Source:  The Indiana Messenger:  Indiana, Pennsylvania; 1862 March 26^th issue, p 1.

The following graphic account of the capture of Newbern, N. C., is taken from the correspondence of the N. Y. Tribune.  We are compelled to omit the interesting details of the debarkation and march of our troops, and give only the description of the battle.  It appears that on Monday, the 10^th inst., the fleet left Roanoke.  On Thursday, the 13^th, the troops landed at a point on the Neuse River, some miles below Newbern.  The troops in landing waded waist deep in water, and then marched during the day over the miry ground, and exposure of the night, a drizzling rain falling meanwhile, severely tried the endurance and bravery of our men.  The account of the battle is as follows, commencing Friday morning, the 14^th:  

In the morning at 6 o’clock, all the Generals were in their saddles, and at 7 the column was in motion.  The column of Gen. Reno, on the railroad was the first to move, the 21^st Mass., as the right flank regiment, leading the advance. (In its appropriate place I would here mention that Reno’s brigade, bivouacked alongside the track, two companies having been thrown out as pickets)  The regiment had not proceeded far before, on turning a curve in the road, they saw a train of cars, which had brought reinforcements to the enemy, standing on the road.  In front of the locomotive, on a platform car, had been a large rifled gun, which was evidently to be placed in position to take the road.  Our men, however, advanced at the double-quick and poured in a volley with such accuracy of aim that the enemy, who had already rolled the gun and caisson off the car, did not stop to unload the carriage, but ran into the entrenchments, and the train was run back to Newbern, leaving the platform car standing on the track.  The 21^st had got within short range before discovering the formidable nature of the enemy’s earthworks, but now fell back, and, forming line of battle in the woods, opened fire.  The 51^st New York was moved to the left and ordered forward to engage a series of redans, the 9^th New Jersey occupying the left of the line, and the 51^st Pennsylvania held in reserve, in rear of the 9^th, a little to the left.     

Meanwhile Gen. Foster’s brigade had advanced up the main road to the clearing, when the 24^th Mass. was ordered into the woods to the right of the road, and opening a heavy fire upon the enemy commenced the action of the First Brigade.  The 27^th was sent to support them, and, ascertaining that the enemy were trying to outflank us on the right, the 25^th was sent out to resist the movement.  The 23d being moved to the front next in line of battle, opened fire upon the enemy, which was replied to by heavy volleys, and a cannonade from a park of field pieces behind the breastwork.  The very first cannon shot killed Lieut. Col. Henry Merritt of the 23d, the ball passing through his body.  As he fell he threw up his arms and said, “Oh dear! Oh dear!”  Gen. Foster’s line of battle was completed by moving the gallant 10^th Connecticut to the extreme left, to a position where they had to fight under the most discouraging disadvantages.  The ground was very wet, swampy, and cut up into gullies and ravines, which mostly ran towards the enemy, and, of course, while offering no protection from his fire, exposed them on elevations and valleys.  The regiment had shown, at Roanoke, however, the behavior of veterans, and nothing else could have been expected at this time, but that they would stand their ground to the last.     

Gen. Parke’s Brigade, which had followed the 1^st Brigade up the main road, was placed in line between the 10^th Connecticut and 21^st Mass. , the 4^th Rhode Island holding the right of line, the 8^th Connecticut the next place, the 5^th  Rhode Island next, and the 11^th Connecticut on the left.  Our line of battle was now complete, the 24^th Massachusetts on the extreme right and the 51^st Pennsylvania at the extreme left, and extended more than a mile.  The naval battery was in position at our center, with Capt. Bennet’s and Capt. Dayton’s rifles alongside, and were all worked with the greatest gallantry throughout the day.  The officers in charge of the pieces, without exception displayed perfect coolness, and stood by their guns in some instances when a single man was all the assistance they had to work them.  This was the case with Acting-Master Hammond of the "Hetzel," and Lieutenant Hughes, of the Union Coast Guards, the former losing every man, and the latter all but one.  It was my fortune to assist Lieut. Hughes to a trifling extent after he was wounded, and I can testify to the coolness with which he bore his injury.  Acting-Master Hammond lost both his shoes in the tenacious clay of the road, and for several hours was compelled to walk in stocking feet through mud and mire.  

The battle had raged for something less than an hour when the 21^st lost one its noblest officers, in the person of Adj. Frazer A. Stearns,  the young man who bore himself so bravely in the difficult and dangerous charge on the right of the enemy’s battery on Roanoke Island.  Poor Stearns received a bullet in his right breast and fell dead in his place.  Lieut. Col. Clark, who is in command of the 21^st was affected to tears when relating the circumstances of his untimely death, for he felt almost the love of a father for the young man.  

