The President has informed me that no troops for this defense can be withdrawn from Virginia, but I earnestly trust that if soldiers cannot be spared, I may at least hope that requisitions for arms and powder may be speedily and favorably attended to.
But this was 1861, and military stores were not obtain able. Governor Clark and his people, however, were not of a race to succumb to difficulties without a desperate struggle, and they went to work with vigor to do all that their circumstances would allow. At the request of the governor, Gen. D. H. Hill was sent from the army of Virginia that his experience as an artillery officer might be utilized in strengthening the existing fortifications and in the construction of new defenses. J. R. Anderson, a retired soldier of Virginia, was commissioned by President Davis a brigadier-general and sent to the Cape Fear district. With the paucity of material at their command, these officers exerted every energy to aid General Gatlin, who was in charge of the whole department. General Hill, however, could be spared from his command for only a few months, and in November he was ordered back to command a division in General Johnston s army. Gen. L. O B. Branch succeeded him and was put in command of the forces around New Bern, and Gen. Henry A. Wise was assigned to the command of Roanoke island. Mirth-provoking would have been some of the shifts for offensive and defensive weapons had not the issues at stake been human life. Antiquated smooth-bore cannon, mounted on the front wheels of ordinary farm wagons, drawn by mules with plow harness on, moved to oppose the latest rifled columbiads and Parrott guns of Goldsborough’s fleet. A regiment armed with squirrel rifles and fowling-pieces, and carving knives in place of bayonets, was transported to Roanoke island to engage the admirably equipped soldiers of Burnside. The catalogue of the names of Lynch s fleet in Albemarle sound—the Seabird, Ellis,
