Kinston Road 12 Dec   11 Dec.,‘62. Thirty men, unfit for active campaign-ing, were selected and sent, under command of Serg. Hutchinson of H,’ to relieve the garrison at Evans Mills.
  The rest of the regiment, under command of Maj. Chambers, in a brigade, made up of the17th Mass. Vol.Inf. and the 43rd,45th and 51st M.V.M.,under Col.T.J.C.Amory of the 17th, Actg. Brig. Gen., joined a column, made up of most of the available force in the department under Maj. Gen. J. 0. Foster, on what's commonly called “The Goldsboro Expedition.”
  Roused at 3 A. M. and breakfasted, the regimental column marched to the rendezvous in the streets Of New Berne, through a fog so dense that troops marching, by fours, along the middle of the streets, not only could not be recognized by their most intimate friends, but were really only a something blacker than the surrounding darkness. After the usual delays,the column proceeded unobstructed till they passed the fork of the Trent road where they found their way filled with felled timber. The rebels did not stop to protect their abattis, and its only result was the loss of time, while the pioneers chopped from the logs and rolled to one side sections long enough to permit the passage of the guns.
  12th. Roused at 3 again the next morning, the boys grasped their rifles, which were coated thick with hoar frost, and pushed on. Skirmishing soon began. The rebels had discovered that we did not mean to use the roads along the Neuse, where they had prepared works to resist us, and tried with little effect to hinder our advance. Montgomery of J was wounded in the foot. By this time the three days’ rations had disappeared before the appetites or the improvidence of soldiers so unused to campaigning, and various diaries note nothing for dinner today,”and record the dying squeals of the rebel pig,the Lusciousness of confiscated honey and the satisfying character of the native sweet potato.

KINSTON ROAD, NORTH CAROLINA
12 December 1862
(Foster’s Goldsborough Expedition)
Union Forces
9th New Jersey Infantry Regiment --- Colonel Charles A. Heckman
23rd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment --- Major John G. Chambers
Detachment, 3rd New York Cavalry --- Captain John F. Moschell
3 Companies, 3rd New York Cavalry --- Captain Newton Hall
1 Section Allis Battery --- Lieutenant Allis
Partial Casualty List
Private Butler – Wounded
Private Kingsley – Wounded
Private Brightman – Missing
Private Coon – Missing
Private Goodspeed – Wounded
Private John H. Montgomery - Wounded

Confederate Forces
22nd South Carolina Infantry