[Roster of the 67th North Carolina Infantry]
The Sixty-seventh Regiment (N. C. Troops), was organized in Jamiary, 1864, and was composed of nine companies of infantry and one of cavalry. The several companies had been organized a considerable time prior to the organization of the regiment. Some of them in the early part of the war and had been employed on outpost duty in the vicinity of New Bern and Washington, N. C., after those towns fell into the hands of the enemy early in 1862. These companies and the regiment, after its organization, were paid, fed and clothed entirely by the State of North Carolina, were subject to the orders of the Governor of the State and could not be removed beyond the limits of the State without his consent and order. In fact, however, they were under the immediate command and subject to the orders of the Confederate officer in command of the military district of Eastern North Carolina.
The field officers and staff of the regiment were:
JOHN N. WHITFORD-- of Craven county, Colonel.
RUFUS W. WHARTON, of Forsyth county, Lieutenant-Colonel
EDWARD WHITFORD, of Craven county, Major.
SAMUEL G. SCHENCK, of Beaufort county, Adjutant
THOMAS M. ROBINSON, of Beaufort county, Quartermaster
WILEY F. HIGGINS, of Craven county, Commissary.
JOSEPH GRAHAM, of Orange county, Surgeon.
WILLIAM H. MORROW, of Orange county, Assistant Surgeon.
The writer of this sketch, at the time of his appointment by Governor Vance, belonged to the Army of Northern Virginia, in which he had served from and including the first battle of Bull Run up to that time. He is, therefore, unable to give a detailed account of the services of the several companies composing the regiment prior to the time when he joined the same, which was in February, 1864; soon after the Pickett expedition against New Bern. The regiment participated in that expedition, being a part of the troops intended to attack Fort Anderson, opposite New Bern, on the north side of Neuse river. The conditions under which the attack was to be made did not occur, and no attack was made. When the writer joined the regiment he found seven companies encamped at Coward's bridge, on Contentnea, twelve miles below Kinston. Company A, from Craven, James H. Tolson, Captain; Company B, from Craven, Stephen Barrington, Captain; Company C, from Wilson, D. W. Edwards, Captain; Company E, Charles A. White Captain; Company F, from Craven, David P. Whitford, Captain; Company G, Asa W. Jones, Captain; Company I, from Pitt, Edward F. White, Captain. The other three companies, viz: Company D, from Craven, Daniel A. Cogdell, Captain; Company H, from Duplin, Jones and Craven, Christopher D. Foy, Captain; and Company K (cavalry), from Wayne, Joseph D. Myers, Captain, were encamped some miles in front, nearer the enemy's lines, and engaged in scouting and doing picket duty in the vicinity of New Bern and Washington. Captain Foy was a man of 60 years, was six feet and a half high, wore a long, flowing white beard that reached to his waist and was unique both in personal appearance and in the influence which he wielded over the men of his company. He was familiarly known in the regiment by the name of "Tecumseh." When the writer first saw him he was marching at the head of his company of 65 or 70 men, who were following him, IndianAike, in single file. As the men had had but little opportunity for company and none at all for battalion drill, the companies at regimental camp, spent the next few weeks in these exercises.
About the last of April, 1864, another expedition against New Bern was undertaken, this time under command of Major-General R. F. Hoke, who had just won his promotion by the brilliant battle and capture of Plymouth, N.C. In the expedition the Sixty-seventh headed the column. Nothing of importance happened until we reached Deep Gully, eight miles from New Bern. Here we came on a strong outpost of the enemy which made some resistance, but was quickly driven in by the Sixty-seventh, which remained in this vicinity for the next two days, while General Hoke proceeded With the balance of the troops, down the Trent, on the south side, to the vicinity of New Bern. Before the capture of New Bern, which was almost a certainty, was accomplished General Hoke, to his great disappointment, received orders to hasten back to Virgi'ua with his command. He arrived in Petersburg just in time to save that city from capture.
The regiment returned to its former position and continued in the same service as before for a short time, but was soon removed to the vicinity of Kinston, where it remained, doing outpost duty until October, when it was ordered to Washington and Plymouth, N. C., to relieve the troops stationed at those points.
Occasionally we had to repel incursions made by the enemy, outside of his lines and sometimes we made incursions into the territory occupied by him. In one of these raids a squad of men, about fifty strong, led by Major Whitford proceeded down Neuse river on the north side to a point several miles below New Bern, crossed the river in boats night and made its way to the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad at a point between New Bern and Beanfort, where it arrived ahout daylight on Monday morning. The object of the raid was to capture General Palmer, the officer command at New Bern. It was understood by us was in the habit of spending Sunday at Beaufort, returning to New Bern Monday morning. While arranging to capture the train, our force were discovered by some colored people who notified the Yankee troops at a fort a mile away. The party finding that their presence had been discovered and being many miles inside the enemy's lines, considered it imprudent to await the arrival of tho train. It, however, passed while they were in hearing and, as they afterward learned, had General Palmer aboard.
