Fighting at Harriet's Chapel

Fighting at Harriet's Chapel. Harriet's Chapel Battlefield Park. On December 14, Union troops overwhelmed the Confederate line at Harriet’s Chapel. After making a determined stand, the outnumbered Confederates withdrew, fighting as they pulled back toward Jones Bridge., Union Gen. Henry Wessells spent hours maneuvering his regiments into the swamp. Artillery pounded the Union soldiers as they formed in line of battle. Wessells planned to flank the Confederates and force them out of their fortifications. It was the same strategy employed successfully at Southwest Creek the day before., As the Union troops advanced, the Confederates hit them with volley after volley of shot and canister. Unable to stop the Federal forces, the Confederates withdrew. The infantry pulled back in fighting retreat, protecting the artillery as it made for Jones Bridge., After the battle, Harriet’s Chapel was “perforated with holes of all sizes, from that of the Minie-ball to the one caused by the thirty-two-pound shell.” Shells had stripped the bark from the trees. Dead and wounded lay around the church., “As I lay there and listened to the Yankee bullets rattling upon the walls of that church and saw the weatherboarding perforated like a pepper box, I felt and thought…’remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”. Those Yankee scamps were making the building mighty wholly (holey).” Capt. William H. Edwards, 17th South Carolina . This historical marker was erected by Battle of Kinston Military Park. It is in Kinston in Lenoir County North Carolina