SOUTH CAROLINA: Who Was Really Responsible for the Burning of Columbia?
COLUMBIA, SC — The blaze that destroyed much of Columbia in 1865 is considered the seminal event in the history of South Carolina’s capital. But the debate over who’s responsible for the conflagration has been raging as hot as the fire for 150 years.
Illustration of the burning of Columbia from the April 8, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly. IMAGE COURTESY HISTORIC COLUMBIA
Most blame is leveled at Gen. William T. Sherman, the intense, red-headed Union general known to his men as “Uncle Billy,” whose blatant war on civilians in 1864 and 1865 left a swath of destruction through Georgia and the Carolinas. He torched Atlanta. He orchestrated the fiery March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. And he burned Columbia. Right?
It’s not that simple.
“Everyone wants a tidy answer,” said John Sherrer, director of cultural resources for Historic Columbia. “But there are no tidy answers. None of us were there. It’s like wrestling quicksilver.”
Drunken soldiers. Gale force winds. Retreating Confederates. Union prisoners. Smoldering cotton. The chaos of war. Did they all contribute to the blaze? It depends on who you talk to.
But here are the undisputed facts:
Sherman’s army of 60,000 men approached the city after weeks on the march from Savannah, and Beaufort, slogging through swamps, bridging rivers and looting and burning homes and whole towns as they approached.
After a short battle at Congaree Creek near what is now Cayce, a corps of that Army arrayed before the city and began shelling it.
On Feb. 17, 1865, Union soldiers entered Columbia after its surrender by Mayor Thomas Jefferson Goodwyn, and began drinking and looting. The next morning, more than a third of the city was a smoldering ruin.
The rest is not so clear.
We asked a panel of experts – historians and authors – to address key points.
Did retreating Confederate soldiers under the command of Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton, a Columbia native, contribute to the blaze?
Thousands of highly flammable and valuable cotton bales, each weighing 500 pounds, had been stacked in the streets – particularly Main Street, then known as Richardson Street – in preparation to be burned to keep them out of the hands of federal troops. The intent was published in the press.
But on the night of the 16th, Hampton ordered troops to not burn the cotton because there wasn’t transportation to haul the bales out of the city and the wind was dangerously high. But when Sherman and Union Gen. O.O. Howard entered the city at about 10 a.m. on the 17th, some bales were on fire. Sherman had to ride his horse on the sidewalk of Richardson Street to avoid the flames.
“It was the most prosperous part of the city,” said Joe Long, curator of education at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. “It wasn’t the part that you would want burned. It was foolish to stack it there.”
Retreating Confederates looted stores before leaving. Confederate commanders failed to destroy the sea of alcohol in the city, booze that Union soldiers – hungry, cold and ragged from the long winter march – swarmed on.
“It was like pouring kerosene around your house and leaving,” Long said.
What part did deserters, Union prisoners, freed blacks and convicts play in the fire?
When Confederate troops left the city, all manner of incarcerated and enslaved people found themselves free.
“A Union prisoner’s account said the (cotton) fires were set in retaliation for Camp Sorghum,” a prison camp in Lexington County near what is now Riverbanks Zoo, said Tom Elmore, author of the book “A Carnival of Destruction: Sherman’s Invasion of South Carolina.” “Every Confederate account but one said the cotton wasn’t burning when they left. If the Confederate accounts are correct, the only possible explanation would be escaped prisoners.”
Patricia McNeely, author of the new book “Sherman’s Flame & Blame Campaign,” said it doesn’t matter. The cotton fires that morning didn’t cause the inferno that night. They had already been put out.
“Sherman was always looking for scapegoats,” she said. “He was always coming up with an excuse. ‘Hampton burned the cotton. Hampton didn’t destroy the alcohol.’ The blame game was in full blast.”
But the extremely high winds could have rekindled the cotton, no matter who set it, said Fritz Hamer, an historian at the University of South Carolina’s South Caroliniana Library.
“It was a terrible, terrible miscalculation by Hampton,” he said. “And the wild card is the huge gale.”
Three rockets reportedly were fired in the air after sundown on the 17th. Was this a signal to burn the city?
Several prominent citizens, including Mayor Goodwyn, reported seeing the rockets or being warned that when the rockets appeared to leave their homes for safety. Sherman and Howard later testified that the three rockets – red, white and blue – were fired each night to mark the final locations of the three corps.
