Location: SR 1247 (Old US 70) at SR 1140 (Roberts Road) south of Newport
County: Carteret
Original Date Cast: 1962
The 7th Regiment North Carolina Infantry built Newport Barracks south of Newport for quarters in the winter of 1861-1862. Shortly thereafter, the cluster of log huts were captured by Union troops, who added a hospital, headquarters, stables, storehouses, earthworks, and an earthen redoubt. Newport Barracks effectively became a federal supply depot, located by the Atlantic and North Carolina railroad tracks.
In January 1864, two thousand Confederate troops, under the command of General James G. Martin, advanced from Wilmington toward Morehead City to support General George E. Pickett’s mission to regain control of New Bern. On February 2, the Confederate troops engaged the men of the 9th Vermont Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Valentine G. Barney, at the Newport Barracks. With the Confederate troops continuing their advance on the fortifications, the troops of Company D, 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, stationed inside Newport Barracks, prematurely abandoned their posts and retreated. Barney set fire to the depot and followed suit. The fleeing troops also burned the railroad and road bridges.
Casualties of the combatants were comparable, with the Confederates having six killed and fourteen wounded and the Union having five killed and ten wounded. Martin’s men managed to capture thirty Union troops and gathered some supplies and equipment from the barracks before they were destroyed. However, when the Confederate troops learned of Pickett’s failure at New Bern, they returned to Wilmington.
References:
John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (1963)
William R. Trotter, Ironclads and Columbiads: The Civil War in North Carolina, The Coast (1989)
W. L. Pohoresky, Newport, North Carolina, during the Civil War (1978)