William T. Sherman’s own soldiers were shocked by the destruction they left behind in South Carolina.
On December 22, 1864, William T. Sherman offered Abraham Lincoln a special Christmas gift, namely the city of Savannah. General Sherman had marched more than 60,000 hardened veterans right through the heart of Georgia to claim that prize. His March to the Sea has since come to represent Sherman’s tactics in a way that some think exaggerates its importance in relation to his larger objectives. The Union general himself believed that his march through the Carolinas was a crucial struggle, more important and more difficult than his all but unobstructed march through Georgia.
Despite what popular culture would have us believe, Georgians in fact suffered more psychological than physical damage during Sherman’s March, since very little damage was actually done en route to private property there. As for the Federals, many referred to their march across Georgia in salutary terms: The weather had been fine, no one was shooting at them and food was plentiful. But by early January 1865, the Yanks’ attention had turned to the Carolinas and their mood had darkened. They proposed to seek revenge on South Carolina, the cradle of secession, which would be made to pay the price of initiating a bloody war that had kept Northerners away from their families for almost four years.
SOUTH CAROLINIANS who had gotten word of Sherman’s March began to wonder what it would mean for their state. They heard a rumor Sherman had announced that, although he had handled the historic seaport of Savannah with his “gloves on,” he had promised “in the Carolinas I will take them off.” Yet in a move that combined denial with arrogance, Columbia hosted a grand bazaar that January to raise funds for the Confederate cause. Lavish booths set up in the old state house displayed such a variety of goods that it may have been difficult for some attendees to remember there was a war going on—at least for a few hours.
In their postwar quest for a moral victory, Southerners would commonly cast Federals as responsible for the violation of manly codes, since they were attacking an essentially defenseless home front. And of course Sherman and his men were ideal targets for this kind of accusation. Sherman himself became the personification of Yankee atrocities, with Confederate women increasingly por trayed as his long-suffering victims. The reality was somewhat different. When Sherman’s punishment of South Carolina came down to invading Southern homes, many Union soldiers struggled with conflicting emotions. And when white civilians faced their worst nightmares, their fear frequently turned to anger as they saw the enemy destroying their homes and belongings.
The reactions of African-American Southerners to the Northern invasion were complex. For many, the delight they had initially felt at the approach of what most believed would be an “army of emancipation” was soon replaced with a sense of betrayal when black residents suffered from Union depredations alongside their white owners. Many found it hard to choose sides: Should they flee from the Union troops or join forces with them?
Torrential rains, mud and intense cold were the primary enemies of Union soldiers during the first months of 1865. Although the first troops left Savannah early in January, Sherman reported “villainous” weather that delayed the main thrust of his army into South Carolina until February, by which time it was clear that this campaign would be a clear contrast to the Georgia March. Sherman wrote of his army’s “insatiable desire to wreak vengeance” on the Palmetto State. He was convinced that his men would show less restraint in this next phase of the campaign. From the outset, the physical and psychological obstacles of this new campaign challenged soldiers in ways that far exceeded their previous experience. “In South Carolina,” wrote Union General Alpheus Williams “it was all mud, swamps, treacherous quicksand and quagmires.” Soldiers claimed these obstacles made the Georgia campaign seem like a joke in comparison. When temperatures plummeted, soldiers reported that ice froze on their hats and they had to wade through water so cold that many became almost paralyzed. And as troops struggled through the swamps and mud, their growing contempt often extended to the entire state and its inhabitants. Captain George Pepper, for example, concluded that “the soil is treacherous, like the people who own it.”
By early February, one Union officer was describing the South Carolina countryside as “alive with men who made foraging their sole business.” Squads of soldiers were sent in advance of Sherman’s army—purportedly organized units supervised by officers. But in fact these were bands of foragers, which one Union soldier described as “unequaled in scientific and authorized stealing,” ransacking homes and ravaging the landscape.
