t I had every
reason to be satisfied that I would receive additional strength as
we progressed northward, and before I should need it.

General W. J. Hardee commanded the Confederate forces in
Charleston, with the Salkiehatchie River as his line of defense.
It was also known that General Beauregard had come from the
direction of Tennessee, and had assumed the general command of all
the troops designed to resist our progress.

The heavy winter rains had begun early in January, rendered the
roads execrable, and the Savannah River became so swollen that it
filled its many channels, overflowing the vast extent of
rice-fields that lay on the east bank. This flood delayed our
departure two weeks; for it swept away our pontoon-bridge at
Savannah, and came near drowning John E. Smith's division of the
Fifteenth Corps, with several heavy trains of wagons that were en
route from Savannah to Pocotaligo by the old causeway.

General Slocum had already ferried two of his divisions across the
river, when Sister's Ferry, about forty miles above Savannah, was
selected for the passage of the rest of his wing and of
Kilpatrick's cavalry. The troops were in motion for that point
before I quitted Savannah, and Captain S. B. Luce, United States
Navy, had reported to me with a gunboat (the Pontiac) and a couple
of transports, which I requested him to use in protecting Sister's
Ferry during the passage of Slocum's wing, and to facilitate the
passage of the troops all he could. The utmost activity prevailed
at all points, but it was manifest we could not get off much before
the 1st day of February; so I determined to go in person to
Pocotaligo, and there act as though we were bound for Charleston.
On the 24th of January I started from Beaufort with a part of my
staff, leaving the rest to follow at leisure, rode across the
island to a pontoon-bridge that spanned the channel between it and
the main-land, and thence rode by Garden's Corners to a plantation
not far from Pocotaligo, occupied by General Blair. There we found
a house, with a majestic avenue of live-oaks, whose limbs had been
cut away by the troops for firewood, and desolation marked one of
those splendid South Carolina estates where the proprietors
formerly had dispensed a hospitality that distinguished the old
regime of that proud State. I slept on the floor of the house, but
the night was so bitter cold that I got up by the fire several
times, and when it burned low I rek