Howard threw a bridge across the river three miles above the city, and Stone's brigade of Wood's division of the Fifteenth Corps was sent across. The Mayor came out in his carriage, and made a formal surrender to Colonel Stone, who marched up the streets, where huge piles of cotton were burning. Hampton, in anticipation of the giving up of the city, had caused the cotton to be gathered, public as well as private, that it might be burned. There were thousands of bales. Negroes were employed to cut the ropes that bound them, and apply the torch. As Stone marched in the last of Hampton's troops moved out. The wind was high, and flakes of burning cotton were blown about the streets, setting fire to the buildings. The soldiers used their utmost exertions to extinguish the flames, working under the direction of their officers. The whole of Wood's division was sent in for the purpose, but very little could be done towards saving the city. The fire raged through the day and night. Hundreds of families were burned out, and reduced from opulence, or at least competency, to penury. It was a terrible scene of suffering and woe,—men, women, and children fleeing from the flames, surrounded by a hostile army, composed of men whom they had called vandals, ruffians, the slime of the North, the pests of society, and whom they had looked upon with haughty contempt, as belonging to an inferior race. Indescribable their anguish; and yet no violence was committed, no insulting language or action given by those soldiers. Sherman, Howard, Logan, Hazen, Woods,—nearly all of Sherman's officers,—did what they could to stay the flames and alleviate the distress. They experienced no pleasure in beholding the agony of the people of Columbia.
General Sherman thus vindicates himself in his official report, and charges the atrocity upon Wade Hampton:—
"I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire, but, on the contrary, claim that we saved what of Columbia remains unconsumed. And without hesitation I charge General Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia,—not with a malicious intent, or as the manifestation of a silly 'Roman stoicism,' but from folly and want of sense, in filling it with lint, cotton, and tinder. Our officers and men on duty worked well to extinguish the flames; but others not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned there, rescued by us, may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had once begun, and may have indulged in unconcealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina."[78]
Thus Columbia, the beautiful capital of a once haughty State, became a blackened waste. The convention which passed the ordinance of Secession, when called together on the 17th of December, 1860, met in Columbia, but after organizing adjourned to Charleston, as the city was infected with small-pox. But it was the more poisonous virus of Secession which finally laid their proud city low.
The people of South Carolina are bitter in their hatred of General Sherman. They charge all the devastation committed during his march from Atlanta to Goldsboro' upon him. In their estimation he is "a fiend," and his conduct not merely "inhuman," but "devilish." Yet he only adopted the policy which the Rebel leaders urged upon their adherents, and which was vehemently advocated by the Southern press. Rebel, not loyal torches, fired Charleston, Orangeburg, and Columbia.
It is claimed that Sherman did not regard private property, but destroyed it indiscriminately with that belonging to the Confederate government. Was there any respect shown by the Rebel authorities? Cotton, resin, turpentine, stores owned by private individuals, were remorselessly given to the flames by the Rebels themselves, and their acts were applauded by the people of the South as evincing heroic self-sacrifice.
Great stress is laid upon the suffering occasioned by the pillaging and burning by Sherman's troops; but in Pennsylvania yet remain the ruins of Chambersburg as evidence of the tender mercy of the Rebels, who not only destroyed public property, but gave dwelling-houses and stores to the torch.
What act so malignant, bloody, ghastly, and fiendish as the sacking, burning, and massacre at Lawrence! What deed so damning since the barbarities of Scio or Wyoming! What woe so deep!—men, children, murdered, butchered, scalped, the bodies of the dead tossed into the flames! No relenting on the part of the Rebels, but savage, infuriate joy at the sight of the warm heart's blood of their victims! Woman's prayers and tears availed not to stay their murderous hands or move their brutal hearts.
The responsibility cannot be evaded by saying that Quantrel was only a guerilla. If not holding a commission from the Rebel government, he was fighting for the Confederacy, and was ranked with Morgan and Mosby. He was an ally of Jeff Davis and General Lee. When were his acts disavowed by the Rebel government? What restraint was ever laid upon him? He passed from the scene of massacre, lighted by the flames of the burning town, safely into the Rebel lines, where instead of outlawry he found protection and favor. On what page of Confederate history shall we read the remonstrance of Lee, Davis, Stephens, Toombs, or Breckenridge? Where is the protest of the "chivalrous" gentlemen of the South? What action was taken by the Rebel Congress?
Vain the search for disavowal of or protest against the act. The historian of another generation will be able to pass right judgment upon all that has transpired during these dark years of anarchy and revolution, sorrow, tears, and anguish. The verdict of posterity will be just, and will endure through the ages.