of burning cotton were blown about the streets, setting fire to the buildings. The soldiers used their utmost exertions to extinguish the flames, working under the direction of their officers. The whole of Wood's division was sent in for the purpose, but very little could be done towards saving the city. The fire raged through the day and night. Hundreds of families were burned out, and reduced from opulence, or at least competency, to penury. It was a terrible scene of suffering and woe, men, women, and children fleeing from the flames, surrounded by a hostile army, composed of men whom they had called vandals, ruffians, the slime of the North, the pests of society, and whom they had looked upon with haughty contempt, as belonging to an inferior race. Indescribable their anguish; and yet no violence was committed, no insulting language or action given by those soldiers. Sherman, Howard, Logan, Hazen, Woods, nearly all of Sherman's officers,- did what they could to stay the flames and alleviate the distress. They experienced no pleasure in beholding the agony of the people of Columbia.

General Sherman thus vindicates himself in his official report, and charges the atrocity upon Wade Hampton:

"I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire, but, on the contrary, claim that we saved what of Columbia remains unconsumed. And without hesitation I charge General Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia, not with a malicious intent, or as the manifestation of a silly Roman stoicism,' but from folly and want of sense, in filling it with lint, cotton, and tinder. Our officers and men on duty worked well to extinguish the flames; but others not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned there, rescued by us, may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had once begun, and may have indulged in unconcealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina." *

Thus Columbia, the beautiful capital of a once haughty State, became a blackened waste. The convention which passed the ordinance of Secession, when called together on the 17th of December, 1860, met in Columbia, but after organizing adjourned to Charleston, as the city was infected with small

Sherman's Report.

pox. But it was the more poisonous virus of Secession which finally laid their proud city low.

The people of South Carolina are bitter in their hatred of General Sherman. They charge all the devastation committed during his march from Atlanta to Goldsboro' upon him. In their estimation he is "a fiend," and his conduct not merely "inhuman," but "devilish." Yet he only adopted the policy which the Rebel leaders urged upon their adherents, and which was vehemently advocated by the Southern press. Rebel, not loyal torches, fired Charleston, Orangeburg, and Columbia.

It is claimed that Sherman did not regard private property, but destroyed it indiscriminately with that belonging to the Confederate government. Was there any respect shown by the Rebel authorities? Cotton, resin, turpentine, stores owned by private individuals, were remorselessly given to the flames by the Rebels themselves, and their acts were applauded by the people of the South as evincing heroic self-sacrifice.

Great stress is laid upon the suffering occasioned by the pillaging and burning by Sherman's troops; but in Pennsylvania yet remain the ruins of Chambersburg as evidence of the tender mercy of the Rebels, who not only destroyed public property, but gave dwelling-houses and stores to the torch.

What act so malignant, bloody, ghastly, and fiendish as the sacking, burning, and massacre at Lawrence! What deed so damning since the barbarities of Scio or Wyoming! What woe so deep!-men, children, murdered, butchered, scalped, the bodies of the dead tossed into the flames! No relenting on the part of the Rebels, but savage, infuriate joy at the sight of the warm heart's blood of their victims! Woman's prayers and tears availed not to stay their murderous hands or move their brutal hearts.

The responsibility cannot be evaded by saying that Quantrel was only a guerilla. If not holding a commission from the Rebel government, he was fighting for the Confederacy, and was ranked with Morgan and Mosby. He was an ally of Jeff Davis and General Lee. When were his acts disavowed by the Rebel government? What restraint was ever laid upon him? He passed from the scene of massacre, lighted by the flames of

the burning town, safely into the Rebel lines, where instead of outlawry he found protection and favor. On what page of Confederate history shall we read the remonstrance of Lee, Davis, Stephens, Toombs, or Breckenridge? Where is the protest of the "chivalrous" gentlemen of the South? What action was taken by the Rebel Congress?

Vain the search for disavowal of or protest against the act. The historian of another generation will be able to pass right judgment upon all that has transpired during these dark years of anarchy and revolution, sorrow, tears, and anguish. The verdict of posterity will be just, and will endure through the ages.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SOUTH CAROLINA BEFORE THE WAR.

To fully comprehend the fitting punishment of South Carolina we must keep in remembrance her position before the

war.

We must behold her as she appeared in 1860,- the · leader and chief conspirator against the Republic.

She had always taken a prominent part in the political affairs of the nation. Although a State, she was hardly a republican commonwealth, and very far from being a democracy. The State was ruled by a clique, composed of wealthy men, of ancient name, who secured privileges and prerogatives for themselves at the expense of the people, who had but little voice in electing their lawgivers.

The basis of representation in the Legislature was exceedingly complex. In the House of Representatives it was a mixture of property, population, white inhabitants, taxation, and slaves. In the Senate it consisted of geographical extent, white and slave population, taxation, and property. The Senate was constituted after the "Parish system," which gave the whole control of political affairs in the State into the hands of a few wealthy men from the sea-coast.

There are two distinct classes of people in South Carolina, -the lowlanders and the uplanders. The settlers of the lowlands were emigrants from England and France, gentlemen with aristocratic ideas. The settlers of the uplands, in the western counties, were pioneers from Virginia and North Carolina,small farmers, cultivating their own lands. During the Revolutionary war the uplanders were Whigs, the lowlanders Tories. The lowlanders had wealth, the uplanders were poor. When the Constitution was formed, organizing a State government, the lowlanders took care of their own interests. The lowlands in Colonial times were divided into parishes, and with the forming of the Constitution each parish was to have a

Senator. The uplands, not being parishes, were districts of much larger territorial area, hence political power fell into the hands of a few individuals along the coast. As white population increased in the districts, and decreased or remained stationary in the parishes, the up-country men tried to emancipate themselves from political serfdom, but there was no remedy except by an amendment to the Constitution, through a Convention called by the Legislature; and as the lowlanders had control of that body, there was no redress. The State, therefore, became an engine of political power, managed and worked by a few men from Charleston, Beaufort, St. Helena, Edisto, Colleton, and other parishes along the sea-coast.

Nature gave South Carolina sunny skies and a genial clime. The sea contributed an atmosphere which gained for Edisto and St. Helena islands the monopoly in the world's markets for cotton of finest fibre. Wealth increased with the gathering in of each new crop, and with wealth came additional power. Superiority of political privilege made the few impatient of restraint and ambitious not only to control State, but national affairs. South Carolina attempted defiance of national law in 1832, and was defeated.

The parishes governed the State solely in the interests of slavery. It gave them power, to perpetuate which they made slavery aggressive. Here is exposed the root from which Secession sprung. Free labor in the North was a plant of vigorous growth. Slavery was slow. It left worn-out lands in its track. Hard work, brutality, and sin sent its victims to an early grave. Freedom was gaining ground. Slavery must be carried into the Territories and secure a foothold in advance of free labor. So the struggle began, and through pride, passion, and malignant hatred of the North Secession was at last accomplished.

Upon the assembling of the Legislature for the choice of Presidential electors, the President of the Senate, W. D. Porter, of Charleston, said to his fellow-legislators:

"All that is dear and precious to this people, life, fortune, name, and history, - all is committed to our keeping for weal or for woe, for honor or for shame. Let us do our part, so that those who come after us shall acknowledge that we were not unworthy of the great trusts