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[367] not carried away, were killed. Provisions of all kinds were loaded on interminable trains of wagons, and what could not be thus taken was ruthlessly destroyed. For, as General Sherman openly said, in his address at Salem, Ill., ‘We were determined to produce results * * * to make every man, woman, and child in the South feel that if they dared to rebel against the flag of their country, they must die or submit.’ This is in striking contrast with his Hartford speech of June 8th, 1881, in which he says: ‘These orders were purposely most merciful, because I have not but most kindly feelings towards South Carolina, by reason of old associates and friends made before the war, some of whom were known to be in Columbia, and to whom I extended, personally and officially, every possible assistance.’

The facts of the case are these: On the 16th of February, the day on which Lieutenant-General Hampton received official news of his promotion, and was regularly assigned to the command of all the cavalry operating around Columbia, he gave it as his opinion, in a conference with General Beauregard, that, as the enemy was destroying cotton wherever he could find it on his march through South Carolina, it would be not only useless but, perhaps, dangerous to burn the cotton-bales, which, for want of time and a better place to put them, had been piled in the wide streets of Columbia. The reason then given by General Hampton was, that by burning the cotton, as was originally intended, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, we might set fire to neighboring buildings, and eventually endanger the whole city. As General Beauregard was aware that, owing to the destruction of the South Carolina Railroad by the enemy, the cotton then in Columbia could not be removed from its limits, he readily adopted General Hampton's suggestion, and, through the latter, issued at once explicit orders to that effect. Captain Rawlins Lowndes, General Hampton's adjutant at the time, was the officer who published and signed the orders we refer to, and saw to their prompt and faithful distribution among the troops.

This is corroborated by Generals Beauregard, Hampton, and Butler; by Colonel Otey; by Captain Lowndes; by Lieutenant Chisolm; by the various brigade and regiment commanders on duty that day; in fact, by every officer and private belonging to the Confederate forces then assembled in and around the

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Wade Hampton (5)
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