The opening phase of what came to be called the Burnside Expedition, the Battle of Roanoke Island was an amphibious operation of the American Civil War, fought on February 7–8, 1862, in the North Carolina Sounds a short distance south of the Virginia border. The attacking force consisted of a flotilla of gunboats of the Union Navy drawn from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, commanded by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, a separate group of gunboats under Union Army control, and an army division led by Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. The defenders were a group of gunboats from the Confederate States Navy, termed the Mosquito Fleet, under Capt. William F. Lynch, and about 2,000 Confederate soldiers commanded locally by Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise. The defense was augmented by four forts facing on the water approaches to Roanoke Island, and two outlying batteries. At the time of the battle, Wise was hospitalized, so leadership fell to his second in command, Col. Henry M. Shaw.
During the first day of the battle, the Federal gunboats and the forts on shore engaged in a gun battle, with occasional contributions from the Mosquito Fleet. Late in the day, Burnside's soldiers went ashore unopposed; they were accompanied by six howitzers manned by sailors. As it was too late to fight, the invaders went into camp for the night.
On the second day, February 8, the Union soldiers advanced but were stopped by an artillery battery and accompanying infantry in the center of the island. Although the Confederates thought that their line was safely anchored in impenetrable swamps, they were flanked on both sides and their soldiers were driven back to refuge in the forts. The forts were taken in reverse. With no way for his men to escape, Col. Shaw surrendered to avoid pointless bloodshed.
Background Northeastern North Carolina is dominated by its sounds; large but shallow bodies of brackish-to-salt water that lie between the mainland and the Outer Banks. Although they are all one body, intimately connected and having a common water level, they are conceptually divided into several distinct regions. The largest of these is Pamlico Sound, immediately behind Hatteras Island; to its north is the second largest, Albemarle Sound, which extends almost to the southern border of Virginia. The linkage between these two, somewhat narrow, is further constricted by Roanoke Island. The portion of the waterway between Roanoke Island and the mainland is known as Croatan Sound. Both the island and the sound are about long. The sound at its widest point is a little more than across, the island about half that. On the eastern side of the island is Roanoke Sound, much narrower, shallower, and less important.
Several North Carolina cities were sited on the sounds, among them New Bern (usually written as "New Berne" in the mid-nineteenth century), Beaufort, Edenton, and Elizabeth City. Others, not lying directly on the sounds, were accessible to the rivers that emptied into them. As much as a third of the state is in their watershed. Through most of the first year of the Civil War, the Confederate forces retained control of the sounds, so that coastwise water-borne commerce of the eastern part of the state was unimpeded. The sounds were linked to Norfolk, Virginia by the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal and the Dismal Swamp Canal. The blockade of Norfolk could not be complete so long as cargoes could reach the city through its back door. Communications were not affected appreciably when Federal forces captured the forts on the Outer Banks at Hatteras Inlet in August 1861, as the Union Navy could not bring its deep-water vessels into the sounds through the shallow inlets.Gen. Wise, the former governor of Virginia, pointed out the importance of Roanoke Island when he requested aid before the battle: ORA I, v. 9, pp. 134, 138. Following the battle, he reiterated the evaluation in a rancorous outburst: ORA I, v. 9, p. 188.
Roanoke Island was the key to control of the Sounds. If controlled by the Union forces, they would have a base that could be attacked only by an amphibious operation, which the Rebels could not mount. If the Union established naval superiority there, all points on the mainland shores would be equally vulnerable to assault. The Confederate defenders would be forced into an impossible situation: they would either have to give up some positions without a fight, or they would have to spread their assets too thin to be of any use.The label "key" was frequently applied. ORA I, v. 4, pp. 578-79, 682, 718; v. 9, pp. 115, 126, 134, 138, 187, 188.
Prelude
Confederate defense The defense of Roanoke Island started in an accidental manner. When the Federal fleet appeared off Hatteras Inlet on August 27, 1861, the 3rd Georgia Infantry Regiment was hastily sent from Norfolk to help hold the forts there, but the forts fell before they arrived, so they were diverted to Roanoke Island. They remained there for the next three months, making somewhat desultory efforts to expel the Union forces from Hatteras Island.Campbell, Storm over Carolina, pp. 52–64.
Little was done to secure the position until early October, when Brig. Gen. Hill was assigned to command the coastal defenses of North Carolina in the vicinity of the sounds. Hill set his soldiers to putting up earthworks across the center of the island, but he was called away to service in Virginia before they were completed.Trotter, Ironclads and columbiads, pp. 62–63. Shortly after his departure, his district was split in two; the southern part was assigned to Brig. Gen. Lawrence O'B. Branch, while the northern part was put in control of Henry A. Wise, whose command included Albemarle Sound and Roanoke Island, but not Pamlico Sound and its cities. It is also significant that Branch reported to Brig. Gen. Richard C. Gatlin, who commanded the Department of North Carolina, while Wise was under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger, who was in charge of the defenses of Norfolk.Trotter, Ironclads and columbiads,, pp. 62–63. Hill first reported for duty on October 4, and was relieved by Branch on November 16. Branch's district was split on December 21.
