SOLDIERING --IN-- NORTH CAROLINA; --BEING-- THE EXPERIENCES OF A 'TYPO' IN THE PINES, SWAMPS, FIELDS, SANDY ROADS, TOWNS, CITIES, AND AMONG THE FLEAS, WOOD-TICKS, 'GRAY-BACKS,' MOSQUITOES, BLUE-TAIL FLIES, MOCCASIN SNAKES, LIZARDS, SCORPIONS, REBELS, AND OTHER REPTILES, PESTS AND VERMIN OF THE 'OLD NORTH STATE.' EMBRACING AN ACCOUNT OF THE THREE-YEARS AND NINE-MONTHS MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENTS IN THE DEPARTMENT, HE FREEDMEN ETC., ETC., ETC. BY "ONE OF THE SEVENTEENTH," [Illustration: Thomas Kirwan (signature?)] ILLUSTRATED. BOSTON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THOMAS KIRWAN. 1864. ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1864, BY THOMAS KIRWAN, IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS. PREFACE. The contents of the following pages are presented to the public as matters of fact. They embody some of the writer's experiences while serving his country in the "land of cotton." It is true his experiences are tame and unromantic when compared with those of some of the men of the Potomac or the Cumberland; but they are the best he can offer, and need no apology, as the style does, which is rough and unpolished. Besides giving an account of the 17th Mass. Reg't, and its participation in the engagements at Kinston, Whitehall, and Goldsboro, something is said of the other old regiments in the department, and the nine months' men,--also, an account of the contrabands, their habits and disposition--anecdotes, &c. DEDICATION. To the officers and men of the Seventeenth Massachusetts Regiment, who, through no fault of theirs, have only lacked the opportunities to render their organization as famous as that of any regiment from the old Bay State: whose services have been mostly of that passive character --upon the outpost picket, and performing arduous duty in the midst of a malarial country--that suffers and endures much without exciting comment or adding to the laurels, of which every true soldier is so proud: THIS HUMBLE WORK IS DEDICATED, By one who, with them, has braved the "pestilence that walketh abroad at noonday," the fatigues of the march, and the dangers of the battle. PART 1. ENLISTMENT--DEPARTURE--THE VOYAGE--HATTERAS--UP THE NEUSE--NEWBERN--AN ACCOUNT OF THE 17TH--ON PICKET--DOING PROVOST DUTY IN NEWBERN, ETC.