The fire of the enemy was now telling so severely upon the 21^st that Col. Clark ordered the regiment forward on a double-quick, and at the head of four companies entering the breastworks from the railroad track in company with Gen. Reno, the colors were taken into a frame house which stood there, and waved from the roof.  The men at the nearest guns seeing the movement, abandoned their pieces and fled, and the four companies being formed again in line of battle, charged down the line upon the battery.  Col. Clark mounted the first gun and waved the colors, and had got as far as the second, when two full regiments emerged from a grove of young pines and advanced upon our men, who, seeing that they were likely to be captured or cut to pieces, leaped over the parapet and retired to their position in the woods.  At this time Capt. J. D. Frazer of Company H was wounded in the right arm, and dropped his sword, but taking it in his left hand, he attempted to escape with his company, fell into the ditch, and was taken prisoner, and dragged inside again over the parapet.  A guard of three men was placed over him, his sword was taken, but his revolver being overlooked, he seized the opportunity offered by a charge of the 4^th Rhode Island, and by the judicious display of his pistol, captured all three of his guard.  

On being driven from the battery, Col. Clark informed Col. Rodman of the 4^th Rhode Island of the state of affairs inside, and that officer, unable to communicate with Gen. Parke in the confusion of the fight, acted upon his own responsibility, after consultation with Lieut. Lydig, one of the General’s Aids, and decided upon a charge with the bayonet.  As the 4^th was one of the most prominent regiments in the action, it will be well to go back a little in our narrative, and trace them up to that point.  Their position in the line of battle, as ordered by Gen. Parke, was in front of a battery of five guns, and the rifle-pits or redans which were situated immediately in the rear of and protected the right flank of the main battery of nine guns.  Until the charge was decided upon by Col. Rodman, the regiment had been firing, like the rest of the line, by companies and otherwise.  When the command was given to charge, they went at the double-quick directly up to the battery, firing as they ran, and entering at the right flank, between a brick-yard and the end of the parapet.  When fairly inside, the Colonel formed the right wing in line of battle, and at their head charged down upon the guns at double-quick, the left wing forming irregularly, and going as they could.  With a steady line of cold steel, the Rhode Islanders bore down upon the enemy, and, routing them, captured the whole battery, with its two flags, and planted the Stars and Stripes upon the parapet.  The 8^th Connecticut, 5^th Rhode Island, and 11^th Connecticut, coming up to their support, the Rebels fled with precipitation, and left us in undisputed possession.  

Gen. Reno’s Brigade were still attacking the redans and small battery on the right of the railroad, and the firing was very heavy.  The 21^st was engaging the battery of five small pieces, the 51^st New York the first of the redans, the 9^th New Jersey the next two, and the 51^st Pennsylvania were still in reserve.  Lieut. Col. Robert B. Potter of the 51^st N. York, when in the advance of Captain Hazard’s company of skirmishers, was shot through the side and fell, but making light of the wound, he got his servant to put on a bandage, and in a few minutes had returned to his place and was cheering on his men.  The regiment was drawn up in a hollow, or ravine, from which they would move up to the top of the eminence, discharge their volleys and retire to such cover as the inequalities of the ground might furnish.  Gen. Reno becoming impatient at the loss of life which his regiments, and particularly Col. Ferrero’s, was suffering, wished the regiment to advance as soon possible, so Lieut. Col. Potter took a color over the brow of the hill into another hollow, and from here charged up an acclivity and over brushwood and abattis into the redan.  The 51^st Pennsylvania for a long time held in reserve, was ordered up to participate in the decisive charge of the whole brigade upon the line of redans, and passing through the 51^st New York, as it was lying on the ground after having exhausted all its ammunition, came under the heaviest fire, and without flinching or wavering moved to its place, and rushed, with the other regiments, upon the defenses of the enemy.  The movement of Col. Hartranft’s regiment was executed in the most deliberate manner, and proved a complete success.  

The movement of the Third Brigade was supported by a charge of the 4^th Rhode Island from the captured main battery upon the works which were being assailed, and the enemy, already demoralized by the breaking of their center, fell back before the grand charge upon the left and front of their position, and fled in confusion.  On our extreme right the brave 24^th, and its supporting regiments, have been advancing inch by inch, standing up against the enemy’s musketry and cannonade, without flinching, and about the time when the 4^th Rhode Island charged in at the right flank, the colors of the 24^th were planted on the parapet at the left, and the whole of the First Brigade poured into the fortification.  The whole line of the earthworks was now in our hands, and the cheers of our men, from one end of it to the other, broke out with fresh spirit as each new regimental color was unfurled on the parapet.     

The value of the public property captured here is enormous, consisting of fifty-three heavy cannon and field-pieces, ammunition, quartermaster’s and commissary stores, camp equipage, horses, transportation and naval stores in large quantities, cotton, &c.  Probably $2,000,000 would not purchase the articles at first hand.  But the victory is the more important from the fact that it places Beaufort and Fort Macon at our mercy, and opens up to us by railroad the direct lines of communication between the rebel army and the country which supports it.