New Berne

On March 14, 1862, Federal and Confederate forces clashed near New Bern, North Carolina, in an engagement sometimes called the Battle of New Berne, part of the Burnside Expedition during the American Civil War. Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside commanded the US Army's Coast Division in the fight, with support from armed vessels of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Facing them was a Confederate force under Brigadier General Lawrence O'B. Branch, made up of North Carolina soldiers and militia who were poorly trained and lacked sufficient numbers. Branch's men had constructed breastworks ahead of the engagement and fought from behind them, yet a vulnerable point at the center of their line gave Federal troops an opening they were quick to seize. Once that center gave way, panic spread through the militia, and their collapse triggered a full retreat by the entire Confederate command. Branch could not reassert control over his scattered troops until they had fallen back to Kinston, a distance of more than 30 miles, roughly 50 kilometers, from the battlefield. As a result of the fighting, New Bern fell into Federal hands and stayed under that control through the remainder of the conflict.

Background

Situated on the Neuse River's southwestern shore roughly 37 miles upstream from Pamlico Sound, New Bern sat where the waterway ran wide and deep enough for sound-going vessels to travel its length. Once a thriving colonial port, the town had lost much of its commercial standing to Morehead City and Beaufort by the time war broke out. Even so, its strategic value remained high because the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad, linking the shoreline to inland areas, ran directly through it. Further inland at Goldsboro (rendered Goldsborough in that era), this rail line intersected with the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, a crucial artery sustaining the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia throughout the conflict. Should Federal troops capture New Bern, they would sever a vital piece of that supply network.

The surrounding countryside was flat and low-lying, often giving way to marshland. Open pine woods covered most of the firmer ground in 1862, though scattered areas featured modest hills cloaked in deciduous trees and cut through with ravines. Numerous streams crossed the terrain, some large enough to resemble rivers in their own right. Among them, the Trent River formed a boundary separating New Bern from territory to the south, while Slocum's Creek, somewhat narrower, joined the Neuse about 16 miles farther downstream. Federal forces would use this creek as their landing point.

With the exception of the city's eventual capture, all fighting unfolded on the stretch of ground bounded by these two waterways. Roughly a mile from the riverbank, the railroad tracks ran along raised berms interrupted occasionally by cuts, eventually crossing into New Bern via a bridge spanning the Trent. A county road traced similar ground, also joining New Bern to Morehead City and Beaufort. Near the battle site this road ran between the river and the rail line, meeting the tracks about a mile and a half north of the eventual battlefield. From there it continued northwest until reaching a drawbridge over the Trent, some 4 miles west of town.

Prelude

After North Carolina left the Union, its coastline suffered from the inattention of Confederate officials in Richmond. Secretary Leroy P. Walker, and afterward Judah P. Benjamin, ran the War Department during this period and channeled the state's most capable and well-supplied units toward Virginia instead, since operations there carried more weight, largely because they guarded the Confederate capital. So when Union troops seized Hatteras Island in August 1861, just six infantry regiments remained to guard the state's whole shoreline.

By this point the Confederacy had split coastal defense into distinct command districts. Brig. Gen. Daniel H. Hill took charge of the northern stretch, running from near Cape Lookout up to Virginia, and it was he who laid out the defenses surrounding New Bern. Across the Trent River south of the city, he constructed two main defensive lines. The first, called the Croatan Works, sat near Otter Creek and ran inland to meet the railroad. A second, sturdier line lay six miles closer to the city, anchored on the river at Fort Thompson, which mounted 13 guns, only three of which could fire on approaches from land. Hill also had river batteries built to guard against naval assault, and he ordered two barriers placed in the water. The nearer one, a mile and a half below Fort Thompson, was a double row of piles sawed off underwater, topped with iron, and reinforced by thirty torpedoes, each carrying roughly 200 pounds of powder. The other barrier sat across from Fort Thompson itself, made of sunken hulks and chevaux de frise designed to funnel enemy vessels beneath the fort's cannon.

Hill wanted more men to properly fill out his defenses, but he was reassigned to Virginia before reinforcements arrived. His replacement, Brig. Gen. Lawrence O'B. Branch, soon saw the district split once more. Branch retained authority from Cape Lookout north to the edge of Pamlico Sound, while Brig. Gen. Benjamin Huger took charge from there to Virginia and beyond, focused mainly on protecting Norfolk and its surroundings. Notably, this arrangement left Roanoke Island, situated between Croatan Sound and Roanoke Sound just above Pamlico Sound, outside of Branch's jurisdiction.

On February 7 and 8, 1862, Roanoke Island fell to a joint Union effort combining Brig. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside's Coast Division with a gunboat flotilla drawn from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and commanded by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough. Soon afterward, those same gunboats destroyed the Confederate Navy's Mosquito Fleet at Elizabeth City without any army support. Goldsborough was then called away to Hampton Roads, leaving Commander Stephen C. Rowan in charge of the remaining vessels. With these victories, Union forces gained free movement throughout Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, putting every town within reach of those waters at risk. New Bern stood out as the most significant target, and Burnside quickly decided to move against it.

