erman continued to Goldsboro', which place had been
occupied by General Schofield on the 21st (crossing the Neuse River ten
miles above there, at Cox's Bridge, where General Terry had got
possession and thrown a pontoon-bridge on the 22d), thus forming a
junction with the columns from New Bern and Wilmington.

Among the important fruits of this campaign was the fall of Charleston,
South Carolina. It was evacuated by the enemy on the night of the 17th
of February, and occupied by our forces on the 18th.

On the morning of the 31st of January, General Thomas was directed to
send a cavalry expedition, under General Stoneman, from East Tennessee,
to penetrate South Carolina well down towards Columbia, to destroy the
railroads and military resources of the country, and return, if he was
able, to East Tennessee by way of Salisbury, North Carolina, releasing
our prisoners there, if possible. Of the feasibility of this latter,
however, General Stoneman was to judge. Sherman's movements, I had no
doubt, would attract the attention of all the force the enemy could
collect, and facilitate the execution of this. General Stoneman was so
late in making his start on this expedition (and Sherman having passed
out of the State of South Carolina), on the 27th of February I directed
General Thomas to change his course, and order him to repeat his raid of
last fall, destroying the railroad towards Lynchburg as far as he could.
This would keep him between our garrisons in East Tennessee and the
enemy. I regarded it not impossible that in the event of the enemy
being driven from Richmond, he might fall back to Lynchburg and attempt
a raid north through East Tennessee. On the 14th of February the
following communication was sent to General Thomas:

"CITY POINT, VA., February 14, 1865.

"General Canby is preparing a movement from Mobile Bay against Mobile
and the interior of Alabama. His force will consist of about twenty
thousand men, besides A. J. Smith's command. The cavalry you have sent
to Canby will be debarked at Vicksburg. It, with the available cavalry
already in that section, will move from there eastward, in co-operation.
Hood's army has been terribly reduced by the severe punishment you gave
it in Tennessee, by desertion consequent upon their defeat, and now by
the withdrawal of many of them to oppose Sherman. (I take it a large
portion of the infantry has been so withdrawn. It is so asserted in the
Richmond papers, an