General Howard had, some nights previously, sent one of his best scouts, Captain Duncan, with two men, in a canoe, to drift past Fort McAllister, and to convey to the fleet a knowledge of our approach.  General Kilpatrick’s cavalry had also been transferred to the south bank of the Ogeechee, with orders to open communication with the fleet.  Leaving orders with General Slocum to press the siege, I instructed General Howard to send a division with all his engineers to Grog’s Bridge, fourteen and a half miles southwest from Savannah, to rebuild it.  On the evening of the 12th I rode over myself, and spent the night at Mr. King’s house, where I found General Howard, with General Hazen’s division of the Fifteenth Corps.  His engineers were hard at work on the bridge, which they finished that night, and at sunrise Hazen’s division passed over.  I gave General Hazen, in person, his orders to march rapidly down the right bank of the Ogeechee, and without hesitation to assault and carry Fort McAllister by storm.  I knew it to be strong in heavy artillery, as against an approach from the sea, but believed it open and weak to the rear.  I explained to General Hazen, fully, that on his action depended the safety of the whole army, and the success of the campaign.  Kilpatrick had already felt the fort, and had gone farther down the coast to Kilkenny Bluff, or St. Catharine’s Sound, where, on the same day, he had communication with a vessel belonging to the blockading fleet; but, at the time, I was not aware of this fact, and trusted entirely to General Hazen and his division of infantry, the Second of the Fifteenth Corps, the same old division which I had commanded at Shiloh and Vicksburg, in which I felt a special pride and confidence.

Having seen General Hazen fairly off, accompanied by General Howard, I rode with my staff down the left bank of the Ogeechee, ten miles to the rice-plantation of a Mr. Cheevea, where General Howard had established a signal-station to overlook the lower river, and to watch for any vessel of the blockading squadron, which the negroes reported to be expecting us, because they nightly sent up rockets, and daily dispatched a steamboat up the Ogeechee as near to Fort McAllister as it was safe.

On reaching the rice-mill at Cheevea’s, I found a guard and a couple of twenty-pound Parrott gone, of De Gres’s battery, which fired an occasional shot toward Fort McAllister, plainly seen over the salt-marsh, about three miles distant.  Fort McAllister had the rebel flag flying, and occasionally sent a heavy shot back across the marsh to where we were, but otherwise every thing about the place looked as peaceable and quiet as on the Sabbath.

The signal-officer had built a platform on the ridge-pole of the rice-mill.  Leaving our horses behind the stacks of rice-straw, we all got on the roof of a shed attached to the mill, wherefrom I could communicate with the signal-officer above, and at the same time look out toward Ossabaw Sound, and across the Ogeechee River at Fort McAllister.  About 2 p.m. we observed signs of commotion in the fort, and noticed one or two guns fired inland, and some musket-skirmishing in the woods close by.