Feb. 8, 1820 - Feb. 14, 1891

by E. Chris Evans

When Sherman came to Columbia, South Carolina, secession's hotbed became a bed of coals

Putting to rest the questions about his sanity that had darkened the pages of the same newspapers not so long ago, Sherman had backed up his contention that the Confederacy was a hollow shell with an army that posed no real threat. General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate army's second-highest-ranking field general, described Sherman's army as the best "since the days of Julius Caesar."

As Sherman loomed at the edge of South Carolina 5 a ital city, he was intent on repaying this "cradle of secession" for its role in plunging the country into a bloody four-year war. In fact, his whole army was "burning ~f an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance," he wrote to Major General Henry W. Halleck. As the blue-clad troops marched in their long-strided Western gait, they chanted:

Hail Columbia, happy land!

If I don't burn you, I'll be damned.

"I almost tremble at her fate," Sherman wrote of the capital, "but [I] feel that she has deserved all that seems in store for her."

For the Carolinas Campaign, Sherman had made changes to the military organization he had led through Georgia. That force consisted of 4,400 cavalrymen commanded by Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick; the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Major General Oliver O. Howard, with the XV Corps under Major General John A. Logan and the XVII Corps under Major General Francis P. Blair, Jr.; and the Army of Georgia, commanded by Major General Henry W Slocum, with the XIV under Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis and the XX Corps under 55-year-old Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.

On February 16, as Sherman stood at the Congaree River overlooking Columbia, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard's Confederate defense waited somewhere beyond the opposite bank. Beauregard commanded some elements of the Army of Tennessee, under Major General Carter Littlepage Stevenson, and cavalry units under Major Generals Joseph Wheeler and Matthew C. Butler. The cavalry had recently been placed under the overall command of Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, a native South Carolinian. Before his promotion, Hampton had made it clear he would not serve under Wheeler, even though Wheeler had seniority Wheeler took great offense to being placed under Hampton, an act tantamount to demotion, but he continued to serve loyally.

The day before Sherman arrived at the river, Colonel George G. Dibrell's division of Wheeler's Corps—composed of Colonel William S. McLemore's Tennesseans and Colonel William C.P. Breckinridge's Kentuckians— had confronted the advancing bluecoats eight miles south of the city. But they were outmanned and outgunned by Brigadier General Charles R. Woods's division of Logan's corps and its supporting two batteries of artillery Faced with the distinct possibility of being flanked, the Confederate horsemen fell back to previously prepared earthworks at the Congaree Creek, which empties into the Congaree River. The Rebels, fighting dismounted, held this position until 2:30 P.M. Again in danger of being flanked, the command unsuccessfully attempted to burn the bridge over the creek and then remounted and withdrew to Columbia, passing north through the city and going into camp west of the nearby Broad River Bridge.

That night, Logan's corps, which had advanced several miles after crossing the Congaree Creek Bridge, joined with Blair's corps. Howard's army was now in position to attack Columbia itself, just several miles away On the defensive side, Confederates burned the two bridges into Columbia: the span over the Saluda River near the city's textile factory and the covered, wooden Congaree River Bridge.

Columbia lies in the gently rolling countryside along the Congaree River near the confluence of the Saluda and the Broad Rivers. Inhabited by 8,052 people at the war's start, by 1865 that figure had swelled to more than 20,000. Refugees from Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, as well as families from Augusta, Georgia, had rushed to the area as the approaching war threatened their homes. Like Columbia's permanent residents, they believed the city was strategically unimportant and therefore safe from the Union army. As late as February 9, the local newspaper, the South Carolinian, had pronounced that there was "no real tangible cause" to suspect that Sherman was headed their way.

