No, this post is not about the war in Iraq, but it could be. All acts of aggression against a sovereign people might be described thus.This post is about Liberty.
On the day in 1865, she was raped, robbed, and murdered on the streets of my hometown, Columbia, South Carolina.
On that day, non-combatant residents in Columbia - black & white, slave & free, rich & poor - were terrorized, plundered, abused, ravished, and their homes and private property put to the torch by Federal troops.
This was not an act of war in the pejorative sense of the word. This was not collateral damage resulting from a heated battle between two opposing armies. This was a military invasion of an unarmed city and the conquest of a people — a war crime without precedence in our country’s history!
The responsibility for the burning of Columbia rests squarely on the shoulders of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, commander of the Federal forces.
Sherman's official report on the burning placed the blame on Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton III, who Sherman said had ordered the burning of cotton in the streets. Sherman later recanted this allegation and admitted lying in his Memoirs, Volume 11 page 287. He said, "In my official report of this conflagration I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly to shake the faith of his people in him, for he was in my opinion a braggart and professed to be the special champion of South Carolina."
In 1867 a chance meeting of former combatants occurred in Federal Governor Orr's office in Columbia. Gen. Howard, commander of the US 15th Corps of Sherman's army during the burning, was to be introduced to Gen. Hampton in the presence of many dignitaries. Gen. Hampton said, "Before I take your hand General Howard, tell me who burnt Columbia?" Gen. Howard replied, "It is useless to deny that our troops burnt Columbia, for I saw them in the act." (See Edwin J. Scott, Random Recollections of a Long Life. page 185; The Burning of Columbia, Charleston, SC, 1888, page 11.)
While some historians and other Northern apologist may dispute that Sherman was really responsible for the atrocity, those who were in the city during the invasion knew exactly who was responsible.
William Gilmore Simms, the world renowned Southern antebellum writer and father of Southern Literature, was in Columbia on those fateful days and recorded his own experience along with several other first hand accounts from the survivors.
Simms’s account was first published in the Columbia Phoenix, an aptly named newspaper that rose from the ashes of the beleaguered city. This account was later sanitized and toned down by Simms and subsequently published in book form as The Sack and Destruction of Columbia, South Carolina after the war.
Happily, the original, unvarnished newspaper installments by Simms became available for the first time since the war through the efforts of Dr. David Aiken of Charleston. Published as A City Laid Waste: The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia by the University of South Carolina Press in 2005, these original accounts are primary documents, unequalled in war-time narritave in both content and style.
I believe Simms's account is important for many reasons. Primarily it is important because these installments were written before the end of the war when Columbia was still had freedom of the press - Appomattox would not occur for another couple of months and Reconstruction had not yet reared its ugly head. Simms was free to write the event without having to worry about being censored. Furthermore, because it was written and published where the events transpired and published for the residents of the city, he could not embelish without losing his credibility. In short, this account is the real deal and can be collaborated in other sources, including Federal soldier who where present.
This book is, in my opinion, one of the most important works published during the war. One cannot read it and remain unscathed. One cannot read it and come away with anything other than shame regarding the conduct of the Grand Army of the Republic and the cause for which they fought.
I urge you, nay, I dare you to get this book and read it. It will explain everything you need to know about the Southern point of view with regards to the War for Southern Independence.
Yes, Libery was murdered on the streets of Columbia. The crime occured right here in the heart of Dixie, February 17, 1865. As Americans, we should remeber what was won and what was lost on that day. I think of it often with tears in my eyes...
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For further information, you might consider visiting the following sites:
http://www.wadehamptoncamp.org/bfc-boc-a.html
http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/HomeFront/burningofcolumbia.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/jarvis/jarvis19.html
http://www.geocities.com/cmp_csa/BurningColumbia.html
2 comments:
Great post, glad to have found you!
Glad to have you. I briefly looked over your BLOGs and look forward to reading them.
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