Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Story Of An Escaped Prisoner – He Pilots General Burnside To Roanoke

The New York World has the following in its Washington correspondence.

F. B. Remington, a private of Company A, Thirteenth New York regiment, now stationed at Upton’s Hill, reached here to-day with a pass from General Burnside, whom he had previously joined by deserting from the rebel fleet stationed in Albemarle Sound.  It seems that Remington was captured by the rebels during the reconoisance near Fairfax some two months since and taken to Richmond, and thence sent to prison in North Carolina.  Here he saw extracts published from the Troy papers where the Thirteenth regiment was mostly recruited, stating that he was disloyal, having deserted his comrades, and had gone over to the rebels.  Determined to resent this imputation on his name, he managed to escape from Portsmouth, N. C., and made his way to Norfolk; but, failing to get farther North, he returned to North Carolina, and was offered employment of the rebel gunboat Fanny, which he was forced to accept, and was employed in surveying inland waters for the rebels.  In connection with another loyal man, he obtained a small boat and managed to join Gen. Burnside at Hatteras.  It was he who piloted the expedition to the Island, and in no small degree thus contributed to the great victory won by our forces.

He joined his regiment to-day, and then obtained a furlough to return to Gen. Burnside, first visiting his home in Lansingburg, New York.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 1, 1862, p. 2

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