By 1865 the city was home to the Confederacy's printing operations and mint, as well as to 14 banks and "Camp Sorghum," a military prison designed to hold 500 inmates but crowded with 1,300. (The prisoners had named the facility for its monotonous fare of sorghum and cornmeal.) Columbia also had an arsenal, which together with the Citadel in Charleston formed the South Carolina Military Academy. Factories within the city produced much-needed military supplies, while nearby, at the city's northern edge, the large Saluda factory produced yarn and a coarse cotton cloth used for Rebel army uniforms. All had been established in the city because of the widespread feeling of safety. But security was an illusion, for Sherman's entire army was now consolidated at the city's limits. Time had run out for Columbia.

On February 13 Confederate authorities began to realize what lay ahead. That day and the next, the prisoners at "Camp Sorghum," except for a few who escaped, were moved by rail to Charlotte. Also, orders came to pack and ship out the arsenal's equipment and supplies. On the whole, however, evacuation efforts were too little and too late.

Confusion, chaos, and disorder seized the citizenry of Columbia as they began to realize their fate. Hundreds of citizens attempted to flee. Loaded down with their baggage, they struggled to board the few departing trains. One of the last to leave carried almost 1,000 people. Those stranded fled on foot or tried to rent carriages or wagons. Only the richest citizens could afford to hire livery, though, and one man's offer of $500 for the use of a wagon went unanswered. Aggravating the transportation shortage was the effort to remount Matthew Butler's cavalrymen, who had arrived in Columbia without mounts. Almost every horse in the area had already been donated, sold, or surrendered into service for Butler's use.

A key ingredient in the disaster that was about to befall Columbia was the abundance of alcoholic beverages stored in the city. When the Rebels abandoned the city, they left behind a large supply of government medical whiskey and the extensive stocks of the city's wine and whiskey merchants. Mayor T. J. Goodwyn realized the potential for trouble and urged Beauregard and Hampton either to destroy or remove the libations. Both generals agreed they had no authority to take such action. They may have been legally correct, but their decision had a disastrous effect on the city.

On February 14 Beauregard ordered that all cotton be moved outside the city and burned to prevent its use by the Federal government. But the same lack of transportation that had hindered evacuation efforts prevented this order from being carried out. Instead, authorities emptied the warehouses and stacked the thousands of bales in the streets, informing the citizenry that the fiber would be burned there.

Notified that the jute-wrapped cotton could not be removed from the city, General Hampton urged Beauregard not to proceed with the burning. A strong wind was blowing from the northwest, and he feared the flames might spread and endanger the city. Beauregard agreed.

On the morning of February 16, cannon shots rang out from Lexington Heights, which overlooked the capital city and the still-smoking remains of the Congaree River Bridge. Captain Francis DeGress of Company H of the 1st Illinois Light Artillery had unlimbered a section of his 20-pounder Parrott guns and was shelling the city. DeGress had the distinction of being the only artillerist to fire upon two Confederate state capitols and the first to fire into Atlanta.

Six of De Cress's shells struck the unfinished capitol in Columbia, leaving scars that are still visible today. Other shells were directed at the South Carolina Railroad Depot, temporarily protected by 2,000 bales of cotton, and at groups of cavalry that gathered in the streets. Still others were fired to disperse fugitive slaves who were stealing bags of corn and meal from the depot. Major Thomas W Osborn, chief of artillery for the Army of the Tennessee, wrote that the fire "cleared the streets of cavalry in quick time..., [and] we amused ourselves in shelling the town and seeing the people scatter about the streets."

Sherman later wrote that he ordered DeGress to cease his fire into the city after "bursting a few shells near the depot... [and] three shots at the unoccupied State-House." De Cress's official report for February simply but tellingly reports to the contrary: "Feb. 16th, fired 100 rounds into Columbia."

Sherman ordered the XVII Corps to make a feint at the burned Congaree River Bridge and instructed the XV Corps to march up the western bank of the Congaree River to a point on the Saluda one mile above its confluence with the Broad. At that point sat the Saluda cloth factory and the smoking ruins of the nearby bridge. Logan had orders to cross the Saluda on pontoons, advance, and secure the wooden two-way bridge over the Broad. His corps would then cross the bridge to the east bank. From there, it would march the remaining short distance south into the city.

