Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/20

18 task. Fortunate indeed were we in securing their valuable services. The city of New Berne did not contain, at this time, white people enough in a state of health to inter its own dead with the forms of Christian burial. As it was, not a few were left to die alone, and were carried to the grave without a friend to follow the hearse, or listen to the service. It was my mournful privilege, at this time, to conduct funeral solemnities at the grave of many a brave officer, and many a dear friend. May a kind Providence shield us another season from the poisonous breath of such a pestilence. It is more terrible than a battle, for one is exposed to an equal danger, but is sustained by no sublime exhilaration. The management of negro affairs in this District is especially laborious, because the points we hold are so far removed from one another.

From New Berne to Beaufort is 38 miles. Hatteras Inlet, 90 miles. Washington, 90 miles. Roanoke Island, 130 miles. Plymouth, 200 miles. These distances, except the first named, are computed by the water route, the only way open to us. The distance overland from New Berne to Washington is but 30 miles, and to Plymouth it is 70 in the same direction. The army has never kept open communication between these places by land, so much easier and safer is the water route, by the beautiful rivers and sounds which gird this "evergreen shore." In the article of time, especially in the winter season, when storms prevail and winds are high, this wide separation of posts is a serious drawback.

Between New Berne and Beaufort is kept up a more intimate connection than between any other two posts we occupy. This is owing to the railroad communication and the daily train. The terminus of the road is two miles short of the town, at Morehead city, on the northern side of the ship-channel which sweeps in at Old Topsail Inlet, past the guns of Fort Macon. All