make the passage of such rivers as the Santee and Cape Fear a difficult undertaking.  Therefore, I took all possible precautions, and arranged with Admiral Dahlgren and General Foster to watch our progress inland by all the means possible, and to provide for us points of security along the coast; as, at Bull’s Bay, Georgetown, and the mouth of Cape Fear River.  Still, it was extremely desirable in one march to reach Goldsboro’ in the State of North Carolina (distant four hundred and twenty-five miles), a point of great convenience for ulterior operations, by reason of the two railroads which meet there, coming from the seacoast at Wilmington and Newbern.  Before leaving Savannah I had sent to Newbern Colonel W. W. Wright, of the Engineers, with orders to look to these railroads, to collect rolling-stock, and to have the roads repaired out as far as possible in six weeks—­the time estimated as necessary for us to march that distance.

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