The next morning I rode to Pocotaligo, and thence reconnoitred our entire line down to Coosawhatchie.  Pocotaligo Fort was on low, alluvial ground, and near it began the sandy pine-land which connected with the firm ground extending inland, constituting the chief reason for its capture at the very first stage of the campaign.  Hatch’s division was ordered to that point from Coosawhatchie, and the whole of Howard’s right wing was brought near by, ready to start by the 1st of February.  I also reconnoitred the point of the Salkiehatchie River, where the Charleston Railroad crossed it, found the bridge protected by a rebel battery on the farther side, and could see a few men about it; but the stream itself was absolutely impassable, for the whole bottom was overflowed by its swollen waters to the breadth of a full mile.  Nevertheless, Force’s and Mower’s divisions of the Seventeenth Corps were kept active, seemingly with the intention to cross over in the direction of Charleston, and thus to keep up the delusion that that city was our immediate “objective.”  Meantime, I had reports from General Slocum of the terrible difficulties he had encountered about Sister’s Ferry, where the Savannah River was reported nearly three miles wide, and it seemed for a time almost impossible for him to span it at all with his frail pontoons.  About this time (January 25th), the weather cleared away bright and cold, and I inferred that the river would soon run down, and enable Slocum to pass the river before February 1st.  One of the divisions of the Fifteenth Corps (Corse’s) had also been cut off by the loss of the pontoon-bridge at Savannah, so that General Slocum had with him, not only his own two corps, but Corse’s division and Kilpatrick’s cavalry, without which it was not prudent for me to inaugurate the campaign.  We therefore rested quietly about Pocotaligo, collecting stores and making final preparations, until the 1st of February, when I learned that the cavalry and two divisions of the Twentieth Corps were fairly across the river, and then gave the necessary orders for the march northward.

Before closing this chapter, I will add a few original letters that bear directly on the subject, and tend to illustrate it: 

Headquarters armies of the united states
Washington, D. C. January 21, 1866.

Major-General W. T. Sherman, commanding Military Division of the
Mississippi.

General:  Your letters brought by General Barnard were received at City Point, and read with interest.  Not having them with me, however, I cannot say that in this I will be able to satisfy you on all points of recommendation.  As I arrived here at 1 p.m., and must leave at 6 p.m., having in the mean time spent over three hours with the secretary and General Halleck, I must be brief.  Before your last request to have Thomas make a campaign into the heart of Alabama, I had ordered Schofield to Annapolis, Maryland, with his corps.  The advance (six thousand) will reach the seaboard by the 23d, the remainder following as rapidly as railroad transportation can be procured from Cincinnati.  The corps numbers over twenty-one thousand men.