Early on the 7th, in the midst of a rain-storm, we reached the railroad; almost unopposed, striking it at several points.  General Howard told me a good story concerning this, which will bear repeating:  He was with the Seventeenth Corps, marching straight for Midway, and when about five miles distant he began to deploy the leading division, so as to be ready for battle.  Sitting on his horse by the road-side, while the deployment was making, he saw a man coming down the road, riding as hard as he could, and as he approached he recognized him as one of his own “foragers,” mounted on a white horse, with a rope bridle and a blanket for saddle.  As he came near he called out, “Hurry up, general; we have got the railroad!” So, while we, the generals, were proceeding deliberately to prepare for a serious battle, a parcel of our foragers, in search of plunder, had got ahead and actually captured the South Carolina Railroad, a line of vital importance to the rebel Government.

As soon as we struck the railroad, details of men were set to work to tear up the rails, to burn the ties and twist the bars.  This was a most important railroad, and I proposed to destroy it completely for fifty miles, partly to prevent a possibility of its restoration and partly to utilize the time necessary for General Slocum to get up.

The country thereabouts was very poor, but the inhabitants mostly remained at home.  Indeed, they knew not where to go.  The enemy’s cavalry had retreated before us, but his infantry was reported in some strength at Branchville, on the farther side of the Edisto; yet on the appearance of a mere squad of our men they burned their own bridges the very thing I wanted, for we had no use for them, and they had.

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.