Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/36

34 early grave, may yet fulfil, under the magic touch of freedom, the expectations of its early settlers. Its evergreen woods, its picturesque dales, its wave-kissed shores may yet, under the skilful appliances of labor, and the stimulus of republican institutions, be the abode of a prosperous and virtuous people, of varying blood, but of one destiny, differing, it may be, in social position, but equal before the law, a happy commonwealth, in which Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall no longer vex Ephraim.

This pretty little southern town has been the scene of stirring operations during the year, and war's devastations have left it scarcely more than a mass of ruins. Bandied to and fro, like a shuttle-cock, between the belligerants, having changed masters five times in two years, our army has builded, theirs has burned. And since destruction in point of time has so much the advantage of construction, its occupancy by the rebels, though brief, has left it in heaps. Its colored population in January, 1864, was 860; in January, 1865, it was 94. At the beginning of the year the garrison and white population might have numbered 2,500. Plymouth was the headquarters of the "sub-district of the Albemarle," that brave and accomplished old soldier, Gen. H. W Wessells, being in command. It was attacked in April last by a strong column under the rebel Gen. Hoke, and for two days was bravely and successfully defended, with great slaughter of the assaulting forces. On the morning of the third day a new element was introduced into the contest by the coming of the "ram Albemarle" down the Roanoke river. A fort erected above the town, and armed with a 200 pounder Parrott gun, allowed the ram to pass without a shot, in the gray of the morning, and anon the formidable creature was in front of the town, and in the death-grapple with our naval fleet. Lieut. Commander Flusser, who had been expecting for a year the advent of this enemy, first discovered her close aboard of him, no signal having been given by the fort above. The bow gun of the "Miami," his flag ship, was charged with a shell. "Fire this, boys," said he, "and then we will give them solid shot." The gunner pulled the lanyard, the