By noon on February 16, Union Major General William B. Hazen and his division of Logan's corps arrived at the Saluda factory. Immediately, the 30th Ohio and 55th Illinois Infantry Regiments crossed the Saluda to defend engineers who were building the pontoon bridge. Rebel sharpshooters, the same scrappy troopers of Colonel Dibrell's division who had contested General Woods's division at Congaree Creek a day earlier, were delaying the bridge work with a harassing fire.

When the pontoon bridge was finally completed, the remainder of Hazen's division crossed to join comrades and engage the dismounted horsemen. As the Tennesseans and Kentuckians, armed with their Navy Colt revolvers and Springfield and Enfield rifles, started to withdraw over the wooden Broad River Bridge, Wheeler ordered the structure's resin-soaked western end ignited. Some 30 men of the Kentucky Brigade, making a final stand some 100 yards from the bridge, were unaware that the bridge would be burned out from under them. Alerted by the smoke billowing around the structure, they beat a hasty retreat, crossing the bridge through dense smoke and searing flames. Most of those who succeeded in crossing were burned, many seriously.

In the city that night, martial law was not enough to quash the robbery, pillage, and public drunkenness that had become common. Hampton had failed to post guards to protect the cotton, and Confederate Major Nathaniel R. Chambliss, who had arrived in Columbia on February 14 to "take charge of all ordnance stores," stated that as the rabble were stripping the warehouses and railroad depots during the night of February 16, "the city was illuminated with burning cotton." Across the Congaree River, Sherman was issuing fateful instructions—Special Field Orders No. 26—which read in part, "General Howard will... occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops; but will spare libraries, asylums, and private dwellings." Howard bestowed the honor of carrying out this order upon Sherman's former command, the XV Corps.

At dawn Colonel Stone's Hawkeyes again began skirmishing with parts of Dibrell's command along the Broad River. Downstream, but not actively involved at the moment, were General Stevenson's Westerners of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, who had arrived late on the 15th and had joined the cavalry in firing at Stone's men that night. At 9:00 A.M. some of Dibrell's Rebel cavalrymen, in position on Broad River Road north of Columbia, were surprised when Mayor Goodwyn and three aldermen arrived on their way to surrender the city. After one final brief engagement with the 31st Iowa, the exhausted horse soldiers halted their fire, mounted, and proceeded northeast on Winnsboro Road toward Killian's Mill.

Hampton, in sole command on the scene since Beauregard's departure from the city on the 16th, ordered Dibrell's division and the veterans of Hood's army to Winnsboro. He then instructed Butler's cavalry, still posted south of the city, to move by the route of the Charlotte Railroad along the eastern edge of Columbia to join the other Rebel forces. As the troopers passed out of town between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M.. they burned the railroad depot on Blanding Street.

Thus ended all organized Confederate resistance to Sherman at Columbia. With the exceptions of Wheatons Battery of Butler's Corps, who on February 16 and 17 had harassed Union troops from the east side of the Congaree River, and Stevenson's firing on Stone's men before the Broad River had been crossed, the active defense of Columbia had been made solely by Colonel Breckinridge's Kentucky cavalrymen and Colonel McLemore's Tennessee troopers.

General Johnston, at the time of the Mexican War, said, "There is no comfort like that of going into battle with the certainty of winning." Wheeler's tired cavalrymen never enjoyed that comfort, but they never stopped trying. Engaged to some degree with Sherman's forces almost every day of the Union advance into South Carolina, these Rebels proved that their commander's sobriquet of "Fighting Joe" was apt indeed.
Shortly before 10:00 A.M. Stone informed Sherman and Howard that the mayor had come to surrender the city. Sherman, through Howard, ordered Stone to accept the offer and enter the city at once. Howard assured Stone that the remainder of the XV Corps would follow immediately upon completion of the bridge. As Stone's blue-clad infantrymen entered Columbia, Rebel cavalrymen of the 4th Tennessee, serving as provost marshal, withdrew from the city.

