The company was stationed at Fort Macon, North Carolina, for awhile, and then sent to Newport Barracks.  Here it was that Captain Conwell and his soldiers cut the logs and built the first free schoolhouse erected for colored children.  Colonel Conwell himself taught it at first and then he engaged a woman to teach.  It is still standing.

Months passed away and the men received no pay.  Request after request Captain Conwell sent to headquarters at Newberne, but received no reply.  The men became discontented and unruly.  Some had families at home in need.  All of these tales were poured into the young Captain’s ears.  Ready ever to relieve trouble, impatient always to get to work and remedy a wrong, instead of talking about it, Captain Conwell decided to ride to Newberne, find out what was the matter and have the men’s money forwarded at once.  Leaving an efficient officer in command and securing a pass, which he never stopped to consider was not a properly made-out permit for a leave of absence for a commanding officer, he took an orderly and started.  It was a twenty-mile ride to Newberne and meant an absence of some time.  But he anticipated no trouble, for the rebels had been letting the Northern troops severely alone for nearly a year.

He had covered barely two-thirds of the distance, when a Union man passed, who shouted as he hurried on, “Your men are in a fight.”  Conwell and his orderly turned, put their horses to the gallop and rode back furiously.  It was too late.  The country between was swarming with Confederates.  He ran into the enemies’ pickets and barely escaped capture by swimming a deep creek, shot spattering all around them.  He made desperate efforts to ride around the lines but failed.  Then he tried descending the river by boat, but the enemy had captured the entire line of posts.  Frustrated at all points, nothing was to be done but retrace his steps to Newberne, where the worst of news awaited him.  The assault upon his fort had been sudden and in overwhelming force.  His men had been shot down or bayonetted, the remnant driven to the woods.  The whole ground was in the hands of the enemy.

Nor was this all.  Back at that little fort had been enacted one of the saddest tragedies of the war.  When the Union soldiers fled, they had retreated across the long railroad bridge that spanned the Newport river, and to prevent the enemy following, had set it on fire.  Just as the flames began to eat into the timbers, John Ring, the boy orderly, thought of his Captain’s sword, that wonderful gold-sheathed sword which had been presented to Captain Conwell on the memorable day in Springfield when he had so eloquently called upon it to fight in the cause of Justice.  It had been left behind in the Captain’s tent, the Army Regulations requiring that he wear one less conspicuous.  Even now it might be in the hands of some slave-owning Confederate.  Maddened at the thought, John King leaped on to the burning bridge, plunged back through the fire, through the ranks of the yelling, excited Confederates, reached the tent unobserved and grasped the sword of his idolized Captain.  Again he made a rush for the flame-wrapped bridge.  But this time the keen eyes of the enemy discerned him.