“I’m very skeptical that this was a signal to burn the city,” Hamer said.
But Elmore countered that solders, many drunk, could have seen the routine, end-of-the-day rockets as an unofficial signal for mayhem.
“Either by accident or design, the rockets are regarded as the sign to start the fire,” he said.
Why were the homes of prominent families targeted?
During and after the conflagration on the night of the 17th, Union soldiers torched the homes of prominent citizens. The three-story “fireproof” home of Dr. Robert W. Gibbs on Plain Street, now Hampton Street, across from the First Baptist Church, survived the main fire but was looted and torched, destroying world-class collections of books, paintings and historical and natural artifacts.
Wade Hampton’s plantation, Millwood, four miles from the city, was torched, as were the homes of Goodwyn, Confederate Secretary of the Treasury George A. Trenholm, Dr. Daniel Trezevant and many others.
“There is little doubt that (Union soldiers) would be out for revenge,” Hamer said, noting that Columbia was where the first Secession Convention in the South was held. “In the minds of the northern soldiers, these were the men that started the war.”
But McNeely noted that humble structures, stores and even a convent also were torched. Some Union soldiers also spread the fire using turpentine-soaked cotton as torches and impeded firefighting efforts by cutting fire hoses.
“They were destroying almost everything in their path” throughout the march from Savannah, she said. A Union cavalry general “called Barnwell ‘Burn-well’ after he torched it.”
So, was the torching of houses a political statement or a means of stealing loot?
“Yes,” Elmore said.
Were there lots of civilian casualties?
Despite the widespread destruction of property and looting, there were no significant civilian casualties or any civilian deaths, aside from two people killed during the shelling the day before the fire.
“We don’t see wholesale slaughter,” Long said. “It’s not Berlin (in World War II). It’s not Nanking.”
McNeely said the lack of civilian casualties showed that Sherman had a high level of control over his drunken men. “He was OK with burning and pillaging and stealing, but he wasn’t OK with murder and rape.”
However, casualties among Union soldiers were high, but not from combat with the Confederates. There were at least two recorded instances of Union troops killing their own soldiers for rioting. “And I suspect that number was much higher,” Elmore said.
About 50 northern soldiers died when a warehouse filled with gunpowder exploded. That building now houses Jillian’s in the Vista. And Union troops arrested about 3,500 civilians and northern troops for rioting, “including officers of every grade,” Elmore said.
Hamer added: “And don’t forget, many Union soldiers helped fight the fire.”
How much of the city was burned?
In 1865, noted poet, historian, attorney and novelist William Gilmore Simms compiled a house-by-house and building-by-building inventory and said about three-fifths of the city was destroyed. Mayor Goodwyn estimated four-fifths.
In 1976, in his book “Sherman and the Burning of Columbia,” Western Kentucky University historian Marion B. Lucas, a South Carolina native and graduate of USC, calculated that about one-third of the city was destroyed.
“It’s become a new controversy,” said Hamer, who offered that the primary sources, Goodwyn and Simms, might have exaggerated. “When you go through a traumatic event like that, you’re going to, naturally, inflate the destruction. They had an ax to grind.”
McNeely said she believes Simms and Goodwyn: “There’s been quite a movement to revise the history.”
Hamer responded: “The primary sources have huge, biased perspectives. It’s an issue we’ll debate forever.”
Sherrer, Elmore and Long also put the number between one-third and one-half.
“The theory that (Simms) may have double counted is as good as any,” Elmore said. “And I think it’s accidental.”
Did Sherman order the town burned?
Our experts agreed that Sherman never issued an order for the city be torched; but, he didn’t really seem to mind that it happened.
Sherman had allowed his foragers wide berth for destruction in Atlanta, during the March to the Sea and on the approach to Columbia, Long said. “When he ordered destruction, he wasn’t embarrassed about it. But it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle. Nothing was going to stop those soldiers from burning the city.”
Sherman was “obviously a cunning officer, but you also have natural factors of fire and wind that were too great for him to control,” Sherrer said.
