“ [670] solemn promise, he burned the city to the ground, deliberately, systematically and atrociously.” The facts are, as we have seen, that Columbia was fired in twenty different places at one time; that several hours before the commencement of the fire, a Federal officer had given warning at the Ursuline Convent that Columbia was doomed; and that just before the conflagration a Federal soldier, pointing to a signal of rockets, declared to the Mayor that the city was to be fired. There are living witnesses to attest these facts. But it has also been pertinently asked: Why did Sherman's soldiers prevent the firemen from extinguishing the fire as they strove to do? Why did they cut the hose as soon as it was brought into the streets? Why did they not assist in extinguishing the flames? Why, with twenty thousand men encamped in the streets, did they suffer mere stragglers, as the incendiaries were represented, to succeed in a work of such extent Every circumstance shows that the conflagration was deliberately planned; that it was fed and protected by the soldiers; while the universal plundering simultaneous with it went unchecked, and was plainly part of the object attained through the means of fire. The burning of Columbia was but of a piece with Sherman's record, and the attempt to exculpate him in this particular is but little consistent and plausible in view of his general conduct from the moment when he entered South Carolina. He had burned six out of every seven farmhouses on the route of his march. Before he reached Columbia, he had burned Blackville, Graham, Ramberg, Buford's Bridge, Lexington, and had not spared the humblest hamlet. After he left Columbia, he gave to the flames the villages of Allston, Pomaria, Winnsboroa, Blackstock, Society Hill, and the towns of Camden and Cheraw. Surely when such was the fate of these places, the effort is ill-made to show that an exception was to be made in favour of the State capital of South Carolina, the especial and notorious object of the enemy's hate and revenge, and which, for days before the catastrophe, had been designated as “the promised boon of Sherman's army.”
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“ [670] solemn promise, he burned the city to the ground, deliberately, systematically and atrociously.” The facts are, as we have seen, that Columbia was fired in twenty different places at one time; that several hours before the commencement of the fire, a Federal officer had given warning at the Ursuline Convent that Columbia was doomed; and that just before the conflagration a Federal soldier, pointing to a signal of rockets, declared to the Mayor that the city was to be fired. There are living witnesses to attest these facts. But it has also been pertinently asked: Why did Sherman's soldiers prevent the firemen from extinguishing the fire as they strove to do? Why did they cut the hose as soon as it was brought into the streets? Why did they not assist in extinguishing the flames? Why, with twenty thousand men encamped in the streets, did they suffer mere stragglers, as the incendiaries were represented, to succeed in a work of such extent Every circumstance shows that the conflagration was deliberately planned; that it was fed and protected by the soldiers; while the universal plundering simultaneous with it went unchecked, and was plainly part of the object attained through the means of fire. The burning of Columbia was but of a piece with Sherman's record, and the attempt to exculpate him in this particular is but little consistent and plausible in view of his general conduct from the moment when he entered South Carolina. He had burned six out of every seven farmhouses on the route of his march. Before he reached Columbia, he had burned Blackville, Graham, Ramberg, Buford's Bridge, Lexington, and had not spared the humblest hamlet. After he left Columbia, he gave to the flames the villages of Allston, Pomaria, Winnsboroa, Blackstock, Society Hill, and the towns of Camden and Cheraw. Surely when such was the fate of these places, the effort is ill-made to show that an exception was to be made in favour of the State capital of South Carolina, the especial and notorious object of the enemy's hate and revenge, and which, for days before the catastrophe, had been designated as “the promised boon of Sherman's army.”
1866.
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