“When one division was plundering us, the men would say, ‘We’re nothing; but if such a division comes along, you’re gone up.’
“Besides the fifty bushels of corn the lieutenant left us, I don’t think there were fifty bushels in the whole district. Our neighbors were jealous because we had been treated so much better than they. The Yankees didn’t leave enough for the children to eat, nor dishes to eat off of. Those who managed to save a little corn or a few potatoes, shared with the rest.
“We thought we were served badly enough. Of all my bedding, I had but two sheets and a pillow-case left. The Yankees didn’t spare us a hat or a coat. They even took the children’s clothes. We hadn’t a comb or a brush for our heads the next day, nor a towel for our hands. But, after all is said about Sherman’s army, I confess some of our own soldiers, especially Wheeler’s men, were about as bad.
“I never gave the negroes a single order, but they went to work, after the Yankees had passed, and cleared up the whole place. They took corn and ground it; and they went to the Yankee camp for meat, and cooked it for us. Our horses were taken, but they planted rice and corn with their hoes. There were scarcely any white men in the country. Most were in the army; and the Yankees took prisoners all who came under the conscript act. They carried some away who have never been heard from since.
“My husband was in Charleston, and for weeks neither of us knew if the other was alive. I walked seventeen miles to mail a letter to him. The old cook went with me and carried my child. From seven in the morning until dark, the first day, I walked twelve miles; and five the next. The old cook didn’t feel tired a bit, though she carried the baby; but she kept saying to me, ‘Do don’t set down dar, missus; we’ll neber git dar!’ We were two days coming home again.”
CHAPTER LXXVII.
THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA.
“It has pleased God,” says the writer in the “Daily Phœnix,” already quoted, “to visit our beautiful city with the most cruel fate which can ever befall states or cities. He has permitted an invading army to penetrate our country almost without impediment; to rob and ravage our dwellings, and to commit three fifths of our city to the flames. Eighty-four squares, out of one hundred and twenty-four which the city contains, have been destroyed, with scarcely the exception of a single house. The ancient capitol building of the State—that venerable structure, which, for seventy years, has echoed with the eloquence and wisdom of the most famous statesmen—is laid in ashes; six temples of the Most High God have shared the same fate; eleven banking establishments; the schools of learning, the shops of art and trade, of invention and manufacture; shrines equally of religion, benevolence, and industry; are all buried together, in one congregated ruin. Humiliation spreads her ashes over our homes and garments, and the universal wreck exhibits only one common aspect of despair.”
Columbia, the proud capital of the proudest State in the Union,—who ever supposed that she could be destined to such a fate? Who ever imagined that in this way that fine bird, secession, would come home to roost?
Almost until the last moment the people of South Carolina, relying upon the immense prestige of their little State sovereignty, even after the State was invaded, believed that the capital was safe. Already, during the war, thousands of citizens from Charleston and other places, in order to avoid the possibility of danger, had sought the retirement of its beautiful shady streets and supposed impregnable walls. The population of Columbia had thus increased, in two or three years, from fourteen thousand to thirty-seven thousand. Then Sherman appeared, driving clouds of fugitives before him into the city. Still the inhabitants cherished their delusion, until it was dispelled by the sound of the Federal cannon at their gates. The Confederate troops fell back into the city, followed by bursting shells.
Then commenced the usual scenes of panic. “Terrible was the press, the shock, the rush, the hurry, the universal confusion—such as might naturally be looked for, in the circumstances of a city from which thousands were preparing to fly, without previous preparations for flight, burdened with pale and trembling women, their children and portable chattels, trunks and jewels, family Bibles and the lares familiares. The railroad depot for Charlotte was crowded with anxious waiters upon the train, with a wilderness of luggage, millions, perhaps, in value, much of which was left finally and lost. Throughout Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, these scenes of struggle were in constant performance. The citizens fared badly. The Governments of the State and of the Confederacy absorbed all the modes of conveyance. Transportation about the city could not be had, save by a rich or favored few. No love could persuade where money failed to convince, and SELF, growing bloated in its dimensions, stared from every hurrying aspect, as you traversed the excited and crowded streets. In numerous instances, those who succeeded in getting away, did so at the cost of trunks and luggage; and, under what discomfort they departed, no one who did not see can readily conceive.”[[19]]