136 Southern Historical Society Papers.
will appreciate the motives which prompted this communication, and that you will believe me to be,
Very truly your friend,
(Signed,) WADE HAMPTON. ,
Major- General Jos. Wheeler.
[From the Virginia Pilot, Norfolk, April 30, 1899 ]
CAPTURE OF THE UNDERWRITER.
At New Bern, North Carolina, February 2, 1864.
AN INTERESTING PAPER.
Read by Request Before Pickett- Buchanan Camp, Confederate Veter- ans, this city, April 25th, 1899, by B. P. Loyall Commander Confederate States Navy Reminiscences that will be Read with Interest and Profit.
The following reminiscenses of the capture of the U. S. S. gun- boat Undenvriter, at New Bern, N. C. , February 2, 1864, were read before Pickett- Buchanan Camp, Confederate Veterans, April 25th, by special request, and are reproduced in these columns in response to the earnest solicitation of many of our readers:
Commander and Comrades:
I thank you for the invitation to speak to you this evening, and respond to it cheerfully, but with some misgiving, lest I should fail to give honor where honor is due, and because the subject is so per- sonal to me. A boat expedition is somewhat out of the ordinary events, and to make it understood by all, I will have to go into par- ticulars at the risk of being tedious.
After the fall of Roanoke Island in the winter of 1862, the Federals had control of the sounds of North Carolina, and of some of the riv- ers emptying into them. They had occupied all the towns situated on the water, and among them New Bern, which lies at the conflu- ence of the Neuse and Trent rivers, occupying an angle between the two a place easily defended by the power having control of the
