while officer of the picket, on the Lee's
Mill road, an officer of General Wessells' staff and the officer of
the day, invited me to accompany them