Sesquicentennial: Sherman occupies Columbia, South Carolina

150 years ago today, Willie T. Sherman's troops occupied Columbia.
Fires broke out almost immediately. Louisa McCord made of point of asking Union General Oliver Otis Howard (after whom Howard University was later named) for his assistance in getting his soldiers to stop their arson. Howard assured her that his soldiers were not setting the fires, but that abandoned cotton that Confederate General Wade Hampton's men has set ablaze as they left town was the culprit.
As McCord and Howard were talking, one of McCord's slaves informed McCord that a fire had broken out in a closed back room of the house. On investigation, McCord and Howard found the door latched. McCord asked Howard, "General, isn't it strange that cotton bolls could blow into a closed room, latch the door behind them and set fire to the house? Most strange."
Sherman's soldiers vandalized the statue of George Washington, by breaking the cane he was holding.

South Carolina declined to repair the vandalism but to remember the event by placing a plaque on the still-damaged statue's pedestal:

General William T. Sherman said:

“The amount of plundering, burning, and stealing done by our own army makes me ashamed of it. I would quit the service if I could for I fear we are drifting towards vandalism. Thus you and I and every commander must go through the war justly chargeable for our crimes.”

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Colonel Oscar Jackson, of the 63rd Ohio Infantry, noted in his diary on February 13:

“Going through South Carolina we are burning nearly all buildings that will burn.”

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In 1865, one of Sherman's Michigan soldiers wrote,

“You never heard of a more desolate country. I do not believe you can find food enough in S.C. to keep a dozen chickens over winter. I saw property destroyed until I was perfectly sick of it…and if this thing had been North I would bushwack until every man was dead or I was. If such scenes should be enacted through Michigan, I would never live as long as one of the invading army did. I do not blame the South and I shall not if they go to guerilla warfare.”

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New York war correspondent said:

“I hazard nothing in saying that three-fifths of the personal property of the counties we passed through were taken by Sherman’s army. As for wholesale burnings, pillage, and devastation committed in South Carolina, magnify all I have said of Georgia some fifty-fold, and then throw in an occasional murder…and you have a pretty good idea of the whole thing.”

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Hat-tip to Seebell for reminding me of the anniversary.

92tide said:

i hear the fall/winter tour rocked

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I think Atlanta could use another visit from old Willie T.

RammerJammer14 said:

In school they used to take us to the State House and show us where the Yankee cannon balls struck it. They are marked with gold stars.

Most of the period buildings burned from the cotton fires, but one of the old warehouses on Jarvis remains- it's been turned into a Publix. There are also a few destroyed mill sites on the Saluda around there where they used to make uniforms.

Sherman wasn't really a Carolina fan.

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No and neither were his troops. He pretty much let slip the dogs once the got into the Palmetto state.

I look at this as an American version of the Rough Wooing when Henry VIII beat the crap out of the Scots to get them to agree to marry Mary to his son Edward.
In the American case, burning and stealing your way across the south and then overthrowing elected state governments and replacing them military governors is an odd way to win back the loyalty of the subject population, but that was what you get when you fight against the will of the people.

TIDE-HSV said:

One great grandfather was in the 1st Alabama, his personal guard. However another great grandfather was a member of the Union League and all of his property was confiscated by the confederate state of Alabama, leaving him with no means of feeding his family. He had secreted enough food for the winter and the Union troops not only didn't forage - they protected the food from the marauding confederate squads. They did the same for the 50% or so of the settlers through this area which supported the Union. I have one great grandfather's diary, so I'm not speaking out of some dusty fourth-hand revision of history...

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I was just thinking of your family history as I posted this.
Was you great grandfather was Madison County? Was he an out-of-the-closet Unionist from the git go?
Perhaps he needed some help from Leroy Pope Walker. After serving as the Confederate Secretary of War (and being the man who offered to "offered to sop up all the spilled blood with a handkerchief"), Walker returned to Huntsville and defended north Alabama Unionists in court.