Emilio, Luis F., History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , 1863-1865

Georgetown was the port of one of the richest regions in the South, and until our vessels were stationed off its entrance, a resort of blockade-runners. There were decayed wharves, regular streets, some fine residences, public buildings, and the hall of the Winyaw Indigo Society in the place. Up the Waccamaw some fifteen miles was ‘The Oaks,’ the plantation of Governor Alston, whose wife, the beautiful and accomplished Theodosia, only daughter of Aaron Burr, was lost at sea on the pilot-boat Patriot, with all on board.

Major Pope and the left wing of the Fifty-fourth on the ‘Canonicus’ entered Winyaw Bay, ran up the river some eleven miles past Battery White and other works, and disembarked on March 31, the first troops to arrive. The wing marched to the outskirts and camped in a field where the right wing soon joined. Most of the troops for the expedition having arrived, on April 2, General Gillmore reviewed them in a large ploughed field. The ‘Provisional Division,’ under Gen. Edward E. Potter, was organized, composed of the First Brigade, commanded by Col. P. P. Brown, One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York, of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York, a detachment of the Fifty-sixth New York, and the Twenty-fifth and One Hundred and Seventh Ohio; and the Second Brigade under Colonel Hallowell, composed of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, eight companies of the Thirtysec-ond United States Colored Troops, and five companies of the One Hundred and Second United States Colored Troops. There were also detachments of the First New York Engineers and Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, and two guns of Battery B, Third New York Artillery. It was a total force of about twenty-five hundred men.