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The First Battle Of Kinston
By Ted Sampley
Olde Kinston Gazette
September 2001

It was a bone biting cold morning on December 14, 1862, when Union Major General John G. Foster's Federals marching west from New Bern deployed as skirmishers on both sides of the road. The Yankees were within two miles of Kinston and confident they could brush aside any further Rebel resistance.

Gen. Foster's Eighty-fifth Pennsylvania, the Ninth New Jersey had earlier out flanked the Sixty-first North Carolina Confederates near "Hines Mill" on Southwest Creek (Hwy 258 South) rousting them into full retreat toward Kinston's Neuse River Bridge.

North Carolina seceded from the Union on May 20, 1861, the last southern state to do so. Any reluctance North Carolinians may have entertained against leaving the Union was wiped away when President Lincoln telegraphed Governor John W. Ellis demanding North Carolina's quota of 75,000 soldiers needed by the president to put down the Southern "insurrection."

North Carolinians were incensed. They had no desire to take up arms against their neighbors and Lincoln's call for troops ballooned into a rallying cry for North Carolina to defend its borders against a federal invasion.

Relatively early in the war, Union forces occupied areas along the North Carolina coast in an effort to limit the flow of supplies to Confederate forces by means of a naval blockade of the state's ports.

New Bern was a strategic stronghold for the Confederacy until March 11, 1862, when it was captured by Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside.

The attack on New Bern was part of Gen. Burnside's larger campaign to capture and control all of coastal North Carolina.

During the first assault on the city, North Carolina troops battled the invading Yankees for five hours before having to retreat.

When New Bern finally fell, most of the town's white population fled inland to Kinston and points further west, leaving behind homes, shops, and stores with most of their contents.

Gen. Foster's December 1862 inland raid was an attempt to disrupt the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad at Goldsboro in conjunction with the Union advance on Fredericksburg, Va. The railroad at Goldsboro allowed military supplies from blockade runners to be shipped from Wilmington to Gen. Lee's forces in Virginia.

Gen. Foster began his raid with 10,000 infantrymen, 40 cannons, a regiment of cavalry and 19 gun boats.

To oppose the raid, Confederate Gen. Nathan G. Evans could muster no more than 2,000 North and South Carolina soldiers.

Simultaneous exploding cannonballs and "whistling grape shot" sent the advancing Yankees plunging to the frozen ground. The heavily out numbered Confederates had turned to fight with their backs to the bridge. They had so effectively concealed themselves in the woods that the two lines were within seventy-five yards of each other when the fighting erupted. The air was soon thick with shot.

"It was a time to try the soul," one Confederate from the South Carolina Volunteer Infantry remarked illustrating the difficulty of the situation, "the balls whizzing past and men falling around."

After several hours of hard fighting, Gen. Evans was forced to order a retreat across the bridge. Four to five hundred of his men, struggling to break off the fighting and make their way to the rear, arrived at the bridge only to find it burning fiercely. Gen. Evans had ordered its destruction to prevent the Federals from following him and had stranded almost a fourth of his own command in the process. Trapped between the river and the surrounding federals, the abandoned Confederate soldiers had no choice but to surrender, and the battle was over.

A Yankee soldier named George described the battle to his aunt Marie in a letter from New Bern dated Jan. 8 1863:

". . . The rebels contested the ground inch by inch, until the arrived in front of Kinston where they made a stand; here the battle lasted two or three hours, when the rebels were forced to retreat.

". . . At eve our colonel was officially informed that the rebels had been put to flight, and in retreating over the bridge fired it behind them, so that our boys could not follow them; but our cavalry was to close upon their heels; the rebel in his haste to fire the bridge got some turpentine on his clothes which ignited and he was burned to death. The cavalry quickly put out the fire and charged the rebels terribly; trampling them down beneath the hoofs of the horses. 400 prisoners were captured ten heavy cannon, and military stores in abundance. We lost in this battle 120 killed & wounded. The next morning before we resumed the march we had a breakfast that did us a "heap of good" we had coffee, and we confiscated corned pork, sweet-potatoes, &c from a sesesh house in the neighborhood; & it was a dainty meal in comparison with hard crackers that we are fed with on marches."

