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

[298] was burned after crossing it. As progress was slow with the heavy second train, to lighten it cars were dropped from time to time and destroyed, until at last the engine alone proceeded with the injured men, while the troops marched. Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper's force was joined on the roadside. It was the hope to run the engines and remaining cars to Manchester; but a flue had blown out of Lieutenant Swails's locomotive, so they like the others were burned with the army supplies in them, estimated at a total value of $300,000.

When this was completed, and rest taken, the Fifty-fourth moved on, re-joining the Second Brigade at 7 A. M. on the 12th, after marching twenty-five miles and working all night. Sergeant Wilkins of Company D, relieved from charge of the pioneers by Sergeant Dorsey, of Company I, was appointed acting sergeant-major on the 12th. At 11 A. M. the regiment with the brigade moved forward and joined the First Brigade at Singleton's plantation. From there, on that day, Capt. Frank Goodwin of Potter's staff, accompanied by Lieutenant Newell of Hallowell's, with the Thirty-second United States Colored Troops as escort, took the wounded, several thousand contrabands, and the long train to Wright's Bluff on the Santee, twenty-five miles distant. They found some of our light draught vessels in the river, on which the wounded and the women and children were placed. Captain Goodwin distributed some two hundred captured muskets to the men and sent them overland to Georgetown.

From Singleton's on the 13th the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York went to Statesburg, thirteen miles distant, where it destroyed some stores.

The next day the Twenty-fifth Ohio was sent to gain the