The Union victory at Rivers' Bridge broke the main Confederate line of defense in lower South Carolina. McLaws' troops retreated to another line behind the Edisto River about 20 miles northeast of here, then continued to fall back as Sherman's army advanced. Two weeks after the battle, Sherman's troops took Columbia. Less than three months after the battle at Rivers Bridge, the war ended. Major Oscar L. Jackson of the 63rd Ohio Infantry recalled the hospital filled with the horrid results of battle, with mutilated men groaning, begging for assistance, gasping in death, and many wounded left to lie all night in the swamp. Major General William Tecumseh Sherman said the loss of life was very small in proportion to the advantage gained, because the enemy at once abandoned the whole line of the Salkehatchie.