Hamer noted that Sherman actively tried to distance himself from the event in official correspondence and testimony after the blaze. “He couldn’t control his army of 60,000, who had been allowed to forage to feed themselves. And he and his high command underestimated the ability of the men to create havoc. I’m not absolving Sherman. But with that invading Army, something was going to happen.”
Elmore added that Union soldiers viewed South Carolina more harshly than the rest of the South, because the war started here. “It was like the anger for the Taliban on Sept. 12 (after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.). It was a perfect storm. I don’t think Sherman ordered it. I think he allowed it.”
McNeely said Sherman knew all along that his men would burn the city, but failed to issue strict orders against it, as he had in Savannah. “It was part of his strategy. And when he finally did (stop the destruction), he said, ‘You should be grateful that I saved what’s left.’ He was in total control.”
–The State
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Pennsylvania: Civil War Skull Actually Ancient Native American
A skull that was purportedly that of a Civil War soldier found at Gettysburg that was briefly advertised for auction last year is actually the skull of a Native American who likely lived about 700 years ago.
Officials from Gettysburg National Military Park and the Gettysburg Foundation are determining the proper disposition of an 800-year-old skull, shown to be that of a Native American male from the U.S. southwest, that was donated to the park after it was yanked from an auction last June. (PennLive file photo)
The skull was withdrawn from the auction last June after protests from various groups, including the National Park Service in Gettysburg. The skull was offered as a donation Gettysburg National Military Park (GETT) and the Gettysburg Foundation accept the donation on the park’s behalf.
According to the park and foundation a team of forensic anthropologists at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History examined the skull and determined:
- the remains are not those of an American Civil War soldier
- the remains are those of an Native American male, aged 22-25
- the remains are likely dated to approximately 1269 – 1299 AD;the remains are likely from the American Southwest
- andthe remains were not removed from the Josiah Benner farm at Gettysburg.
“When we learned of these remains in June we were immediately interested in their respectful treatment, whether they were from a soldier who died at Gettysburg or not,’ said Gettysburg National Military Park Superintendent Ed Clark in a news release. “This result is not what we expected but we stand by our commitment to be respectful of these remains, fulfill our responsibilities, and find the best course of action for their final resting place.”
The park and foundation are still determining the appropriate disposition of remains. An investigation into the provenance of the remains is underway.
An examination of 13 artifacts that were to be sold with the skull determined that none were authentic to the Civil War period, according to the foundation and park.
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FLORIDA: The Civil War in Florida at 150
Eventually, the bloodshed ceased. That was 150 years ago — the end of the Civil War.
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered on April 9 of 1865, but it wouldn’t be until June before the last of Southern soldiery would lay down arms. In between, on April 14, President Abraham Lincoln would die by an assassin’s bullet.
Confederate soldiers hold their ground against the Union Army at the Ocklawaha River Raid Civil War Re-enactment and Living History Weekend at Marion County’s 4-H farm in Ocala in November 2006.
Lincoln’s quest of a nation undivided survived him, though more than 620,000 from both sides died in the effort.
“It’s important that we remember the past,” said Megan Mosley, curator at Gainesville’s Matheson Museum, which hosts the annual re-enactment of the Civil War Battle of Gainesville each August in Sweetwater Park behind the museum. “This is the exact battle site, well, as best we can determine.”
Florida was the third state to secede from the Union in 1861. The young state’s role was limited — mostly providing food and salt, used for preserving meat. Still, 16,000 Floridians fought; nearly 5,000 did not come home, according to most state histories.
A Florida Museum of History online exhibit notes: “Floridians fought in most of the major battles of the war, including the epic Battle of Gettysburg, where they suffered heavy casualties.”
There even were engagements big and small on Florida soil. Various websites, including the National Park Service andwww.americancivilwar.com, list 16 battles and more than 25 other skirmishes, raids and “affairs.”
One raid was on the Marshall Plantation east of Ocala in the waning days of the war; and there were two separate incidents in Gainesville, the First Gainesville Skirmish and the Battle of Gainesville, both in 1864.
The most significant battle fought in Florida was on Feb. 20, 1864, in a field aside Ocean Pond in Baker County east of Lake City: Olustee.
Here, 10,000 soldiers — about 5,000 on each side — fought a see-saw battle that, had the Union won, could have cut off Florida supply lines a year before Lee’s surrender. In 1895, veterans of the battle from both sides met again at Olustee to re-create their fight.