Confederate leadership in Richmond understood New Bern's strategic value just as clearly as Burnside did, yet they failed to reinforce it. Even though over a month passed between the fall of Roanoke Island and Burnside's assault on the city, no additional troops reached the local defenders. According to one estimate from a Branch aide, holding the lines properly would require at least 6,130 men, but Branch commanded only around 4,000, a figure frequently thinned by illness, and many of these were militia armed with inferior weapons. Facing this gap between what was needed and what he had, Branch chose to shorten his defensive perimeter, giving up some of the strong works Hill had built earlier. His main line of defense would now center on Fort Thompson.

Hill's original Fort Thompson line had stretched only from the riverbank to the railroad, terminating on its right at a brickyard destined to become a focal point of combat. Since the ground beyond that point offered firm footing that could allow his position to be outflanked, Branch chose to lengthen the line past the railroad and anchor it in a swamp, nearly doubling its total length. This decision, however, carried a serious flaw. Rushed by the work of extending the line and hampered by a severe lack of labor, Branch incorporated a small creek into the defenses as a natural boundary. This stream crossed the railroad about 150 yards beyond the brickyard, lea

Battle

On March 11, 1862, troops of the Coast Division boarded transport ships at Roanoke Island, and the following morning they set out, escorted by fourteen Navy gunboats along with a single gunboat of their own. One vessel from the Navy peeled away to watch over the Pamlico River's mouth, since word had spread, wrongly as it turned out, that Confederate ships were being readied there to strike at any transports separated from their escort. The bulk of the expedition crossed Pamlico Sound and pushed into the Neuse River, dropping anchor near Slocum's Creek as evening fell. This flotilla carried infantry who disembarked south of a Confederate position at Fort Thompson, defended by roughly 4,000 men behind hastily built works. General Branch, aware his enemy was near, quickly arranged his men to meet them. He dispatched Colonel James Sinclair and the 35th North Carolina Infantry to the Otter Creek landing site ahead of the Croatan fortification, ordering them to block any Union landing there. Colonel Zebulon Vance's 26th North Carolina took position inside the Croatan work itself. Additional troops watched the river further upstream, while reserves gathered where the railroad crossed the Beaufort road. Every unit understood that if pushed out of position, it should retreat toward the Fort Thompson line.

Federal soldiers began coming ashore at daybreak on March 13. A handful of Confederates who tried to resist the landing were swiftly scattered by gunboat fire, since Sinclair read his defensive orders narrowly and did not commit fully at Otter Creek. Burnside used the morning hours getting his men and gear onto land, bringing with the infantry six Navy howitzers and two belonging to the Army. Poor weather led him to plan on landing the rest of his artillery nearer the enemy, but thick fog rolled in and cut off contact with the ships, so those remaining guns stayed aboard.

Shortly past noon the Federal column started toward the Confederate positions just as rain began falling. The road quickly became mud, turning even simple walking into hard labor. The crews handling the howitzers grew worn out struggling to haul their guns, prompting the 51st Pennsylvania to be assigned to help them along. Many infantrymen would later recall this stretch as the toughest part of the whole engagement.

As the column crept forward, gunboats moved just ahead, firing into spots that might conceal defenders. Colonel R. P. Campbell, commanding the Confederate right, mistook this naval bombardment for the prelude to a fresh landing meant to outflank the Croatan work from behind, and so he pulled his men back toward Fort Thompson. As a result, when Union troops reached the first Confederate earthworks, they found them empty.

The Coast Division pressed on. Beyond the Croatan position, Foster's First Brigade advanced on the right along the county road, Reno's Second Brigade moved on the left following the rail line, and Parke's Third Brigade trailed behind the first. Eventually they ran into enemy pickets about a mile and a half from the Fort Thompson defenses. With daylight running out, Burnside called a halt, and the brigades camped in the sequence they had marched: First Brigade near the road on the right, Second Brigade near the tracks on the left, Third Brigade positioned behind the First. The howitzers did not catch up until three in the morning.

Thick fog blanketed the ground on the morning of March 14. Burnside directed his men to form up and push toward the Confederate lines. The Federals lacked a clear picture of how their opponents were arranged, believing the Confederate line ran only from the riverbank to the brickyard. Acting on that assumption, Burnside told the First Brigade to strike the enemy's left while the Second Brigade attempted to swing around their right near the brickyard. Eight howitzers were placed along the county road, and the Third Brigade stayed in reserve. Commander Stephen C. Rowan's gunboats offered supporting fire, shelling Confederate positions hidden behind trees, though the results were uncertain. This bombardment rattled the North Carolina troops considerably, but it proved so inaccurate that Burnside

Aftermath

After the battle, New Bern passed into Union hands and stayed there for the remainder of the conflict. Burnside wasted no time shifting his focus toward the next major goal, seizing the port at Beaufort, which Fort Macon guarded. Confederate troops abandoned Morehead City without a fight, allowing Union forces to occupy it at once, and Beaufort itself fell on March 25. That same period marked the start of the siege of Fort Macon. The fall of New Bern proved to be a pivotal moment in the Union effort to dominate the North Carolina coastline. Beyond its military value, the victory at New Bern mattered because it opened up room for camps, shelter, and jobs for refugees. Confederate forces tried three separate times to retake the town, but none of these attempts succeeded.