on, or continue his march to Columbia. President Davis having
declined the proposition of General Beauregard to evacuate all the
cities on the coast and make a stand on the Edisto, declined also a
like proposition to fight the great battle at either Branchville
or Columbia, without offering any better policy himself. The only
alternative the latter had was to keep out of Sherman's way as well as
possible and to allow him to continue laying waste the entire center
of the State. His only encouragements were dispatches from the
President to "Turn and Crash Sherman," "Call on the Governors," "Bring
out the militia," etc.

Sherman's columns of advance consisted of four great patrolled lines,
with a corps on each. His extreme right was made up of the Seventeenth
Corps, under General Frank P. Blair, the Fifteenth next, under General
Jno. A. Logan, the two being the right wing of the army, commanded by
General Howard. The left wing, under General Slocum, consisted of the
Fourteenth Corps, on extreme left, General Jeff. C. Davis commanding;
the next, the Twentieth, under General A.S. Williams, the whole
numbering sixty thousand. The cavalry, numbering four thousand
additional, was on either flank.

To meet this formidable array, Beauregard had under his immediate
command Hardee, with thirteen thousand seven hundred (three thousand
being State militia); around Augusta and on the march in Georgia and
upper South Carolina was the remnant of Hood's Army--Steven D. Lee,
with three thousand three hundred and fifty; Dick Cheatham, with two
thousand five hundred.

Stewart's Corps was far back in Georgia, and too far away to give any
hopes of meeting Beauregard in this State. It consisted of Loring's
Division, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven; Wathals'
Division, one thousand and thirty-six; French's Division, one thousand
five hundred and nineteen.

It must not be forgotten that the number under Hardee included the
troops in and around Charleston, and all the cities and towns in the
State where soldiers were stationed.

General Wheeler, in command of several brigades of cavalry, now
reduced to a mere skeleton organization, was hovering around the
enemy's flanks and in front between Branchville and Augusta.

Just prior to the evacuation of Columbia, General Beauregard applied
to the war department for the promotion of General Wade Hampton to
Lieutenant General, to take precedence over Major General Wheeler, now
in comma