Total War at Home: The Burning of Columbia
In 1860 it was not chivalry but a commitment to preserve the Union that motivated President Lincoln to go to war to prevent the secession of the Confederate states of America. At the height of that war in 1863 the US adopted the Lieber Code as General Order No.
100. It was a landmark statement of military legitimacy and civil-military relations that confirmed a principle at the heart of the law of war: those who do not make war should be protected from its harm.18The Code was written by Francis Lieber, who emigrated to the US from Germany in 1827 after being imprisoned by Prussian police on suspicion of being a revolutionary. He settled in the deep South, assuming a professorship at South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) in Columbia, South Carolina. Lieber left the city of Columbia for Columbia University in the 1850s, during a time of political intolerance when southern 'fire-eaters' effectively purged many intellectuals who did not embrace their views, including the need to maintain the 'peculiar institution' of slavery.
Professor Lieber could not have known that his adopted city, Columbia, would be destroyed by the Union army in 1865 in violation of his Code, The provisions of the Lieber Code then governed military operations as US law, and would become international law when incorporated in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and the Geneva Conventions of 1949. During the War Between the States there were violations of the Lieber Code on both sides; but with the exception of partisans who were beyond the control of regular commanders, violations were rarely egregious and were usually denounced by senior commanders.
On the Confederate side, General Robert E. Lee exemplified the ideals of chivalry when he moved his army into Maryland and Pennsylvania. The citizens of these states remarked at the perfect discipline of Lee's rag-tag rebels as they marched past their homes.
This was the result of instructions given by Lee to his men that reflected his moral conviction that civilians should be spared the ravages of war:I cannot hope that heaven will prosper our cause when we are violating its laws. I shall therefore carry on the war in Pennsylvania without offending the sanctions of a high civilization and Christianity.19
Lee treated civilian property with respect. Rather than have his men live off the land, he instructed his commissary officers to make formal requisitions when supplies were needed. Lee made a distinction between combatants and non-combatants when he exhorted his troops
... to abstain with most scrupulous care from unnecessary or wanton injury to private property. It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men.20
The respect accorded enemy civilians by Lee was in stark contrast to the scorched earth strategy of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who had been given the mission of destroying Confederate forces in the deep South while Grant hammered Lee in northern Virginia. General Sherman did not share the philosophy of Lee, nor did his tactics reflect even a hint of chivalry. In fact, while Sherman gave lip service to the Lieber Code, his troops consistently violated its provisions.
Sherman was an advocate of total war, having declared his philosophy as early as October 1862. Total war was based on collective responsibility, which allowed for little real distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Sherman believed the Union must 'make the war so terrible' for all rebellious Southerners that they would never again revolt. To accomplish this, the Southerners must 'be made to fear us, and dread the passage of our troops through their country'.21
General Sherman's views may have been influenced by Prince Edward's raid into France in 1355; harrying and wasting the South was Sherman's stated objective. After burning Atlanta to the ground, it did not take long for Sherman's men to get the hang of plunder and pillage.
By the time they reached Savannah they had destroyed vast areas of the Georgia heartland. But it was just a preview of what awaited the Carolinas.In January 1865, Sherman's 60,000 veteran troops moved out of Savannah, made a feint toward Charleston and Augusta, and then moved toward Orangeburg and Columbia. Sherman left no doubt that he intended to punish the South Carolinians, as theirs was the first state to secede, and make a special example of Columbia, since the act of secession had taken place there.22
In Savannah, Sherman had promised vengeance for the Union in South Carolina: 'I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and I doubt we shall spare the public buildings there as we did in Milledgeville'. He also acknowledged the hatred among his men for the Palmetto state: 'The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her.'23
Along the way to Columbia, Sherman's men demonstrated their talent for plunder and pillage, not to mention wanton destruction. In Hardeeville, a church was destroyed piece by piece, with soldiers heckling local residents as the church collapsed.24 'Bummers' were the primary vandals: they were soldiers who did their own thing, but were seldom disciplined for their indiscretions. They were especially fond of destroying pianos with their hatchets, competing to see who could make the most noise, breaking dishes, and dressing up in the finest women's clothes.25
Sherman's army arrived on the banks of the Congaree River opposite Columbia on 16 February 1865, and the next day the Mayor of Columbia, T. J. Goodwyn, surrendered the defenseless city to Sherman, The general and his staff spent the afternoon with notables, but the troops had their own priorities. They arrived singing 'Hail Columbia, happy land; if I don't burn you, I'll be damned'.26
The city was awash with liquor, and friendly house slaves were passing it out to the feisty troops as they began their looting sprees.
Soon things were out of control, whether by design or accident, and by evening drunken soldiers were torching everything that would burn. There was no doubt that the fires were intentionally started by Union troops. Some hurried from block to block carrying wads of turpentine-soaked cotton, while others interfered with firefighting efforts. The only issue was whether Sherman authorized the destruction or not; he vehemently denied having done so. He initially blamed the mayor for the free-flowing liquor, citing the impossibility of controlling his drunken soldiers, but he later blamed General Wade Hampton, a popular native son whose cavalry had been the last Confederate troops to leave Columbia.27By morning, 84 of the 124 blocks of Columbia had been burned. Included in the destruction were churches, an Ursuline convent, all public buildings except the unfinished statehouse, as well as most of the city's private residences, of rich and poor alike. Sherman's reaction, other than disclaiming responsibility, was the rationale of collective responsibility:
Though I never ordered it, and never wished it, I have never shed any tears over it, because I believe it hastened what we all fought for - the end of the war.28
The Union troops did more than burn the city. There were many reported violations of human dignity, if not assaults, upon the women of Columbia.
An extreme practise followed by a few soldiers in looking for valuables hidden on a woman's person was to catch her by the throat and feel in her bosom for a watch or pull up her dress in search of a purse hidden in her girdle or petticoat. Those not so brazen did not hesitate to point a pistol at a woman's head to learn the location of the family heirlooms.29
While there were few reported cases of rape against white women, the same was not true for black women. On the morning of 18 February 'their unclothed bodies, bearing the marks of detestable sex crimes, were found about the city'.30
After 17 February, pillage and plunder became more restrained.
But the soldiers never showed any repentance for their acts, andmade no pretense of hiding their loot. Stolen jewelry and coin were very much in evidence on their persons as they strolled the streets boasting of having burned Columbia.31
When Sherman's men finally left Columbia on 20 February, they had earned the lasting enmity of the people of Columbia, the South, and even some Yankees:
Whitlaw Reid, the Ohio politician, called the burning of Columbia 'the most monstrous barbarity of the barbarous march'. The people of Columbia, in full agreement with Reid, were also positive that one day the Devil 'with wild sardonic grin, will point exultant to a crime which won the prize from SIN'.32
The war ended at Appamattox later that year. Sherman held to his belief that his punishment of southern civilians contributed to Lee's surrender, although there is little evidence to that effect. To the contrary, Sherman's total war tactics created a hatred for him and the Union that made relations between the North and South difficult for many years. It was a legacy of hate that would take more than a century to heal, and which would never be forgotten.