On this day Sherman began his march through the Carolinas, with his ultimate destination Lee’s army, trapping it between his army and Grant’s army. Most Union troops had very little love for the Palmetto State, blaming it for starting the War, and Sherman’s boys were strictly on their worst behavior in South Carolina, as this diary entry by Lieutenant Colonel George Nichols, a Union staff officer, indicates:
January 30th-The actual invasion of South Carolina has begun. The 17th Corps and that portion of the 15th which came around by way of Thunderbolt Beaufort moved out this morning, on parallel roads, in the direction of McPhersonville. The 17th Corps took the road nearest the Salkahatchie River. We expect General Corse, with the 4th Division of the 15th Corps, to join us at a point higher up. The 14th and 20th Corps will take the road to Robertville, nearer the Savannah River. Since General Howard started with the 17th we have heard the sound of many guns in his direction. To-day is the first really fine weather we have had since starting, and the roads have improved. It was wise not to cut them up during the rains, for we can now move along comfortably. The well-known sight of columns of black smoke meets our gaze again; this time houses are burning, and South Carolina has commenced to pay an installment, long overdue, on her debt to justice and humanity. With the help of God, we will have principal and interest before we leave her borders. There is a terrible gladness in the realization of so many hopes and wishes. This cowardly traitor state, secure from harm, as she thought, in her central position, with hellish haste dragged her Southern sisters into the caldron of secession. Little did she dream that the hated flag would again wave over her soil; but this bright morning a thousand Union banners are floating in the breeze , and the ground trembles beneath the tramp of thousands of brave Northmen, who know their mission, and will perform it to the end.
And which houses were burning? Don, what was the “worst behavior”? Hopefully it was only the slave owner’s manors, and Sherman’s troops repeated their Georgian policy of avoiding damage to the commoners’ homes. Pray tell.
Well Tom, I will say one thing for the Union troops that tramped through South Carolina. I doubt if they rounded up blacks and shipped them off to slavery, which is precisely what the Army of Northern Virginia did during the Gettysburg campaign.
http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/charles-f-bryan-jr/article_41fe942b-567d-5aaf-8564-2ba611cdf079.html
If the Confederate Army had ever invaded Massachusetts, I suspect that the Bay State would have suffered as the Palmetto State did. Confederate troops tended to apportion as much blame for the War to Massachusetts and its abolitionists, as Northern troops did to South Carolina and its fire eaters.
The Northern leadership and troops executed their duty as they saw it at that time. They were not interested in fairness or judgment. They were there to administer punishment and they did just that. South Carolina was the instigator.
Around the world the tide of public opinion was turning against slavery. Great Britain, the nation under whose auspices slavery was instituted in the then colonies, spent much of the 19th century opposing slavery with military force. Thomas Sowell has documented this Not long after the Civil War, Brazil peacefully ended slavery.
Had Great Britain shown the same concern for the starving Irish…is a subject for another time.
The South had fine military leadership and determined fighting men…many descended from the feisty Scots who emigrated to the Appalachians, but the cause they fought for deserved to be destroyed. Somd people do not learn until they are punched in the mouth, sometimes repeatedly.
South Carolina would not learn any other way. General Sherman taught the lesson that needed to be learned.
One of the Union soldier-diarists of the campaign called SC “the whore-mother of secession.”
No doubt the troops went well beyond the Lieber Code, which does not reflect well upon them. As the atrocity of enslavement raids by the ANV forever tarnishes that formidable band of warriors.
Nonetheless, the last 10 months of the conflict are a salutary reminder of the dangers of starting a war over a lost election.
John Brown turned out to be right.
Unfortunately, public policy is often ruled by the loudest and craziest among us and while sober and cautious people are tilling the fields not paying attention, crazies are setting up conditions that lead to events where no one wants to go. Seems to be happening a lot in our world today. And, many of the crazies work in the media. Up at the top of my “pray for your enemies list.”