Feb. 8, 1862

Feb. 8, 1862: THE BATTLE OF ROANOKE ISLAND, Day 2 - As the morning breaks, the three brigades that Burnside has put ashore (nearly 10,000 men) begin marching north from Ashby Harbor toward Ft. Bartow. Gen. Foster’s brigade is in the lead, and he engages a fortified Rebel line where a redoubt and battery have been placed, the flat ground in front being all a swampy, muddy morass. Foster stops to dress his lines and find a route of approach. A Rebel infantry "reconnaissance-in-force" detachment of 1,400 men is manning this line, with the battery of guns. As Reno’s brigade comes up behind Foster, Reno moves off to the left to find more solid ground closer to the Rebel line. John Parke arrives with his brigade after the fighting has begun. Foster works two regiments forward, and drives in the Rebel skirmish line, but the Rebel artillery begins to do serious damage to his regiments. Records Private David L. Day of the 25^th Massachusetts: "We fired high, low and obliquely, thinking if we covered a wide range of ground, we might possibly lame somebody, and it seemed our shots must have proved troublesome, for they turned their attention to us, pouring musketry and canister shot without stint into the swamp. We were up to our knees in mud and water, so their shot passed over us without doing much damage." Gen. Foster sends more troops forward, and at that moment Reno’s brigade bursts out of the brush off to the left, very close to the Rebel right flank, and pushes forward through the mud. By this point, Gen. Burnside has arrived on the field, and directs Gen. Parke then moves his brigade to the right, past Foster, and sends his men forward. Reno’s brigade smashes through the Rebel right flank, breaking the line, and then turns right and begins firing into the rear of the battery with deadly effect: Confederate artillery fire slackens. Parke’s 9^th New York (Hawkin’s Zouaves), wearing red shirts, dashes forward and strikes the Rebel left flank, which breaks and streams toward the rear. The redoubt falls into Union hands, and Gen. Reno’s troops approach Ft. Bartow. Col. Shaw, feeling unable to maintain the forts, surrenders the rest of his force. Gen. Burnside takes possession of 2,500 Confederate prisoners, as well as "complete possession of this island, with five forts, mounting thirty-two guns, winter quarters for some 4,000 troops, and 3,000 stand of arms, large hospital buildings, with a large amount of lumber, wheelbarrows, scows, pile-drivers, a mud dredge, ladders, and other appurtenances for military service. . . ."

Union Victory.
Losses:        Killed        Wounded       Missing      Captured

U.S.              37               214                  13                0

C.S.              23                 58                  62              2,500

After the battle, Private Day offers this sobering observation about the violence of war:
During the action I had seen quite a number hit and led back to the rear, but I had little time to think much about it. After the chase commenced and we marched through the little redoubt and over the ground held by the enemy, and I began to see the mangled forms of dead and dying men, I was filled with an indescribable horror and wanted to go right home. I now began to realize what we had been doing, and thought that, if in this age of the world, with all our boasted civilization and education, men could not settle their differences short of cutting each other’s throats, we were not very far removed from barbarism. But I suppose so long as the nature of man is ambitious and selfish he will try to obtain by force what he cannot attain by other means.