the
woods on either side. These skirmishers stood their ground until their
entire stock of ammunition was exhausted, when the Eighty-fifth
Pennsylvania was ordered up to support the Ninth. They did their duty
well. This was at 10 o'clock. The enemy having brought his artillery
into action, we returned a similar and much more effective fire from
Captain Morrison's battery, of the Third New York Artillery, the latter
being posted in a small field, on a rise of ground, within eight
hundred yards of the enemy. Soon after Captains Schenck's and E. S.
Jenney's batteries were brought into play, from different and the best
available positions on either side of the road. The engagement having
become more general, Brigadier-General Wessell's brigade was ordered up.
It comprised the Eighty-fifth, One Hundred and First and One Hundred and
Third Pennsylvania, and the Eighty-eighth, Ninety-second and
Ninety-sixth New York. After the Forty-fifth, Seventeenth and
Twenty-third Massachusetts Regiments had been ordered up, General
Wessell, who was on the field, ordered the execution of a flank movement
on the enemy's battery. So it was that while a small portion of this
force operated to the left, the remainder moved through a woods to the
right, also flanking a swamp, and got a position on the line of an open
field that enabled our men to play upon the enemy with intense effect
and remarkable execution. The Ninth New Jersey, after sustaining a
terrific fire from the enemy, obtained a position close to the bridge,
being handsomely supported by the Seventeenth Massachusetts, and then it
was that we found ourselves almost on the banks of the Neuse river, with
a long fortification on the opposite side. This fortification, one
hundred and seventy-five feet long, thoroughly commanded all the
approaches to the bridge. In it and supporting it were three companies
of light artillery, four companies of heavy artillery, two North
Carolina regiments, the Second, Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Twenty-third
South Carolina Regiments, a portion of the Third North Carolina Cavalry,
part of Major Nethercote's battalion, and the Raleigh detachment, under
command of Colonel Molett, who was wounded in the leg--in all about six
thousand strong.

The Forty-fifth and Twenty-third Massachusetts Regiments advanced to the
right and helped to execute the flank movement. While the above was
being done, Captain Jacobs, with his company of the Third New York
Cavalry and