The Confederate command had rescinded the order to burn the cotton, but not until that very morning. There was no time for the new order to be published in the newspapers and, given the prevailing confusion, it was impossible to notify every command and soldier of the change in plans. A mere three hours after the
rescinding order was issued, Stone and his men entered Columbia. Cotton was burning in the streets.
As Stone moved into "Cotton Town," the city's poor northwestern section, he heard gunfire. He would later learn that Union Brigadier General William W Belknap of the XVII Corps had sent a group of men from two regiments of his brigade across the Congaree River and into Columbia, and it was they who were doing the shooting. Lieutenant Colonel Justin C. Kennedy of Belknap's 13th Iowa Infantry and some of his men placed their regimental flags on the city's old and new statehouses. And the banner of Belknap's 32d Illinois Infantry hung from the bell tower of the city hall. When Stone reached the center of the city, he promptly replaced the XVII Corps regimental banners on the statehouses with the Stars and Stripes. Not since December 20, 1860, had "Old Glory" flown over the "Cradle of Secession."

In the lawlessness and chaos that had prevailed during the preceding days, fugitive slaves and other looters had absconded with large amounts of whiskey. The availability of alcohol was exceeded only by the thirst of Sherman's soldiers. Stone related that as his men marched into the downtown area late in the morning of February 17, "the sidewalks were lined with negroes of every age, sex, and condition, holding in their arms vessels of every conceivable size and shape, filled with almost every conceivable kind of liquor." With the hope of welcoming their blue-clad liberators in style, the fugitive slaves offered wine, whiskey, and other liquor to the infantrymen. Stone's men had had little sleep or food for 24 hours, and some 30 percent of them were drunk within the first hour.

Stone appropriated city hall for use as his headquarters and appointed the 31st Iowa's Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah W. Jenkins as provost marshal. Jenkins posted sentries at public buildings and, when petitioned by residents, provided guards to protect private homes. In an attempt to quell the drunken rowdyism, offending soldiers were arrested. All this was accomplished by the time the pontoon bridge was completed.

Shortly before noon, Sherman, Howard, and Logan rode with their staffs into downtown Columbia. "A high and boisterous wind was prevailing from the north," Sherman recalled, "and flakes of cotton (from the stacked cotton bales which had been cut open) were flying about in the air and lodging in the limbs of the trees, reminding us of a Northern snow-storm." The entourage was closely followed by the remaining divisions of the XV Corps. Except for Stone's Iowans, who were stationed at various posts, Logan's divisions marched through Columbia and made camp about a mile beyond the city. The men were not restricted to camp, and many drifted back, especially as night fell. Blair's XV11 Corps did not enter the city limits, but rather crossed the Broad and bivouacked for the night four miles out Winnsboro Road.

Sherman received a mixed reception from the populace as he rode into town past the burning cotton bales. For the most part the white citizens remained in their homes, stealing a view of the feared "Tecumseh" through shuttered windows or from behind drapes. The few exceptions were ladies of Northern birth or of Union sympathy who waved handkerchiefs from windows or balconies. The fugitive slaves were another story. In groups along the streets, they cheered, sang, and danced in celebration of their new freedom. Many of them—some crying, "Glory! Glory!" and "Our Savior"—swarmed around Sherman's horse and reached to touch him, while a great many others were freely dispensing buckets of liquor. New York Herald correspondent David P. Conyngham described the scene: "Ringing cheers and shouts echoed far and wide, mingled with the martial music of the bands as they played 'Hail Columbia,' 'Yankee Doodle,' and other national airs."

The mayor approached Sherman to express concern for the safety of his city. "I told him then not to be uneasy, that we did not intend to stay long, and had no purpose to injure the private citizens or private property," Sherman wrote. Upon parting, he reassured the mayor that efforts had been made to keep the city secure. Still, certain public buildings would be burned, he said, though the burning would be postponed until the winds had died down because he did not wish to destroy "one particle" of private property.

