Battle of Rivers' Bridge

Charge of Weaver's Brigade Across the Salkehatchie

Date	February 3, 1865 (1865-02-03)
Location	Bamberg County, South Carolina 33°3′10″N 81°5′59″W / 33.05278°N 81.09972°W / 33.05278; -81.09972Coordinates: 33°3′10″N 81°5′59″W / 33.05278°N 81.09972°W / 33.05278; -81.09972
Result	Union victory

Belligerents

United States (Union)

Confederate States

Commanders and leaders

Francis Preston Blair, Jr.
John A. Logan

Lafayette McLaws

Units involved

XVII Corps
XV Corps

Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida

Strength

5,000

1,200

Casualties and losses

124
(18 killed,
106 wounded)

97
(8 killed,
44 wounded,
45 captured/missing)

The Battle of Rivers' Bridge, also known as Salkehatchie River, Hickory Hill, Owen's Crossroads, Lawtonville, and Duck Creek, was a Union victory fought on February 3, 1865, during the Carolinas Campaign of the American Civil War.

While Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Union armies marched north across South Carolina, about 1,200 Confederates under Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws were posted at the crossing on the Salkehatchie River. Union soldiers began to build bridges to bypass McLaws on February 2. The next day two brigades under Maj. Gen. Francis P. Blair waded through the swamp and flanked the Confederates. McLaws withdrew toward Branchville after stalling Sherman's advance for only one day and Sherman's forces continued moving north towards the state capital Columbia.

In 1876 men from nearby communities reburied the Confederate dead from Rivers Bridge in a mass grave about a mile from the battlefield and began a tradition of annually commemorating the battle. The Rivers Bridge Memorial Association eventually obtained the battlefield and in 1945 turned the site over to South Carolina for a state park. The site is commemorated by the Rivers Bridge State Historic Site.

Earthworks used by the Confederate defenders are preserved at the historic site. Unfortunately, a portion of the bluff overlooking the river (upon which several Confederate earthworks were located) was significantly altered by the operations of a logging railroad that paralleled the Salkehatchie River during the late 19th Century.

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Wikipedia