We all remained strung along this railroad till the 9th of February—­the Seventeenth Corps on the right, then the Fifteenth, Twentieth, and cavalry, at Blackville.  General Slocum reached Blackville that day, with Geary’s division of the Twentieth Corps, and reported the Fourteenth Corps (General Jeff.  C. Davis’s) to be following by way of Barnwell.  On the 10th I rode up to Blackville, where I conferred with Generals Slocum and Kilpatrick, became satisfied that the whole army would be ready within a day, and accordingly made orders for the next movement north to Columbia, the right wing to strike Orangeburg en route.  Kilpatrick was ordered to demonstrate strongly toward Aiken, to keep up the delusion that we might turn to Augusta; but he was notified that Columbia was the next objective, and that he should cover the left flank against Wheeler, who hung around it.  I wanted to reach Columbia before any part of Hood’s army could possibly get there.  Some of them were reported as having reached Augusta, under the command of General Dick Taylor.

Having sufficiently damaged the railroad, and effected the junction of the entire army, the general march was resumed on the 11th, each corps crossing the South Edisto by separate bridges, with orders to pause on the road leading from Orangeberg to Augusta, till it was certain that the Seventeenth Corps had got possession of Orangeburg.  This place was simply important as its occupation would sever the communications between Charleston and Columbia.  All the heads of column reached this road, known as the Edgefield road, during the 12th, and the Seventeenth Corps turned to the right, against Orangeburg.  When I reached the head of column opposite Orangeburg, I found Giles A. Smith’s division halted, with a battery unlimbered, exchanging shots with a party on the opposite side of the Edisto.  He reported that the bridge was gone, and that the river was deep and impassable.  I then directed General Blair to send a strong division below the town, some four or five miles, to effect a crossing there.  He laid his pontoon-bridge, but the bottom on the other side was overflowed, and the men had to wade through it, in places as deep as their waists.  I was with this division at the time, on foot, trying to pick my way across the overflowed bottom; but, as soon as the head of column reached the sand-hills, I knew that the enemy would not long remain in Orangeburg, and accordingly returned to my horse, on the west bank, and rode rapidly up to where I had left Giles A. Smith.  I found him in possession of the broken bridge, abreast of the town, which he was repairing, and I was among the first to cross over and enter the town.  By and before the time either Force’s or Giles A. Smith’s skirmishers entered the place, several stores were on fire, and I am sure that some of the towns-people told me that a Jew merchant had set fire to his own cotton and store, and from this the fire had spread.  This, however, was soon put out,