About 3:00 a.m., Brigadier Palmer informed Lieutenant Graves, who was up the Trent River in the Lockwood, that the Underwriter had been captured. Shortly thereafter, he could see her burning in the distance. Although he wanted to come to her assistance, he was unable, because the fog had made the intricacy of the channel even more difficult. The Hull, of course, could not help, because she was still aground downriver.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Civil War Times magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

As the raiders pulled up the Neuse about eight miles to Swift Creek, where they would make camp and again communicate with Pickett, Conrad, went from boat to boat tending the wounded.

Near sunrise, the Confederates landed their boats and made the wounded as comfortable as possible. As they examined the cutters, they no doubt thanked their carpenter for his white dowels. The boats probably would not have made it to safety without them, for an average of fourteen had been used in each craft to plug bullet holes. Now came their saddest duty: digging a long pit, they interred their dead and marked the graves.

All that day they rested from the fight, while Wood talked to Pickett. Typically Wood was undaunted. He tried to convince Pickett to let him ferry an infantry force back down the river in his small boats and make a night amphibious assault on New Bern while Pickett again attacked from the front. But Dearing had accomplished little and Barton practically nothing, so Pickett was afraid of Union reinforcements arriving and refused. It is entirely possible, though, that Wood’s plan might have worked. By this time, the two remaining gunboats–the Hull now afloat–guarded the land approaches to New Bern, and relief ships sent by the Federal navy would not arrive for two days. The river was basically undefended. In addition, the demonstration ordered by Lee at Morehead City inadvertently accomplished Barton’s task: it had cut the railroad, and major reinforcement was precluded. Even U.S. Admiral David Porter later agreed with Wood:

Had the enemy attacked the forts, the chances are that they would have been successful, as the garrison was unprepared for an attack on the river-flank, their most vulnerable side.

Wood refused to accept Pickett’s decision. On February 2, after transferring all his wounded and prisoners to Colonel Dearing and leaving his men to rest, he rushed to Richmond to make a personal appeal to Davis to overrule Pickett and continue the assault. It did not matter to him that the raid was basically successful, even if it did not accomplish its major goals: the Confederates had secured considerable supplies near Morehead City and destroyed many Federal works; Pickett had killed or wounded over 100 of the enemy and captured over 300 more, all with minor losses; and the burned hulk of the Underwriter, one of the larger gunboats in the Union navy, now lay on the bottom of the Neuse. But Wood wanted total victory.

Following Wood’s orders, Loyall and his men rowed for two nights and a day back to Kinston, awaiting further word from Richmond. They arrived on February 5 and received a wire from Wood on the 8th. The raiders were to stay in readiness at Kinston; the mission was not complete. Their wait was short. The next day Wood ordered most of the boats and men to return to Petersburg. The New Bern Raid was over.

Lionized for their work, Wood and his men received a “Joint Resolution of Thanks” from the Confederate Congress. Most of the officers won immediate promotion, but Wood refused his, stating, “The affair does not deserve it.”

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to