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

[41] and the ‘Adams’ also running on a shoal, there was long delay waiting for the flood-tide. Not until 1 A. M. did the ‘Sentinel’ run up the coast, entering Doboy Sound at sunrise. There the gunboat Paul Jones and the ‘Harriet A. Weed’ joined. Entering the Altamaha River, with the gunboats occasionally shelling houses and clumps of woods, the vessels proceeded until the town of Darien appeared in sight. Then the gunboats searched it with their shells and fired at a few pickets seen east of the place.

At 3 P. M. the troops landed without resistance at some of the deserted wharves. Pickets were posted, and the troops formed in the public square. Only two white women and a few negroes were found. The inhabitants were living at the ‘Ridge,’ a few miles inland. Some fifteen or twenty men of the Twentieth Georgia Cavalry, under Capt. W. A. Lane, picketed the vicinity, but had retired.

Darien, the New Inverness of early days, was a most beautiful town as Montgomery's forayers entered it that fateful June day. A broad street extended along the river, with others running into it, all shaded with mulberry and oak trees of great size and beauty. Storehouses and mills along the river-bank held quantities of rice and resin. There might have been from seventy-five to one hundred residences in the place. There were three churches, a market-house, jail, clerk's office, court-house, and an academy.

After forming line, orders came for the Fifty-fourth to make details and secure from the houses such things as would be useful in camp, besides live-stock, resin, lumber, etc. Soon the plundering thus legitimized began. An officer thus describes the scene:—