Major General Quincy A. Gillmore ordered a provisional division assembled under the command of Brigadier General Edward E. Potter. Potter was ordered to destroy the railroads in the area between Florence, Sumter, and Camden. The importance of the mission was pointedly made by Sherman's statement that "Those cars and locomotives should be destroyed if to do it costs you 500 men." Potter took command of the provisional division on April 1, 1865, at Georgetown. The division numbered 2,700 men composed of two infantry brigades and auxiliary troops.