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[584] had been hastily improvised, was assembled behind the stockade, under the command of Commodore Lynch. On the 4th of February the whole expedition entered the narrow passes of the Croatan channel; and Goldsborough, leaving behind him the transport-ships, ready to effect a landing on some quiet spot, advanced against the enemy's batteries at the head of his gun-boats. An engagement at once commenced with Lynch's fleet and a fortified work called Fort Bartow, situated on Roanoke Island, at the point where the extremity of the stockade rested. The other redoubts had been constructed to cover the middle of the channel; but their embrasures being too narrow, Goldsborough was able to avoid an enfilading fire by hugging the Roanoke coast. The cannonading was brisk, but the losses were but few on either side. The fleet, however, had a decided advantage, and accomplished the double object it had proposed to itself. The strongest of the Confederate ships, the Curlew, was sunk by one of those large hundred-pound shells which were so destructive to wooden vessels. Another was disabled; and Lynch, fearing to lose the rest, disappeared during the night, leaving the defenders of Roanoke to their own resources. The latter had been entirely absorbed by the bombardment of the fleet. Fort Bartow, enveloped in the burning of its barracks, had kept up the fight with difficulty; while some ten thousand men, favored by this diversion, landed during the night in a solitary creek of Roanoke Island. The operation had been conducted with great method and speed, demonstrating the special fitness of the Americans for this kind of enterprises. The next morning, February 8th, the troops started for the redoubt situated in the centre of the narrowest part of the island. Burnside's three brigades, although without their full complement, were all represented in the body of troops just landed. Having reached, by the only practicable road in the place, the edge of a clearing which widens to the right and left, and is bounded on both sides by deep swamps, the Federals perceive at the other extremity the enemy's battery, which immediately opens fire upon them. Some howitzers, served by sailors, reply to it, while Foster's brigade deploys along the skirt of the wood near the road. The other two brigades form also, Reno to the left
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1876.
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