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Ransom's Brigade.
From the Richmond Dispatch, February 25, 1901.
Its gallant conduct in the
Capture of
Plymouth.
By Edwin O. Moore, of Company A, Twenty-fourth North Carolina Regiment.
In the winter of 1861-62, by the capture of
Hatteras,
Roanoke Island, and New Berne, all the tidewater region of
North Carolina east of
Wilmington lay at the mercy of the
Union forces.
To render these conquests permanent, and to serve as bases for further inroads into the
State, they seized and strongly fortified several strategic points: among these was
Plymouth, situated on the south bank of the
Roanoke river, a few miles above the
Albemarle sound.
The region of country thus brought under subjection included the principal waterways of the
State, the most valuable fisheries of the
South, and many thousand acres of fertile and productive agricultural lands.
Indeed, on account of the fall of
Roanoke Island,
Southeast Virginia, including
Norfolk,
Portsmouth, and its great navy-yard, was abandoned to the enemy.
These disasters naturally produced great depression among the people of
North Carolina, and in certain quarters discontent and unmeasured criticism of the
Confederate authorities.
But there was no wavering in devotion to the cause; the
State contributed her treasure, almost to the last dollar, and her sons, to the number of 120,000, before the conflict ended.
The Confederate Government made an ineffectual effort to regain New Berne in the winter of 1862-63, but it was not until April, 1864, that any important success to regain the lost ground was accomplished.
This was the recapture of
Plymouth, by a force under
General Robert F. Hoke, consisting of his own division, composed of North Carolinians, Georgians, and
Virginians, and the brigade of
General M. W. Ransom, composed of the Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-fifth, Forty-ninth, and Fifty-sixth North Carolina regiments.
The Eighth North