As they witnessed Union men plundering slave cabins and taking their meager possessions, black families quickly realized that few Yankee soldiers harbored true abolitionist sympathies. Federal officers were aware of the mistreatment of blacks, and especially of assaults on black women. At the start of the Carolina Campaign, Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard expressed concern over the “many depredations…that would disgrace us even in the enemy’s country, e.g. the robbing of some negroes and abusing their women.” Northern soldiers’ attitudes toward race varied, of course, depending on individual background and experience in the field. One soldier wrote to his wife that his abolitionist sympathies were weakening during that campaign. Others were impressed by the Southern blacks’ determination and bravery. Despite the fact that the soldiers frequently mistreated them, many African Americans fell in behind Sherman’s lines as the march continued, inspired by the hope for freedom.
ENSLAVED BLACKS frequently found Union solders as capricious in their behavior as white Southerners, however, complicating the decision of whether or not to flee as Northerners advanced through the region. Many became angry when Yankees destroyed their property, stole their belongings and assaulted black women. Despite repeated attempts to curb the indiscriminate pillaging of black homes, the depredations continued. African Americans in the path of Sherman’s army thus found themselves caught between two racist forces, and for many it no doubt seemed sensible to stick with the devil they knew.
Of course white women who witnessed the Yankee invasion had no doubts about whose side they were on. Sherman’s men frequently complained that Southern whites refused to recognize either the cultural or military superiority of the North, and they expressed astonishment at the intensity with which Confederate women, in particular, fought to maintain their dignity and their property. Sarah Jane Sams of Barnwell, S.C., wrote that she had determined to “remain as firm as possible” when Union cavalry invaded her home. In no uncertain terms she told a soldier that she “expected civil and polite treatment from gentlemen.” When the Northerner tried to intimidate her, she refused to be shaken. “My strength had been given to me by an Almighty Power,” she wrote, “and could not be taken from me by a Yankee’s venomous tongue.”
Many white women used their own venomous tongues as their primary weapon against the Yankee invaders. A New Jersey lieutenant remarked on how “determined” and “resolute” he found the white women of the Palmetto State. One of his comrades commented that the “tender sex” were the match of “the roughest and most brutal” soldier when it came to the use of “obscene words.” One Confederate woman boasted that many of her female friends had vented their wrath against Union troops to such an extent that soldiers claimed they talked too “damn strong” and were not worthy of protection.
Some Northern troops were deeply perturbed by Southern women who lashed out at them. One Union officer expressed sympathy for women who sat “with grief depicted on their countenances, or the tears rolling down their cheeks,” but opined that women who “vent[ed] their feelings in curses and rude epithets” made it difficult for him to overlook “what the women of the South have done to keep up this war.” Still, contact with South Carolina’s civilians made Northern troops more aware of the suffering of women and children. One particularly sympathetic officer tried to imagine how a “lone woman with a family of small children” might feel when enemy soldiers “pryed open… chests with his bayonet or knocked to pieces…tables, pianos and chairs; tore…bed clothing in three inch strips, and scattered the strips about the yard.”
Corporal Eli Ricker asked his own sister how she would like to have “troops passing your house constantly for two days, dozens within it all the time, ransacking and plundering, and carrying off everything that could be of any use to them?” Private Charles Brown felt that South Carolina had suffered an “awful punishment” and was grateful that this war was being fought on Southern soil. “You never can imagine a pillaged house, never—unless an army passes through your town,” Brown wrote to his wife.
While it was rare for Union men to physically assault white women, the invaders’ desire to punish the Palmetto State encouraged some soldiers to exceed the bounds of legitimate foraging practices. Union Captain Pepper chronicled one form of “devastation” practiced by troops, namely “the deliberate and systematic robbery for the sake of gain.” One soldier wrote asking his wife if she had received the stolen items he had shipped to her, inquiring what she had thought of a particular statuette. He added, “I suppose if I send much more plunder you will need a larger house to hold it.” Corporal John Herr sent home rice and clothing, while Private Charles Brown dis patched sheet music and jewelry. Union surgeon Charles Tompkins’ predilection was for fine books. Sherman told his wife that, although he himself had “refrained” from doing so, he knew that many soldiers sent “trophies” home.
