Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/195

 [From the Raleigh (N. C.) Slate, November 6, 1895.]

MARTIN'S BRIGADE, OF HOKE'S DIVISION, 1863-64.

In the fall of 1863, Brigadier-General James G. Martin, command- ing the district of North Carolina, with headquarters at Kingston, was, by the Secretary of War, directed to organize a brigade from the troops in his district and assume the command for service in the field. This was composed of the Seventeenth North Carolina troops, Colonel William T. Martin ; the Forty-second North Caro- lina troops, Colonel John E. Brown ; the Fiftieth North Carolina troops, Colonel George Wortham, and Sixty-sixth North Carolina troops, Colonel A. Duncan Moore.

The brigade staff consisted of Captain Charles G. Elliott, assist- ant adjutant-general; Major A. Gordon, quartermaster, succeeded by Captain John S. Dancy, assistant quartermaster; Major James DeMille, commissary, succeeded by Captain Lucien D. Starke, as- sistant commissary sergeant; Lieutenant Theodore Harrell. ordnance officer; Lieutenant William B. Shepard, Jr., aid-de-camp.

Soon afterwards ordered to Wilmington in the department com- manded by Major-General W. H. C. Whiting, the brigade was placed in camp near the city, and for several months went through a rigid course of instruction and discipline from ' ' squad drill ' ' to " evolutions of the line," and became as well drilled as a corps of regulars, and as well clothed and equipped as a Confederate brigade could be. No enemy appeared in front of Wilmington, but when General George E. Pickett was sent with his division to Kinston and ordered to attack and recapture Newbern on the 2d of Feb- ruary, 1864 General Martin was sent from Wilmington on an expe- dition to cut the Atlantic and North Carolina railroad and destroy the bridge at a village called Shepperdsville, now known as New- port, a few miles west of Morehead City. General Pickett' s demon- stration was feeble and completely failed, but Martin successfully accomplished the task assigned to him after a very long and fatigu- ing but energetic march, most skillfully concealed from the enemy, and a spirited battle with the forces protecting the railroad bridge. His force consisted of two regiments of his brigade, the Seventeenth and Forty-second, a squadron of cavalry, Lieutenant-Colonel Jef- fords, and a battery of artillery, Captain Paris. Finding White Oak river bridge destroyed, General Martin's commissary, Captain Starke,