[
470]
under
General R. F. Hoke.
These consisted of three infantry brigades, a regiment of cavalry, and seven batteries.
The post was fairly fortified, and was held by
General H. W. Wessells, with the Eighty-fifth New
York, One Hundred and First, and One Hundred and Third Pennsylvania, Sixteenth Connecticut, and six companies from other regiments; numbering, in all, about twenty-four hundred men. In the river, in front of the town, were the gun-boats
Southfield,
Miami, and
Bombshell.
A short distance — up the river was an out-post called
Fort Warren.
Hoke approached
Plymouth so secretly, that he was within two miles of
Fort Warren before
Wessells was apprised of his proximity.
That out-post was first assailed,
and in the attack, the
Confederates were assisted by the ram
Albemarle,
Captain Cooke, a formidable armored vessel, which came down from the
Roanoke River.
The gun--boat
Bombshell went to the assistance of the post, but was soon disabled.
and captured.
The garrison continued the struggle vigorously, and, in the mean time,
Hoke opened fire on Fort Wessells, a mile nearer the town.
His troops, in heavy force, made charge after charge, but were continually hurled back with severe loss.
The superior numbers of the
Confederates gave them great advantages, and they soon invested the fort so closely with swarming infantry, that it was compelled to surrender.
Plymouth was now closely besieged.
Hoke pressed it heavily for a day or two, when the
Albemarle ran by
Fort Warren, and fell upon the unarmored gun-boats,
Southfield (
Lieutenant French) and
Miami (
Lieutenant-commanding Flusser), with great fury.
Each carried eight guns, but they could do little against the formidable ram in such close quarters.
It first struck.
and sunk the
Southfield, and then turning upon the
Miami, drove her down the river, after killing her commander and disabling many of her crew.
Then the
Albemarle turned her 32-pounder rifled guns upon the town, and shelled it with serious effect.
On the following day
Hoke pushed his batteries to within an average distance of eleven hundred yards of the town, and with these he made a general assault.
General Ransom led a brigade to the attack on the right, and
Hoke conducted, in person, two brigades in the assault on the left.
The defense was obstinate.
The assault was equally
