the sound. Reinforced by the "Albemarle," the enemy hurled a galling fire of grape, shell and canister from all sides on the devoted garrison. Three successive demands for surrender were met with prompt refusals, to the last of which, Gen'l Hoke retorted, "I will fill your citadel with iron, and compel you to surrender, if it take the last man!" At 4.30 A.M, Wednesday, April 20th, Pegram's, Marshal's, Blount's, and Lee's batteries opened on the works along Columbia road and Coneby Creek, under cover of which, "Ransom's brigade" in "double column by division," by a desperate charge, carried Coneby and Compher redoubts, and pressed into the town. The enemy's fire now swept every portion of our line, while the contest was waged from house to house and tree to tree, until at seven o'clock, all the defences but Fort Williams and Fort Grey at War Neck, had been captured. The former was under command of Capt. Ira B. Sampson, formerly of the Twenty-Seventh, who at this time was chief of artillery on Gen'l Wessell's staff. For five hours this force withstood the combined attack, the entire artillery of the enemy and the "Albemarle " concentrating a fierce fire of grape, shell and solid shot upon the fort until the unequal contest was ended by the surrender of Fort Williams. Fort Grey, finding all the other defences captured, capitulated. The enemy heartlessly massacred all negroes with arms, besides many of the North Carolina Volunteers. Our loss was fifteen killed, one hundred wounded, and sixteen hundred prisoners; that of the enemy ninety-five killed, and six hundred and thirty-five wounded. After the defeat of our naval forces by the "Albemarle," Capt. Horace I. Hodges, assistant quartermaster, volunteered to carry dispatches to the fleet below, in doing which his boat was capsized and the captain drowned. Capt. Hodges was born at Savoy, June 12, 1818, a graduate of Williams College 1838, studied law with Bates & Huntington, Northampton, and with the exception of three years,

PLYMOUTH SURRENDERED · CAPT. SAMPSON.

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practised law or resided at that place. He was influential in politics, a trial justice, judge of insolvency, and commissioner for Hampshire County. He was commissioned captain and assistant quartermaster 1863, with assignment to this post, and died at the age of forty-six years, leaving a widow and two children.

Ira B. Sampson was born in Middlefield, April 22, 1840, and received a sergeant-major's warrant in the TwentySeventh Mass. Regt., dated Dec. 7, 1861. He was commissioned a second lieutenant March 1, 1862, and at the time of his resignation, was under recommendation for promotion with us. He was present in the marches and battles of the Twenty-Seventh Regiment until the close of the siege of Washington, N. C., receiving honorable mention for a successful movement from Bachelor's Creek, against Whitford's guerrillas. He was promoted as captain of Company G, Second Mass. Heavy Artillery, and after several months of recruiting service at the North, returned to active duty. Large bounties had drawn a great number of bounty-jumpers to his command, and the moving of his battalion to the seat of war without the loss of a man was warmly commended by Gov. Andrew and Gen'l Pierce.

March 1, 1864, Gen'l H. W. Wessell appointed him chief of artillery, Department of Albemarle. His headquarters were at Fort Williams, the principal defence of Plymouth. Of the contest made by this fort during Hoke's attack, Gen'l Wessell said: " Capt. Sampson's guns, though of old and clumsy patterns, were handled with a coolness and skill worthy of all praise, inflicting severe loss upon the enemy." Capt. Sampson capitulated Fort Williams five hours after the capture of the town of Plymouth, having himself received a wound from a shell just previous to the surrender. He suffered imprisonment ten months at Macon and Savannah, Ga., Charleston and Columbia, S. C. He escaped from Savannah, July 3, 1864, but was recap

tured three days later within three miles of our gunboats. On the approach of Gen'l Sherman to Columbia in February, 1865, he secreted himself between the ceiling and roof of a piazza to a hospital building, until the 15th, when he escaped to a barn near the city. Here he witnessed Wheeler's (rebel) cavalry fire the railroad depot and several warehouses, and says the fire was raging heavily when the Union forces entered Columbia. After serving on staff duty to Fayetteville, N. C., he descended the Cape Fear River on the first dispatch boat in charge of a howitzer. After a leave of absence he returned to duty as commander of Fort Macon, and resigned June 8, 1865, after the close of hostilities.

April 25, 1864, for reasons unknown, Maj. Gen'l Peck was removed from the command of the Department of North Carolina. He retired from service to his home at Syracuse, N. Y., where he died in 1878. Col. Harland, with the Twenty-First Conn. Regt., was at this time holding Washington, N. C., and learning of the capture of Plymouth, evacuated the place, destroying the fortifications and large quantities of military stores. All points on the rivers and sounds were expecting each in turn to fall victims to the "Albemarle.” Our fleet had been reinforced by a superior class of naval vessels, including the "Sassacus," Tacony," "Wyalusing" and "Mattabesset," each of which were armed with iron prows. Commodore Melancthon Smyth, an officer of large experience and energy, was also placed in command of the naval forces in the sound, and the hope of the department was, should the "Albemarle " venture into the open sound, the fleet might be able to run it down.

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At four P.M., May 5th, the steamers Mattabesset," "Sas

sacus," and " Wyalusing" were lying at anchor at Bluff Point near Edenton Bay, when they received warning from the "Miami" and "Whitehead," on picket near the mouth of