In 1901, N. A. Ramsey, a former Confederate captain of Company D, 61st North Carolina Infantry recalled details of the 1862 battle at Kinston's bridge:

"The next big field not far away we made another stand, taking advantage of the woods on the Kinston side. Here we had a pretty lively artillery duel for about an hour, and an equally lively fusillade from the small arms of the enemy.

"We quietly laid mighty low and did not return fire, because our guns were inferior and we could not reach them. The day's casualties were very slight. The first to give up his life in this our first battle was Elbert Carpenter, a private in Company D, and he was at once buried on the spot where he fell, royally wrapped in his soldier's blanket.

"At about 8 o'clock that night we quietly stole away through swamp, mud and water to Harriet's Chapel. It was a bitter cold night and all the boys were wet, half-frozen, hungry and worn out, and yet no word of complaint was murmured through the lines of these splendid Tar Heel heroes.

"When we bivouacked we were in hearing of the enemy, and we had no camp fires till past midnight. About daybreak our excellent Commissary, Captain O. P. Meares, gladdened our hearts with an abundant supply of good, wholesome rations, just the thing we were longing for and most needed. We were then upon the battlefield of Kinston on 14 December, 1862--a bright, beautiful Sabbath morning.

"General Evans with his South Carolina Brigade on the left, and the Sixty-first North Carolina on his right awaited Foster's attack. Foster sent in Wessell's [Brigadier General Henry W. Wessells] Brigade and batteries; supporting Wessell by Amory's Brigade, supplemented by Stevenson's.

"The odds were overwhelmingly against us, and after two and a half hours of stubborn resistance on our part, we were forced back across the Neuse, and were so closely pressed that we unavoidably lost 400 prisoners, all of whom were paroled on the following morning.

"At one time during the progress of the battle the Sixty-first was compelled to fall back on account of the ammunition being entirely exhausted, and on being ordered back by General Evans, all hands without a murmur promptly obeyed and returned to within 150 yards of the enemy without a solitary cartridge and half of the men without bayonets.

"A small supply of ammunition soon reached us, which was speedily used to the best advantage, and being entirely out again and with no hopes of a second supply, and being in a forlorn and helpless condition and being crowded so unmercifully close by such a large force of the enemy, the better part of valor was to get away from there if we could, which we did in a quiet, orderly way, or as much so as pressing circumstances permitted.

"When we reached the bridge it was on fire, and in addition to the trying ordeal of passing over the blazing bridge, we were subjected to a terrible cross-fire from the enemy who were drawn up in line of battle 250 yards below. Here we lost several of our men and it is truly miraculous that half of them at least were not killed or burned to death. God was with us on this beautiful, lovely Sabbath day."

Unfortunately for the Confederates, Gen. Foster's infantry managed to save the bridge and push forward into Kinston driving the rebels out of town on the north side of the Neuse.

The Yankees seized control of the evacuated town looting what ever personal belongings they could find. The following day, they re-crossed the bridge and then burnt it before continuing on their way to Goldsboro.

Gen. Foster engaged the Confederates at White Hall (Seven Springs) in a futile attempt to destroy the Rebel CSS Neuse ironclad which was under construction.

After White Hall, the Federals marched to Goldsboro where they torched the railroad bridge of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. With that accomplished, the Yankees began their march back to the safety of "occupied" New Bern.

Gen. Foster's December 1862 raid cost the Union 591 men. The bridge was rebuilt and normal train activity resumed just a few weeks later. The Confederates suffered losses of approximately 600 men.

EDITOR'S NOTE - Information contained in this chapter was collected from a variety of sources including the Heritage Place at Lenoir Community College, The Heritage Of Lenoir County-1981, by the Lenoir County Historical Association, 200 Years of Progress 1776-1976, by Lenoir County Board of Commissioners, 61st North Carolina Infantry at http://members.aol.com/jweaver301/nc/61ncinf.htm