3-008-419 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Civil War in America: Hatteras Spit, with the wreck of the City of New York on the bar in the distance - from a sketch by our special artist, 1862. 'My vessel was the Picket, a screw, the smallest in the fleet, on which General Burnside had established his head-quarters...when we had got six miles down the roads towards Cape Henry, the General gave instructions to our Captain to shape his course for Hatteras, and then, for the first time, I became aware of our destination. We were to pass over the bulkhead of Pamlico Sound and attack the Confederate position at Roanoke Island...Day broke with a leaden sky, against which the angry, white-crested waves raced their mad career over the reefs of Cape Hatteras, that threw its headland oceanwards but eight miles distant...On the 14th, the day after our arrival, the City of New York struck on the bar, and in a short time became a total wreck...Fortunately, the crew and those on board were saved in surf-boats, but three other poor fellows attempting to reach the harbour in a launch from a weather-bound vessel outside got capsized in the breakers, and sank before our eyes...The three lost were the mate of the ship and the Colonel and doctor of the New Jersey regiment'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862