Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
Engineers, long in the trenches before Charleston but now ready to march crosscountry,
building bridges or destroying them. The entire force numbered some
twenty-seven hundred men. 72
The two brigades and their supporting troops moved by sea to Georgetown,
farther north on the South Carolina coast than Union troops had operated before.
On 5 April, they struck inland toward Columbia, destroying any cotton gins and
cotton they found and exchanging shots with Confederate skirmishers from time to
time. They reached the town of Manning three days later. Along the way, they received
rations and ammunition from naval vessels in the Santee River. At Manning,
they discovered a mile-long causeway with six bridges across the Pocotaligo River
and an adjoining swamp, all of the bridges more or less burned. By midnight, the
men of Hallowell’s brigade had the bridges repaired sufficiently to bear the weight
of infantry. They crossed at once and bivouacked two miles farther on. At dawn
on 9 April, they moved ahead while the engineers finished repairing the bridges to
allow the passage of horses and guns. 73
Since the main Confederate force in the region was confronting Sherman’s
army in North Carolina, Hallowell’s brigade reached Sumterville on the Wilmington
and Manchester Railroad “without serious opposition” that evening. The next
day, the regiments dispersed to begin their work. Moving east toward Maysville,
the 32d USCI burned seven railroad cars and a bridge. To the west of Sumterville,
the 102d USCI destroyed a bridge, four railroad cars, two hundred bales of cotton,
and a gin. In Sumterville itself, the 54th Massachusetts wrecked a machine shop,
disabled three locomotives, and burned fifteen cars. During the next two days, soldiers
of the brigade destroyed an estimated $300,000 worth of property. 74
By the end of another week, General Gillmore’s two brigades had driven their
Confederate opponents beyond Statesburg, a distance of some one hundred miles
inland. The Union raiders then retraced their steps to Georgetown on the coast, having
destroyed or disabled 32 locomotives, 250 railroad cars, and 100 cotton gins
and presses while burning five thousand bales of cotton. More than three thousand
slaves had left their plantations to accompany the expedition. On their way back
to the seacoast, the soldiers learned on 21 April that the opposing armies in North
Carolina had concluded a cease-fire. The next day came word of the Confederate
surrender in Virginia and on the day after that news of Lincoln’s assassination. On
25 April, the expedition reached Georgetown and went into camp. The Colored
Troops’ last operation in the Department of the South was over. 75
A striking feature of officers’ reports of this final raid is the extent to which
Northern troops, black and white alike, continued to rely on information from
black Southerners while conducting local operations. The 54th Massachusetts had
been recruited across the North, the 32d USCI at Philadelphia, and the 102d USCI
in Michigan. All three were, in varying degrees, alien to the South. Captain Emilio
72 OR, ser. 1, vol. 47, pt. 1, pp. 1027–28, and pt. 2, pp. 856 (“vast amount”), 857 (“All real”).
73 OR, ser. 1, vol. 47, pt. 1, p. 1028; Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, pp. 292–94.
74 Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, pp. 295–98 (quotation, p. 295).
75 Ibid., pp. 307–08. “About three thousand negroes came into Georgetown with the division,
while the whole number released was estimated at six thousand.” Ibid., pp. 308–09. “The number
of negroes who followed the column may be estimated at 5,000,” Brig. Gen. E. E. Potter reported.
OR, ser. 1, vol. 47, pt. 1, p. 1027.