"In accordance with instructions from President Lincoln received through the assistant Adjutant General, Major J. H. Hay, who would accompany the expedition, on the 5th of February the troops began to embark under the immediate command of General Truman Seymour, on board of twenty steamers and eight schooners, consisting of the following regiments, numbering in all six thousand troops, and under convoy of the gunboat Norwich:
"40th Massachusetts Mounted Infantry, Col. Guy V. Henry.
"7th Connecticut, Col. J. R. Hawley.
"7th New Hampshire, Col. Abbott.
"47th, 48th and 115th New York, Col. Barton's command.
"The Phalanx regiments were: 8th Pennsylvania, Col. Fribley; 1st North Carolina, Lt.-Col. Reed; 54th Massachusetts, Col. Hallowell; 2d South Carolina, Col. Beecher; 55th Massachusetts, Col. Hartwell, with three batteries of white troops, Hamilton's, Elder's and Langdon's. Excepting the two last named regiments, this force landed at Jacksonville on the 7th of February, and pushed on, following the 40th Massachusetts Mounted Infantry, which captured by a bold dash Camp Finnigan, about seven miles from Jacksonville, with its equipage, eight pieces of artillery, and a number of prisoners. On the 10th, the whole force had reached Baldwin, a railroad station twenty miles west of Jacksonville. There the army encamped, except Col. Henry's force, which continued its advance towards Tallahassee, driving a small force of Gen. Finnegan's command before him. This was at the time all the rebel force in east Florida. On the 18th Gen. Seymour, induced by the successful advance of Col. Henry, lead his troops from Baldwin with ten days' rations in their haversacks, and started for the Suwanee river, about a hundred and thirty miles from Baldwin station, leaving the 2d South Carolina and the 55th Massachusetts Phalanx regiments to follow. After a fatiguing march the column, numbering about six thousand, reached Barbour's Station, on the Florida Central Railroad, twenty miles from Baldwin. Here the command halted and bivouaced, the night of the 19th, in the woods bordering upon a wooded ravine running off towards the river from the railroad track.
"It is now nineteen years ago, and I write from memory of a night long to be remembered. Around many a Grand Army Camp-fire in the last fifteen years this bivouac has been made the topic of an evening's talk. It was attended with no particular hardship. The weather was such as is met with in these latitudes, not cold, not hot, and though a thick vapory cloud hid the full round moon from early eventide until the last regiment filed into the woods, yet there was a halo of light that brightened the white, sandy earth and gave to the moss-laden limbs of the huge pines which stood sentry-like on the roadside the appearance of a New England grove on a frosty night, with a shelled road leading through it.
"It was well in the night when the two Phalanx regiments filed out of the road into the woods, bringing up the rear of the army, and took shelter under the trees from the falling dew. Amid the appalling stillness that reigned throughout the encampment, except the tramp of feet and an occasional whickering of a battery horse, no sound broke the deep silence. Commands were given in an undertone and whispered along the long lines of weary troops that lay among the trees and the underbrush of the pine forest. Each soldier lay with his musket beside him, ready to spring to his feet and in line for battle, for none knew the moment the enemy, like a tiger, would pounce upon them. It was a night of intense anxiety, shrouded in mystery as to what to-morrow would bring. The white and black soldier in one common bed lay in battle panoply, dreaming their common dreams of home and loved ones.
"Here lay the heroic 54th picturing to themselves the memorable nights of July 17 and 18, their bivouac on the beach and their capture of Fort Wagner and the terrible fate of their comrades. They were all veteran troops save the 8th Pennsylvania, which upon many hard-fought fields had covered themselves with gallant honor in defense of their country's cause, from Malvern Hill to Morris Island.
"It was in the gray of the next morning that Gen. Seymour's order aroused the command. The men partook of a hastily prepared cup of coffee and meat and hard-tack from their haversacks. At sunrise the troops took up the line of march, following the railroad for Lake City. Col. Henry, with the 40th Massachusetts Mounted Infantry and Major Stevens' independent battalion of Massachusetts cavalry, led the column. About half-past one o'clock they reached a point where the country road crossed the railroad, about two miles east of Olustee, and six miles west of Sanderson, a station through which the troops passed about half-past eleven o'clock. As the head of the column reached the crossing the rebel pickets fired and fell back upon a line of skirmishers, pursued by Col. Henry's command. The enemy's main force was supposed to be some miles distant from this place, consequently General Seymour had not taken the precaution to protect his flanks, though marching through an enemy's country. Consequently he found his troops flanked on either side.