General Drayton, with a part of Martin's regiment of cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Colcock, and Heyward's and De Saussure's regiments, was watching Bluffton and the roads to Hendersonville. Clingman's and Radcliffe's North Carolina regiments, with artillery under Col. A. J. Gonzales, Captain Trezevant's company of cavalry, and the Charleston Light Dragoons and the Rutledge Riflemen, were stationed in front of Grahamville, to watch the landings from the Broad. Colonel Edwards' regiment and Moore's light battery were at Coosawhatchie, Colonel Dunovant's at Pocotaligo, and Colonel Jones', with Tripp's company of cavalry, in front of the important landing at Port Royal ferry. Colonel Martin, with part of his regiment of cavalry, was in observation at the landings on Combahee, Ashepoo and Edisto rivers. The idea of this disposition, made by Ripley immediately upon the fall of Forts Walker and Beauregard, was to guard the railroad bridges, and keep the troops in hand to be moved for concentration in case any definite point was attacked.
On the 8th of November, the day after Port Royal was taken, Gen. Robert E. Lee took command of the department of South Carolina and Georgia, by order of the President of the Confederacy. It was evident to him that the mouths of the rivers and the sea islands, except those immediately surrounding the harbor of Charleston, could not be defended with the guns and troops at his command, and, disappointing and distressing as such a view was to the governor and especially to the island planters, whose homes and estates must be abandoned and ruined, General Lee prepared for the inevitable. He wrote to General Ripley, in Charleston, to review the whole subject and suggest what changes should be made.
