"SIR: A few days ago I saw in the published proceedings of Congress that a petition from Benjamin Kawles, of Columbia, South Carolina, asking for compensation for the destruction of his house by tho Federal army, in February, 1865, had been presented to the Senate, accompanied by a letter from Major-General Sherman. In this letter General Sherman uses the following language: 'The citizens of Columbia set fire to thousands of bales of cotton rolled out into the streets, and which were burning before we entered Columbia; I, myself, was in the city as early as nine o'clock, and I saw these fires, and knew that efforts were made to extinguish them, but a high and strong wind prevented. I gave no orders for the burning of your city, but, on the contrary, the conflagration resulted from the great imprudence of cutting the cotton bales, whereby the contents were spread to the wind, so that it became an impossibility to arrest the fire. I saw in your Columbia newspaper the printed order of General Wade Hampton, that on the approach of the Yankee army all the cotton should thus be burned, and, from what I saw myself, I have no hesitation in saying that he was the cause of the destruction of your city.'
"This charge, made against me by General Sherman, having been brought before the Senate of the United States, I am naturally most solicitous to vindicate myself before the same tribunal. But my State has no representative in that body. Those who should be her constitutional representatives there are debarred the right of entrance into those halls. There are none who have the right to speak for the South; none to participate in the legislation which governs her; none to impose the taxes she is called upon to pay, and none to vindicate her sons from misrepresentation, injustice, or slander. Under these circumstances, I appeal to you, in the confident hope you will use every effort to see that justice is done in this matter.
"I deny, emphatically, that any cotton was fired in Columbia by my order. I deny that the citizens 'set fire to thousands of bales rolled out into the streets.' I deny that any cotton was on fire when the Federal troops entered the city. I most respectfully ask of Congress to appoint a committee, charged with the duty of ascertaining and reporting all the facts connected with the destruction of Columbia, and thus fixing upon the proper author of that enormous crime the infamy he richly deserves. I am willing to submit the case to any honest tribunal. Before any such I pledge myself to prove that I gave a positive order, by direction of General Beauregard, that no cotton should be fired; that not one bale was on fire when General Sherman's troops took possession of the city; that he promised protection to the city, and that, in spite of his solemn promise, he burned the city to the ground, deliberately, systematically, and atrociously. I, therefore, most earnestly request that Congress may take prompt and efficient measures to investigate this matter fully. Not only is this due to themselves and to the reputation of the United States army, but also to justice and to truth. Trusting that you will pardon me for troubling you, I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"WADE HAMPTON."
Were this the only instance of such barbarity perpetrated by General Sherman's army, his effort to escape the responsibility might be more successful, because more plausible; but when the eulogists of his exploits note exultingly that "wide-spreading columns of smoke rose wherever the army went," when it is incontrovertibly true that the line of his march could be traced by the burning dwelling-houses and by the wail of women and children pitilessly left to die from starvation and exposure in the depth of winter, his plea of "not guilty" in the case of the city of Columbia can not free him from the reprobation which outraged humanity must attach to an act of cruelty which only finds a parallel in the barbarous excesses of Wallenstein's army in the Thirty Years' War, and which, even at that period of the world's civilization, sullied the fame of that otherwise great soldier.
In consequence of General Sherman's movements, it was considered advisable to evacuate Charleston (February 17th), that General Hardee's command might become available for service in the field; and thus that noble city and its fortresses, which the combined military and naval forces of the United States, during an eighteen months' siege, had failed to reduce, and which will stand for ever as imperishable monuments of the skill and fortitude of their defenders, were, on February 21st, without resistance, occupied by the Federal forces under General Q. A. Gillmore.
Fort Sumter, though it now presented the appearance of a ruin, was really better proof against bombardment than when first subjected to fire. The upper tier of masonry, from severe battering, had fallen on the outer wall, and shot and shell served only to solidify and add harder material to the mass. Over its rampart the Confederate flag defiantly floated until the city of Charleston was evacuated.
Every effort that our circumstances permitted was immediately and thenceforward made to collect troops for the defense of North Carolina. General Hood's army, the troops under command of General D. H. Hill at Augusta, General Hardee's force, a few thousand men under General Bragg, and the cavalry commands of Generals Hampton and Wheeler, constituted our entire available strength to oppose Sherman's advance. These were collected as rapidly as our broken communications and the difficulty of gathering and transporting supplies would permit.
After the fall of Columbia, General Beauregard, commanding the military department, retreated toward North Carolina. The Army of Tennessee (Hood's) was moving from the west to make a junction with the troops retiring from South Carolina. The two forces, if united with Hardee's command, then moving in the same direction, would, it was hoped, be able to make effective resistance to Sherman's advance. In any event it was needful that they should be kept in such relation to Lee's army as to make a junction with it practicable. In this state of affairs I was informed that General Beauregard, after his troops had entered North Carolina, had decided to march to the eastern part of that State. This would leave the road to Charlotte open to Sherman's pursuing column, which, interposing, would prevent the troops coming from the west from joining Beauregard, enable him to destroy our force in detail by the joint action of his own army and that of Schofield, commanding the district of Wilmington. The anxiety created by this condition of affairs caused me, after full correspondence with General Lee, to suggest to him to give his views to General Beauregard, and I sent to General Beauregard's headquarters the chief-engineer, General J. F. Gilmer, he being possessed fully of my opinions and wishes. General Beauregard modified his proposed movements so as to keep his forces on the left of the enemy's line of march until the troops coming from Hood's army could make a junction. These were the veteran commands of Stevenson, Cheatham, and Stewart. Lieutenant-General S. D. Lee, though he had not entirely recovered from a wound received in the Tennessee campaign, was at Augusta, Georgia, collecting the fragments of Hood's army to follow the troops previously mentioned. They had not moved together, and the first-named division had reached Beauregard's army in South Carolina.
Though it contained an implied compliment, General Lee was not a little disturbed by occasional applications made to have troops detached from his army to reënforce others. The last instance had been a call from General Beauregard for reënforcements from the Army of Virginia. He had always been attentive, and ready as far as he could, to meet the wants of other commands of our army, but at this time those who knew his condition could not suppose he had any men to spare; yet the fact of thinking so was a compliment to his success in resisting the large army which was assailing his small one. There had always been entire co-intelligence and accord between General Lee and myself, but the Congress about this time thought his power would be increased by giving him the nominal dignity of general-in-chief, under which he resumed, as far as he could, the general charge of armies from which, at his urgent solicitation, I had relieved him after he took command, in the field, of the Army of Northern Virginia.