Union soldiers understood that the success of their campaign necessitated behavior that wouldn’t have been acceptable at home, and many shared Southerners’ concerns over the depredations. Soldiers frequently eased their consciences by differentiating their own roles as legitimate foragers from those who indulged in rampant pillaging. One soldier from Massachusetts, for example, said he believed the army was justified in taking necessities but drew the line at “overhauling everything even ripping open beds, and emptying them in search of money & plate,” which seemed to him “a little too much like plundering.”
Corporal Ricker recorded his own mixed emotions—a combination of excitement and guilt—when he invaded South Carolina homes and took provisions. But he con soled himself in the knowledge that he “never went beyond [his] duty to pillage.”
By the time Sherman’s men left Columbia in February 1865, approximately one-third of the city had been burned. Most scholars agree the conflagration was the result of a combination of carelessness by Rebel authorities, who set fire to cotton to prevent its falling into Union hands, very strong winds and the widespread use of alcohol by Federals, some of whom torched buildings.
Some Columbia residents depicted their experiences using hellish images—devils cavorting against a backdrop of flame. One woman wrote that a crowd of soldiers in her garden filled the night air with yells of “demoniac delight” while “their forms shone out hideously in numbers on all sides in the light of our flaming home.” By midnight on February 17, it seemed to her that “Sherman’s Hell hounds” had turned the sky into a “quivering molten ocean.” Soldiers broke into houses, threatened residents, destroyed their possessions and made off with valuables
Although women typically lacked the physical strength to defy the invaders, many used the moral authority commonly ascribed to females of their race and class to stop soldiers in their tracks. In one instance two women knelt and sang a psalm, described as a “strange incantation” that apparently exerted an immediate influence on rampaging troops. Another managed to make soldiers feel “sheepish” by virtue of staring at them unflinchingly as she stood on her piazza. Still another woman accused a group of Federals of being a disgrace to the military profession.
Yet even as South Carolinians expressed their hatred of Yankees as a group, there are remarkable instances— recorded by civilians during or just after the burning of Columbia—of sympathy and kindness shown by individual soldiers, acts that often became obscured in later accounts. Several residents wrote about Federals who had escorted them to safety or helped them to salvage their possessions from burning homes. One woman wrote about a guard who “became to our surprise quite one of the family.”
Another guard was said to have openly wept at the state of the city. “The kindhearted man was appalled by the fate he believed was in store for us,” wrote one of his Southern charges. The next morning, with tears in his eyes, he told them, “If I saw any rebels burning down my home as all of you are seeing us burning down yours, I would hate them all my lifetime.”
Many Northerners were essentially moral men who struggled with both guilt and pride about what they had wrought in Columbia. One stated that he was “sickened” and had not envisioned “how frightful the reality would be.” A Union chaplain found the sight of “crying & despondent” women and children “too bad to be endured.” Some wrote that they never wished to see such a sight again—but then insisted that the city’s residents had reaped the just reward for their state’s treachery.
Other soldiers eased their consciences either by blaming the devastation on the effects of alcohol or by exercising selective memory. For example, Major Osborn decided that he would leave the scenes of “pillaging, the suffering and terror of the citizens, the arresting of and shooting negroes, and our frantic and drunken soldiers” for those who “choose to dwell upon it.” He added, “I have seen too much suffering by far, and choose rather to remember the magnificent splendor of this burning city.” Another soldier focused on his admiration for General Sherman. “My heart fairly swells with honest pride within me when I think of the results of his operations,” he wrote. “All the other movements of the war sink into insignificance when viewed beside his.”
COLUMBIA’S CITIZENS also shifted their attention to Sherman’s leadership, holding the Union general directly responsible for their plight. After all, Sherman’s troops were by then renowned for their discipline. One resident noted that once Sherman gave the command, order was immediately restored. Many concluded that, even if the Federal commander had not actually ordered the burning of the city, he had “winked and connived at it,” and “could have prevented it with a word.”