Another party, under the lead of Levi Howland, of Carteret County, blew up and so damaged the lighthouse at Cape Lookout that it was never of any further use. This enterprise was a daring and dangerous one. The party had to cross the somid, seven or eight miles wide, in small boats, running the risk of capture by a steamer which the Federals kept on guard constantly near the light house. Of course the thing had to be done at night. Arriving at the light house they first notified the persons in charge to keep in door and make no alarm, at the peril of their lives. They then placed a keg of powder, which they carried with them, in the light house and connected it with a trail of powder to which the applied a slow match. The match failed to ignite the powder and as the steamer on guard had begun to move up near to the light house, one of the party procured from the keeper's house a shovel of live coals and miming near the door of the light house, threw the coals on the trail of powder. The keg of powder exploded and the tall structure was so badly wrecked as to be unsafe for further use.
In June, l864, a strong party of Federals and Buffaloes, as the natives who joined the enemy, were called, attempted to capture Captain Cogdell and his company. They were on outpost duty ten miles below Kinston on the south side of the Neuse. Captain Cogdell was on the alert and did not fall into the trap set for him. They did, however, capture Colonel G. N. Folk, of the Sixty-fifth North Carolina (Sixth Cavalry). At the time he was attempting to reach Cogdell.
As before stated, the Sixty-seventh was ordered to relieve the troops stationed at Washington and Plymouth, N. C., in October, 1864. The writer and three companies stopped in Washington while Colonel and Major Whitford, with the other seven companies proceeded to Plymouth.
Plymouth is only eight miles above the mouth of the Roanoke and was protected by the Confederate ram Albemarle, which was anchored a short distance below the town and which had done such fine service the previons spring at the capture of the town from the Federals, though defended by several gunboats on the river and several thousand troops, well fortified, on the land. It was a part of the duty of the garrison to keep a strong guard on the ram day and night, to protect it from any effort that might be made secretly to destroy or injure it About a week after Colonel Whitford assumed command at Plymouth, during a dark night, a small steam launch which had approached without noise or any other sign of its presence, was suddenly discovered by the sentinel on duty, very near the ram and approaching it rapidly. The sentinel immediately fired on the approaching boat, but in an instant it struck the side of the ram the same time exploded a torpedo or some explosive of great force. The parties in the launch attempted to back it off but failed. In the darkness and confusion one of the boat's crew jumped into the river and escaped unnoticed. Two others and the launch were captured. A large hole was torn in the side of the ram by the explosion and it immediately sank to the bottom, though a portion of it still remained above water. Two days thereafter several Federal gunboats came up the river and shelled the town until the garrison was withdrawn. The party who escaped by swimming ashore was Lieutenant Cushing, of the Federal navy, and was entitled to the credit of planning and carrying out the attack on the ram.
Immediately after the abandonment of Plymouth, the writer was ordered to remove all the military stores in Washington and withdraw from the place.
There were quite a large number of heavy guns mounted in the several forts in and around the town- some weighing 10,000 pounds, and no means of getting them to a place of safety except by hauling them seven miles into the country. Two weeks were spent in executing the order.
After the evacuation of Plymouth and Washington, N. C., Colonel and Major Whitford, with the greater part of the regiment, returned to Kinston, while the writer with the balance was stationed at Greenville for a few weeks. About this time Colonel Whitford, with a part of the regiment; went to Hamilton, on the Roanoke, to repel an invasion of that section by the enemy who came up the river in gunboats. The enemy were soon driven back with the loss of one of the gunboats.
In January, 1865, the enemy made a demonstration in force from New Bern, on Kinston, and came within four or five miles of the town, but were promptly driven back by the Sixty-seventh and other troops then at Kinston.
Nothing else of importance occurred in that district until the latter part of February, 1865, when General J. D. Cox, with a large Federal army advanced from New Bern on Kinston, with the purpose of making a junction, at some point further west, with Sherman, who was coming from South Carolina in that direction.
General Braxton Bragg, with such Confederate troops as could be spared from other points, was sent to meet him. The two armies met at South West Creek four and a half miles east of Kinston, where for two days, 8 and 9 March, 1865, there was sharp fighting and several hundred prisoners captured, mostly by the division of General R. F. Hoke, to which the Sixty-seventh was attached. On the first day of the battle General Hoke, with his command, the Sixty-seventh, being in front, executed quite a brilliant manceuver by which he surprised and after a short fight, captured about 700 Federals.
The next day General Hoke made another attempt to outflank and surprise the enemy on another part of his lines. This time the Federals were on the alert and gave him such a warm reception that he withdrew to his own side of the creek. After contesting the advance of the enemy four days, General Bragg withdrew to the north side of the Neuse, destroyed the bridge over the same and marched in the direction of Goldsboro. General Hoke with his division, remained in the vicinity of Kinston two or three days longer and then joined Bragg at Goldsboro. At Goldsboro the Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth, the latter commanded by that brave officer and excellent gentleman, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward C. Yellowley, were formed into a brigade and placed under command of Colonel John N. Whitford, of the Sixty-seventh. At that time the Sixty-seventh reported 700 for duty and the Sixty-eighth 300; total 1,000, 99 Vol. Official Records, Union and Confederate Armies, p.1424.
The Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth were ordered from Goldsboro to a bridge over Neuse river a short distance east of Bentonville. We reached the bridge about noon, when the enemy appeared in large numbers on the opposite, the south side. On that side the river is bordered by a swamp about half a mile wide. After posting a strong skirmish line on the south side, in the swamp, the balance of the brigade formed a line on the north side above and below the and near the river. Early next morning the enemy attacked in force and gradually drove our skirmishers back, who, when near the bridge, quickly crossed over, setting fire as they did so to some combustible material which had been placed there. The brigade remained near the bridge until it was nearly consumed and then withdrew, the object having been accomplished which was to prevent the enemy from crossing to the north side of the river during the battle of Bentonville. We then joined General Johnston's army at Smithfield a day or two after the battle of Bentonville. We remained at Smithfield one day and then marched Eastward by way of Wilson and Tarboro. Our purpose was to get to the rear of the enemy and interrupt and destroy as much as possible the enemy's transportation, which was by both river and rail from New Bern via Kinston and Goldsboro.
The Sixty-eighth remained near Tarboro. The Sixty-seventh proceeded to Greenville and went into camp in the grove at the north end of the Greenville bridge. These two regiments were accompanied by a battalion of the Thirty-sixth North Carolina (Second Artillery) acting as infantry and commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel John D. Taylor.
From Tarboro a small company of cavalry was sent over to Greene county in the direction of Kinston, which had several skirmishes with the enemy's forage parties, in one of which Lieutenant Titus Carr, in consequence of the falling of his horse, was captured. From Greenville Company A, of the Sixty-seventh, a large and fine company, commanded by Captain James H. Tolson, was dispatehed to Neuse river, between New Bern and Kinston, with instructions to operate both on the river and railroad running from the former to the latter place. Many of the men in this company were citizens of Craven county and familiar with the country and would doubtless have done good service had not the war practically ended a few days thereafter. They tore up the railroad at one point and captured and burnt a steamer and two barges on the river, all loaded with supplies for the Federals. On 9 April Colonel Jno. N. Whitford made the following report (98 Offical Records Union and Confederate Armies 1134): "On 5 April Lieutenant Marshall, Company F, Sixty-seventh North Carolina, burnt the steamer Mystic, near Maple Cypress. On the same day Captain Tolson, Company A, Sixty-seventh Regiment, destroyed a transport loaded with commissary stores near Cowpen Landing, and on the 7th instant four privates of Company A, viz: George Hill, Turner May, William Salter and R. Brewer, captured and burned a side-wheel steamer, the Minquas and two barges, all loaded with quartermaster's and commissary stores. Very little was saved from the boats." The four men named opened fire with their muskets on the steamer which was immediately run aground on the other sideof the river. The crew and passengers, of whom there was a considerable number aboard, jumped into the mud and water on the shore side and made their way into the swamp. The captors having no boat, swam over to the steamer and after securing the flag and papers of the steamer and a few other articles, set fire to all three of the vessels and returned to their own side of the river. The flag and papers were brought to the writer of this sketeh at Greenville.
In the same report Colonel Whitford further says: "On the 5th instant Captain Joseph M. White, Company F, Sixty-seventh Regiment, captured fifteen negroes and two Yankees at Fiddle's Ferry engaged in trying to raise a sunken craft The reason I have not forwarded you a report of my com- mand is beca~ise the companies and regiments are scattered so far apart that it is impossible to get a report from them."
These were bold operations in the renr of the whole Federal army. There were many other daring feats, but the falling back of Johnston's army prevented further official reports and the lapse of time and the death of so many actors prevent an authentic and accurate recital of them now. It should be remembered that the Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth were North Carolina Regiments, which were never mustered into Confederate service and were paid by the State.
About this time some veterans of Lee's army arrived in our camp and told us the sad news of Appomattox. In a few days the country was full of parties of disbanded Confederate soldiers returning to their homes. Knowing that our cherished cause was lost in all things except in the influence which the heroic deeds, the cheerful endurance of hardships and dangers by the Confederate soldiers and the patriotic and unselfish devotion of the women of the Confederacy would exert upon all who should hereafter read the true history of the four years' war, the Sixty-seventh was also disbanded. Most of the officers and men were from the eastern counties of the State and went directly to their homes. The writer with Captain T. M. Robinson, and a few officers and men who were from the counties of Wayne and Green, made their way to Stantonsburg in the latter county, and on 28 April, 1865, were paroled by a detachment of Federals from Goldsboro The writer had been in the service four years less two weeks.
Many of the men and officers were much affected by this termination of all our labors and sufferings in the cause of self government. The writer well remembers the inconsolable grief of Lieutenant John W. Aldridge, now a resident of Pamlico county, a good soldier and man. May he live long and prosper.
RUFUS W. WHARTON.
WASHINGTON, N C.,
28 April, 1901