Sherman and Howard hastily inspected the downtown area, stopping at Alexander's Foundry and the remains of the South Carolina Railroad Depot. Warned that Confederate cavalry had been spotted on a hill to the east, the generals headed back into town. At about 1:30 P.M., as they approached the statehouse, Sherman called Howard's attention to several apparently drunken Union soldiers. He ordered Howard to deal with the matter and then continued on his way.

Howard determined that the men were indeed drunk and ordered General Woods, who was leading the remainder of the 1st Division through town, to place the offenders under guard. Further observation in the area revealed cases of soldiers assisting citizens to extinguish fires in the cotton bales. On the whole, it appeared that although there were individual acts of vandalism and destruction, the general situation was under control.

As more cases of drunkenness and riotous behavior developed, it became obvious to Howard that Stone's command was no longer able to control matters. Crowds of escaped prisoners, soldiers, and fugitive slaves were now moving through the streets, looting and starting fires. Not only was the provost guard spread thin, but also many of its own men were intoxicated. Taking everything into consideration, Howard sent an order to Logan to replace the provost guard. Perhaps Howard can be faulted for not acting sooner, but his motives cannot be questioned.

The order to replace the provost guard came at about 6:00 P.M., and Logan promptly sent Woods into action. Woods in turn assigned the peace-keeping task to the 1st Brigade, commanded by his brother, Colonel William B. Woods. He spelled out the mission quite plainly: the 1st Brigade was not only to relieve Stone and his men, but also to sweep drunken and disorderly soldiers from the streets. Because Howard did not emphasize speed, however, General Woods did not either. So it was nearly 8:00 P.M. before the brigade marched into Columbia from its camp outside town. When it arrived, the main district was already in flames.

Colonel Woods faced entirely new circumstances. Reacting to the new situation, he ordered his troops "to stop the fire," aborting the mission to clear the streets of riotous soldiers. His brother soon arrived on the scene, and so did Logan and Howard, who promptly began giving orders to civilians and soldiers in an attempt to control the flames.

Sherman heard about the situation around this time. According to Sherman, a staffer who had witnessed the scene told him that a "block of buildings directly opposite the burning cotton of that morning was on fire, and that it was spreading...." He added that Colonel Woods was there "with plenty of men trying to put the fire out, or, at least, to prevent its extension."

Throughout the evening, Sherman continued to receive reports about the fire. By 11:00 P.M. he could "see the flames rising high in the air, and could hear the roaring of the fire" from his quarters. Accompanied by his aide, Colonel Lewis M. Dayton, he mounted his horse and rode to the statehouse area, where he found Howard, Logan, Hazen, and the Woods brothers giving orders to control what a Confederate observer outside the city described as "one great sea of fire." The Union officers and men worked hard to prevent the fire from spreading, "but so long as the high wind prevailed, it was simply beyond human possibility," wrote Sherman. It was approximately 2:00 A.M. when the fierce winds began to subside, and the tired and sooty fire-fighters stopped the blaze's progress.

Authority over the carousing blue-coats again became the top priority. An order went out to Hazen to supply a brigade from his division to assist Colonel Woods and his exhausted men. At 3:00 A.M., about six hours after the original attempt to gain order, Brigadier General John M. Oliver, commander of Hazen's 3d Brigade,
marched his Midwesterners into fire-blackened downtown Columbia. In restoring order, some 370 people were arrested and 32 were shot, two of whom were killed. By 5:00 the rioting was under control.

The light of the rising sun filtered through smoke-laden air on February 18 to reveal a surreal scene of destruction. The downtown area was totally desolated. Businesses, hotels, public buildings, a Catholic convent, and nearby residences were nearly all reduced to ashes. Rubbish, furniture, and the abandoned spoils of looters littered the streets.

How much of the city was destroyed varies by account. Many, mostly Southern sympathizers, maintain that two-thirds of Columbia was burned that night. A count of destroyed buildings, however, suggests rather that two-thirds of the city was still standing.

