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.