![]() ![]() The 24th came late to the battle after its transport became temporarily stuck on a sandbar. 8, Burnside’s division captured its first objective, Roanoke Island. The region was ripe for the taking, as the Confederate Army lacked the men and materials to defendĪ month later, on Feb. ![]() The mission was so secret that the men wereįive days into the journey out in the Atlantic Ocean, they learned that they would invade the North Carolina seacoast. 6, 1862, the division, organized in three brigades,īoarded improvised transports - an assortment of ferryboats, schooners, passenger ships and other vessels - and left for the South from Fort Monroe, Va. Before long he sported the chevrons of a corporal on his blue jacket,Īt the start of the year the boy sergeant and the rest of the 24th became part of an 11,000-man division on a secret mission under the command of Burnside. Perhaps thanks to his prowess as an athlete, Converse had quickly shown a capacity for leadership that caught the attention of company officers. His enlistment paper stated his age as 18, though he was He had graduated from high school in mid-1861 and joined the Army in the autumn. In Boston, he had been celebrated for his abilities on the playing field. The 24th later claimed to be the first regiment to reach the enemy shore with its flag and “a supporting array of soldiers.” Converse could easily have been in the vanguard. ![]() pictured as a corporal (the color tinting is original to the photograph), circa 1862. New Bern, a port town located along the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad and the target of their mission.Ĭollection of Jim and Sheryl Mills James Wheaton Converse Jr. They steadied themselves, taking care to keep their muskets dry, then waded 50 feet to land. Must have had a stony heart who did not exult at having a part in such a magnificent scene.”Ĭonverse and the other Massachusetts men leapt over the side into the cold, waist-deep water. “The gun barrels glistened in the bright sunlight, and, with the cheers of the men, he “The starry banner waved in the morning breeze,” wrote the author of the 24th’s regimental history. The order to “wade ashore” passed from boat to boat. Shallows, where the hulls bumped and thudded to a hard stop on the river bottom. Converse and the others held tight as oarsmen rowed the boats into the James Converse and his comrades in the 24th Massachusetts Infantry waited with nervous anticipation of their baptism in combat. Shoreline and drove away a token Confederate force that had gathered to contest the landing. Meanwhile, United States Navy warships shelled the The transports came as near to the designated landing place as the depth of water allowed, at which point the small boats cast off and made a beeline for the shore. Burnside, a bewhiskered brigadier whose star was on the rise. Small boats packed with thousands of soldiers - a division-size invasion force commanded by Ambrose E. During the early morning hours, a portion of the convoy steamed toward land, pulling ![]() On March 13, 1862, an imposing convoy of Union transports lay at anchor in the middle of coastal North Carolina’s Neuse River. Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. ![]()
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