The sleepless Howard, with Sherman's blessing and with the mayor's assistance, set out to find shelter for those whose houses had been burned. Before the day's end, the homeless had been placed in officers' quarters, dormitory rooms, and other buildings at the Arsenal Academy, as well-as in vacant homes of those who had fled Columbia in the days before the occupation.

Concerned that some Union soldiers might make good on their threat to burn the remainder of Columbia, Howard ordered tight control, including the arrest of any off-duty soldier found on the streets after 5:00 P.M. Some soldiers and fugitive slaves continued to scavenge through the ashes, but vigilant provost marshals kept the remainder of the occupation orderly.

Once Columbia had been subdued, Sherman, as he had done previously in Mississippi and Georgia, worked as hard at reconciliation as he had at destruction. At the request of a delegation that visited him on Sunday, February 19, he arranged for ail his 1 army's leftover food and supplies to be delivered to the mayor. In addition, he ordered that 500 head of cattle, a supply of salt, medicine, and enough cable to operate a flatboat across the river be given to the city. And to ensure that city authorities could enforce law and order, 100 muskets were left along with a supply of ammunition. Drawing on the experience of his victorious' army, Sherman suggested that the mayor organize foraging parties to gather food.

While recovery actions were under way, the Union soldiers were busy destroying captured materiel. They smashed and burned railroad rolling stock and supplies, wrecked 60 hand presses used to print Confederate money, and found a great quantity of Confederate monev that the men spent and gambled. They also destroyed more than two tons of printed government forms and stationery, along with machinery from the governments armory, foundries, mills, and various tool and freight sheds.

Next, the buildings that housed those stores, buildings that had escaped the flames of the 17th, were put to the torch. All railroads within 15 miles of the city received the normal "Sherman treatment" of ripping up rails and bending them over burning ties. In a final act of destruction, Charles R. Woods's troops gathered the 1,370 bales of unburned cotton that remained in Columbia and fired them.

Almost immediately, Hampton blamed Sherman for the city's burning. "You have permitted, if you have not ordered" the destruction, Hampton charged. Sherman rebutted the accusation in his official report of the Carolina Campaign: "I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire..., and without hesitation I charge General Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia... from folly and want of sense, in filling it with lint, cotton, and tinder."

There is no question that the cotton bales were burning or smoldering before the Union soldiers arrived. Some 30 minutes before Colonel Stone had arrived with his men, Lieutenant Henry C. McArthur of Belknap's staff noted that he saw the smoking bales when he entered the city to raise the XVII Corps' flags. At noon, as Sherman himself entered the city's market area, Stone's men found it necessary to remove fugitive slaves from the sidewalk to allow their army commander to avoid the burning cotton bales in the middle of the street. Confederate Major Chambliss described burning cotton that illuminated the city in the early morning hours of the 17th. Finally, Southern author William Gilmore Simms described the fire at the city jail, noting that it "had been preceded by that of some cotton piled in the streets."

Just as sure as the fire preceded Sherman's men, blue-coated arsonists helped spread the conflagration, particularly after darkness fell. Historian John E Marszalek addresses the controversy in his book Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order (1993). "Neither Sherman nor anyone else was solely responsible for the fire," he writes. "It was an accident of war. Hampton and his soldiers set fire to the cotton bales that fueled the fire, but it was released Southern civil prisoners, former slaves, and some Union soldiers, many of these groups intoxicated by the liquor provided by townspeople or stolen from storage areas, who set other fires." In a nutshell, wrote one historian, the burning of Columbia was caused by "cotton, whiskey, and wind."

Sherman forever remained convinced that the cotton the Confederates left burning on the morning of February 17 was the main cause of that night's devastating fire. In the early 1870s, the Mixed Commission on British and American Claims closed the book on the issue. It concluded that blame "was not to be ascribed to intention or default of either Federal or Confederate officers."

Of the countless words spent on this subject over the years, Sherman's response to an attorney's question before that commission probably sums up the situation best. "Though I never ordered it and never wished it," Sherman wrote, "I have never shed many tears over the event, because I believe it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war."