In early 1865, as the Civil War neared its end, Union operations in Sumter County brought some of the last fighting in South Carolina. After Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox, fighting still continued in places where news had not yet arrived, and on April 9, 1865, a desperate battle was fought at Dingle's Mill while several other skirmishes and battles unfolded over the next 12 days in what became known as Potter's Raid. Ordered to destroy railroad trains and military supplies south of Sherman's line of march on the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, General Edward E. Potter led a provisional Union division of 2,700 men inland from Georgetown. His force moved through Manning, Sumter, Manchester, Stateburg, Spring Hill, Boykin's Mill, Dinkins' Mill, Beech Creek, and Milford Plantation, fighting Confederate cavalry, militia, and other troops while destroying locomotives, boxcars, railroad stores, presses, and other property. At Manchester and later at Milford Plantation, Union troops demolished large numbers of locomotives and rail cars loaded with supplies and railway machinery. At Singleton Plantation, Potter sent the 32nd U.S. Colored Troops with several thousand freed enslaved persons to contact Union gunboats on the Santee River and bring back supplies. The campaign included the Battle of Boykin's Mill on April 18, where Lieutenant Stevens of the 54th Massachusetts was killed, the last known Union officer to die in the war, and the late fight at Beech Creek on April 19, considered the last engagement of the Civil War in South Carolina and the last cavalry saber charge of the war. On April 21, a few miles south of the line of march, Potter finally received word that the war was over and all fighting ended.