The question of supplies remained still the one of vital importance, and I reasoned that we might safely rely on the country for a considerable quantity of forage and provisions, and that, if the worst came to the worst, we could live several months on the mules and horses of our trains.  Nevertheless, time was equally material, and the moment I heard that General Slocum had finished his pontoon-bridge at Sister’s Ferry, and that Kilpatrick’s cavalry was over the river, I gave the general orders to march, and instructed all the columns to aim for the South Carolina Railroad to the west of Branchville, about Blackville and Midway.

The right wing moved up the Salkiehatchie, the Seventeenth Corps on the right, with orders on reaching Rivers’s Bridge to cross over, and the Fifteenth Corps by Hickory Hill to Beaufort’s Bridge.  Kilpatrick was instructed to march by way of Barnwell; Corse’s division and the Twentieth Corps to take such roads as would bring them into communication with the Fifteenth Corps about Beaufort’s Bridge.  All these columns started promptly on the 1st of February.  We encountered Wheeler’s cavalry, which had obstructed the road by felling trees, but our men picked these up and threw them aside, so that this obstruction hardly delayed us an hour.  In person I accompanied the Fifteenth Corps (General Logan) by McPhersonville and Hickory Hill, and kept couriers going to and fro to General Slocum with instructions to hurry as much as possible, so as to make a junction of the whole army on the South Carolina Railroad about Blackville.

I spent the night of February 1st at Hickory Hill Post-Office, and that of the 2d at Duck Branch Post-Office, thirty-one miles out from Pocotaligo.  On the 3d the Seventeenth Corps was opposite Rivers’s Bridge, and the Fifteenth approached Beaufort’s Bridge.  The Salkiehatchie was still over its banks, and presented a most formidable obstacle.  The enemy appeared in some force on the opposite bank, had cut away all the bridges which spanned the many deep channels of the swollen river, and the only available passage seemed to be along the narrow causeways which constituted the common roads.  At Rivers’s Bridge Generals Mower and Giles A. Smith led, their heads of column through this swamp, the water up to their shoulders, crossed over to the pine-land, turned upon the rebel brigade which defended the passage, and routed it in utter disorder.  It was in this attack that General Wager Swayne lost his leg, and he had to be conveyed back to Pocotaligo.  Still, the loss of life was very small, in proportion to the advantages gained, for the enemy at once abandoned the whole line of the Salkiehatchie, and the Fifteenth Corps passed over at Beaufort’s Bridge, without opposition.

On the 5th of February I was at Beaufort’s Bridge, by which time General A. S. Williams had got up with five brigades’ of the Twentieth Corps; I also heard of General Kilpatrick’s being abreast of us, at Barnwell, and then gave orders for the march straight for the railroad at Midway.  I still remained with the Fifteenth Corps, which, on the 6th of February, was five miles from Bamberg.  As a matter of course, I expected severe resistance at this railroad, for its loss would sever all the communications of the enemy in Charleston with those in Augusta.