Wise had been commander of the so-called Wise Legion, but his troops did not accompany him. The Legion was broken up, although he was able to retain two of his old regiments, the 46th and 59th Virginia. He also had three regiments of North Carolina troops, the 2nd, 8th, and 31st North Carolina, plus three companies of the 17th North Carolina. The men from North Carolina were ill-equipped and poorly clothed, often armed with nothing more than their own shotguns. All told, the number came to about 1,400 infantrymen, but the number available for duty was smaller than that because the living conditions put as many as one-fourth of the command on the sick list.Trotter, Ironclads and columbiads, p. 77. Battles and leaders, v. 1, p. 670.
Wise begged Richmond to send him some guns, as had Hill before him, but the numbers that were actually sent were inadequate. They were distributed into several nominal forts: facing Croatan Sound were twelve guns in Fort Huger, at Weir's Point, the northwestern corner of the island; four guns in Fort Blanchard, about a mile (1.6 km) to the southeast; and nine guns in Fort Bartow, at Pork Point, about a quarter of the way down the island. Across the sound, at Redstone Point opposite Fort Huger, two old canal barges had been pushed up onto the mud, protected by sandbags and cotton bales, armed with seven guns, and named Fort Forrest. These were all the guns that would bear on the sound; the southern half of the island, nearest Pamlico Sound, in the direction from which the attack would come, was unprotected. Five other guns did not face Croatan Sound: a battery of two guns on the eastern side of the island protected against possible assault across Roanoke Sound, and three others occupied an earthwork near the geometric center of the island.Browning, From Cape Charles to Cape Fear, p. 24.
Wise made one other contribution to the defense. He found some pile drivers, and was able to impede the sound between Forts Huger and Forrest by a double row of piles, augmented by sunken hulks. The barrier was still being worked on when the attack came.Trotter, Ironclads and columbiads, p. 76.
The Confederate Navy also made a contribution to the defense. Seven gunboats, mounting a total of only eight guns, formed the Mosquito Fleet, commanded by Flag Officer William F. Lynch. Wise, for one, believed that their net contribution was negative. Not only were their guns taken from the forts on the island, but so were their crews. He gave vent to his feelings after the battle: Captain Lynch was energetic, zealous, and active, but he gave too much consequence entirely to his fleet of gunboats, which hindered transportation of piles, lumber, forage, supplies of all kinds, and of troops, by taking away the steam-tugs and converting them into perfectly imbecile gunboats.ORA I, v. 9, p. 129. Lynch was not the only target of Wise's invective; this link gives other examples. Despite Wise's disapproval, the Mosquito Fleet was part of the defense, and the Union forces would have to deal with it.
Union offense A short time after Hatteras Island was captured for the Union, Burnside began to promote the idea of a Coast Division, to be composed of fishermen, dockworkers, and other watermen from the northeastern states, and used to attack coastal areas. He reasoned that such men were already familiar with ships, and therefore would be easy to train for amphibious operations. Burnside was a close friend of General-in-Chief George B. McClellan, so he got a respectful hearing. Although Burnside had initially intended to operate in the Chesapeake Bay, in the hands of McClellan and the War Department his ideas were soon transformed into a planned assault on the North Carolina interior coast, beginning with Roanoke Island. An unspoken reason for the change of target was the mistaken belief that pro-Union sentiment was being suppressed in North Carolina, and an invasion would allow them to express their true loyalties.Browning, From Cape Charles to Cape Fear, pp. 19–21. North Carolina was indeed only loosely attached to the Confederacy, but most pro-Union activity and sentiment was found in the mountainous western part of the state. When it was fleshed out, the invasion of North Carolina came to be known as the Burnside Expedition.
As recruiting progressed, Burnside organized the Coast Division into three brigades, led by three friends from his Military Academy days. Brig. Gen. John G. Foster led the First Brigade, Brig. Gen. Jesse L. Reno the Second, and Brig. Gen. John G. Parke the Third.Burnside, Battles and leaders, p. 661. In early January, nearly 13,000 men were ready for duty.ORA I, v. 9, p. 358.
Although the Union Navy would provide most of the gunnery that would be needed to suppress the Rebel batteries, Burnside decided to have some gunboats under Army control. This immediately led to some interference between the two services. The Navy had no vessels sturdy enough to go to sea and at the same time draw little enough water to be able to pass through the shallow inlet, thought to be about . They therefore had to buy suitable merchant ships for conversion, at the very time that Burnside and his agents were also dickering for their ships. Because the sailors were more experienced, they were able to get most of the more suitable ships. The Army was left with a mixed bag of rickety ships that were barely seaworthy.Merrill, The Rebel shore, pp. 86–87. By the time the expedition got under way, the Navy had 20 gunboats, and the Coast Division had nine. The armada was supplemented by several canal boats converted into floating batteries, mounting boat howitzers and protected by sandbags and bales of hay. All told, the expedition carried 108 pieces of ordnance.Trotter, Ironclads and columbiads, p. 68.