Buford's Bridge

Front: Buford’s Bridge, the earliest settlement in what is now Bamberg County, was established as early as 1792, when William Buford maintained a bridge and operated a ferry over the Salkehatchie River. It grew throughout the nineteenth century, with several residences, four stores, two taverns, a boarding house, a Masonic lodge, and Mizpah Methodist Church here by the 1850s. Reverse: On February 3-5, 1865, as Gen. W.T. Sherman’s Federals advanced toward Columbia, units of Gen. J.A. Logan’s XV Corps approached Buford’s Bridge. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry burned the bridge, then evacuated the earthworks here before Logan arrived on Feb. 4th. Federals destroyed most of the buildings in the area to build bridges and left only Mizpah Methodist Church intact.