Sherman burns Columbia, 1865
February Eighteenth
We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system of our government. The Constitution formed by our fathers is that of the Confederate States, in their exposition of it; and, in the judicial construction it has received, we have a light which reveals its true meaning.
Jefferson Davis
(Inaugural Address)
Jefferson Davis inaugurated, 1861
Federal forces enter Charleston, S. C., 1865
February Nineteenth
Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who has mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
Sidney Lanier