Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

‘ [371] long narrow causeways, easily defended, as we have heretofore been compelled to do.’ Sherman replied on the 2nd of January, announcing that he would be ready to start on the 15th, if he could get the necessary supplies in the wagons by that time. ‘But until these supplies are in hand,’ he said, ‘I can do nothing. After they are, I shall be ready to move with great rapidity.’

In fulfilment of Grant's directions, Sherman now moved the Fifteenth corps on transports to the neighborhood of Pocotaligo, while his left wing with the cavalry was also thrown forward, working slowly at first to open a road, and then by a rapid movement, to secure Sister's ferry on the Savannah river, and the Augusta railroad as far west as Robertsville. The country around Pocotaligo is all low alluvial land, cut up by salt-water swamps and fresh-water creeks, and easily susceptible of defence by a small force; but the terrible energy the rebels had displayed in the earlier stages of the war was beginning to yield, and the important position of Pocotaligo, interrupting all communication between Charleston and the South, was secured with a loss of only two officers and eight men.

Foster's troops, in the Department of the South, had originally been directed to protect Savannah; but Grant at this time ordered Grover's division from the Shenandoah Valley, where all fighting was at an end, to Savannah, of which it was to form the garrison. Grover took command of the city on the 18th of January, and Foster's troops were placed at Sherman's disposal.

Thus by the middle of January, a lodgment had been effected in South Carolina, and Sherman had