Historians have frequently claimed that Confederate women became so disillusioned by the sacrifices they were called upon to make during Sherman’s march that they lost all hope—and some even called their men home from the war. This of course was Sherman’s goal. He had trusted that a devastated home front would leave in its wake a population focused on the need for food and shelter, rather than supporting political and military conflict. South Carolinians were exhausted at that point and increasingly concerned about food shortages.
Feelings of disillusionment and war weariness, however, could also signal the first stage in the process of rededication to Southern independence. In Columbia a community of sufferers forged new bonds in response to the deprivations that they had experienced. “We have things in common,” wrote one citizen, “drawing rations from the free market, and living on the charity of those who have more than we.”
Governor Andrew Magrath responded to Columbia Mayor Thomas Goodwyn’s request for relief. In March a concert was held for the benefit of the “Columbia sufferers,” and the Greenville Ladies Relief Association, who worked in conjunction with a similar organization in the city, gained a new lease on life. In the month before the attack on Columbia, their total expenditures had been $182; the following month their relief efforts exceeded $1,100— and they were still adding new members to their roster.
As South Carolina’s civilians began piecing their lives back together they realized that, despite all the horrors they had seen, they had survived. One young woman advised a friend that if a Yankee soldier should ever point a gun at her, she would not be frightened: “Tis only done to alarm,” she wrote. Many believed they had escaped better than they could have hoped and now they knew “just how much could be borne.” Sherman and his men undoubtedly hoped that the burned city would serve as a symbol to South Carolinians of their terrible crimes against the Union. Ironically, however, for many residents it instead became a constant reminder of the enemy’s depredations. One woman wrote that she thought she had hated the enemy as much as humanly possible before their arrival, but now she knew there were “no limits to the feelings of hatred” she harbored for men whose name had become “a synonym for all that is mean, despicable and abhorrent.”
Some of Columbia’s white female residents took pride in having unflinchingly faced Sherman’s army of “demons,” declaring their enduring support for cause and country, and earning a reputation as determined Confederates. They also took pride in the fact that Yankees called South Carolina women “the most firm, obstinate, and ultra-rebel set of women they had encountered.” Having survived an invasion without the protection of Southern soldiers, many of the women called upon their men to remain at their posts and exact vengeance on the enemy. In response, a Confederate man writing from the Virginia trenches thanked God for such a “brave mother and sisters,” adding, “With such a spirit emanating from you how could we do else but perform our duty nobly and manfully.”
South Carolinians focused on their faith in Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. For them, Lee personified all the virtues of Confederate manhood, and against this inspiring image they placed Sherman and his army of demons. Even if they had momentarily questioned the ability of the Confederacy to meet their needs and protect them during their recent trials, it was more comforting to blame their ills on Yankee soldiers than on the inadequacies of their own people and government. And having met Sherman’s soldiers face to face, they now had an enemy on whom to vent their spleen. One young woman wrote that the spirit of the people in Columbia was even better after the Union attack: “Now that they have experienced their [the Yankees’] tender mercies, they are resolved to persevere unto the bitter end.” And hope refused to die as long as their armies stood.
Even the news of Lee’s surrender did not quash their spirits. South Carolinians remained convinced that, while the South might have been overpowered, it would never be conquered. “Our southern blood rose in stronger rebellion than ever,” wrote one woman, “and we all determined that, if obliged to submit, never could they subdue us.” The only question now, it seemed to young Emma Le Conte after Columbia was burned, was “not what hope, but what new bitterness?” For two weeks following the day she penned that diary entry she felt such anger toward the invaders that she feared to express her sentiments in words. Finally she took a walk around the ruins of her once grand city one moonlit evening, and when she once again picked up her journal, she wrote:
As far as the eye could reach only specter like chimneys and the shutter walls, all flooded over by the rich moonlight which gave them a mysterious but mellow softness and quite took from them the ghastly air which they wear in the sunlight. They only lacked moss and lichens and tangled vines to make us believe we stood in some ruined city of antiquity.
In Le Conte’s romantic images lay the seeds of the Lost Cause ideology that was to flourish in the postwar years.
Jacqueline G. Campbell is an assistant professor of History at Francis Marion University and the author of When Sherman Marched North From the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Homefront.
Originally published in the February 2012 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
