By and before the time either Force's or Giles A.
Smith's skirmishers entered the place, several stores were on fire,
and I am sure that some of the towns-people told me that a Jew
merchant had set fire to his own cotton and store, and from this
the fire had spread. This, however, was soon put out, and the
Seventeenth Corps (General Blair) occupied the place during that
night. I remember to have visited a large hospital, on the hill
near the railroad depot, which was occupied by the orphan children
who had been removed from the asylum in Charleston. We gave them
protection, and, I think, some provisions. The railroad and depot
were destroyed by order, and no doubt a good deal of cotton was
burned, for we all regarded cotton as hostile property, a thing to
be destroyed. General Blair was ordered to break up this railroad,
forward to the point where it crossed the Santee, and then to turn
for Columbia. On the morning of the 13th I again joined the
Fifteenth Corps, which crossed the North Edisto by Snilling's
Bridge, and moved straight for Columbia, around the head of Caw-Caw
Swamp.
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