Today’s Blue-Grey Army will re-enact the battle for the 39th time this weekend at the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park.
Said Cody Gray, an officer in the Blue-Grey Army and a spokesman for the annual Olustree Festival and Re-Enactment in Lake City, “The reason we do this is so the memory of what happened here, the history and its significance, stays alive.
“Unless the next generation understands where they came from, then there’s no future,” he added. “This was a tragedy that happened in America because people could not agree, and we do not want to repeat that in the future.”
SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CIVIL WAR
(with emphasis on local and Florida involvement)
1860
Nov. 6 — Abraham Lincoln elected 16th president.
Dec. 20 — South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861
Jan. 10 — Florida the third state to secede.
January — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana secede; Texas secedes in February.
Feb. 22 — The Confederate States of America organized. Jefferson Davis appointed provisional president.
March 4 — Lincoln inaugurated.
April 12 — Southern forces fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The Civil War begins.
April — Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee secede.
Oct. 7 — Secessionist John Milton inaugurated as governor of Florida.
Oct. 9 — Confederates land on Santa Rosa Island off Florida, attack Fort Pickens. After a sharp fight, Confederates retreat.
1862
Feb. 22 — Davis inaugurated as Confederate president.
May 31-June 1 — Robert E. Lee assumes command of Army of Northern Virginia.
June 30-July 1 — Union gunboat enters Tampa Bay and fires on city, which refuses to surrender, forcing the gunboat to withdraw.
Sept. 17 — The Battle of Antietam, Maryland, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War.
Sept. 22 — Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in Confederate states.
Oct. 1-3 — Union attacks battery on bluffs over St. John’s River at Jacksonville; Confederates abandon position during the night.
1863
Jan. 1 — The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect.
July 1-3 — Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
Oct. 16-18 — Union ships bombard Fort Brooke in Tampa as diversion for landing party at Ballast Point; they march to Hillsborough River and seize several steamers.
Nov. 19 — Dedication of National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address.
Dec. 8 — Lincoln Issues Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, pardoning Southerners if they take an oath to the Union.
1864
Feb. 14 — First Gainesville Skirmish. Union raiders attempt to seize supplies and trains in Gainesville; repulsed by the 2nd Florida Cavalry.
Feb. 20 — Largest battle fought in Florida at Olustee, with over 5,000 men on each side. Confederates stop Union advance, driving Northern troops back to Jacksonville.
May 21 — 2nd Florida Cavalry sinks the USS Columbine in Battle of Horse Landing at Palatka, only known incident of cavalry unit capturing an enemy gunboat.
Aug. 17 — Battle of Gainesville. Union troops in Gainesville routed by 2nd Florida Cavalry.
Sept. 1 — Fall of Atlanta. Gen. William T. Sherman’s army occupies the city the following day.
Sept. 27 — Confederate force loses battle at Marianna.
Nov. 8 — Lincoln re-elected.
Dec. 10 — Sherman’s Army of Georgia arrives at Savannah, completing “March to the Sea.”
1865
Feb. 13 — Confederate unit stops Union raid in Levy County at Battle of Station Four at Cedar Key.
March 4 — Lincoln inaugurated for second term.
March 6 — Confederates hold off Union forces trying to cross St. Marks River at Natural Bridge near Tallahassee.
March 10 — Union raid burns a sugar mill at Marshall Plantation near Ocala. Only known Civil War action in Marion County.
April 1 – Florida Gov. John Milton commits suicide at home near Marianna.
April 9 — Battle of Appomattox Court House and Surrender. After an attempt to break through Union lines, Lee surrenders to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
April 14 — Lincoln assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Fort Sumter re-occupied by Union troops.
April 26 — Gen. Joseph Johnston surrenders the Army of Tennessee.
May 4 — Gen. Richard Taylor surrenders forces in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana.
May 10 — Confederate President Jefferson Davis captured near Irwinville, Georgia.
May 12 — The final battle of the Civil War at Palmito Ranch, Texas a Confederate victory.
May 26 — Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner surrenders Army of the Trans-Mississippi; terms agreed to on June 2. The Civil War officially ends.
(sources: nps.gov; floridamemory.com, civilwaracademy.com; Star-Banner archives)
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