The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-20 00:00:00

The Burning of Columbia, South Carol na.

The South Carolinians have always charged that
Columbia was burnt by order of General SHERMAN
or by his permission, but a letter which he has re-
cently written effectually disposes of the assertion.
It seems that an old man, ninety-three years of age,
had the misfortune to have his house in Columbia
burnt at the time General SHERMAN passed through,
and by that calamity was reduced to beggary.
The old man claims to have been true to the
Union throughout the war, and addressed a letter
to General SHERMAN endorsing a petition to Con-
gress for indemnification for his losses. In his
reply General SHERMAN remarks :
" I feel deeply for you and all others who lost
their property in that fire ; but if the United States
were to assume the liability, it would be an admis-
sion that we had done wrong. This is not true.
The rightful authority of the National Government
had been resisted in the State of South Carolina for
years, and we were compelled, at great cost of life
and money to conductr
howb m
s
thither a vast army, and our
progress
all the force the State
could
citizens resisted our ap-
proach, not but by burning the
bridges over the Edisto,
obtain. was
onlyresisted.
Your
ou
vanyr
Congaree, Salada, and
Broad rivers. They burned the depot in Columbia
before
corn
because it contained
we needed, and set
fire to thousands of bales of cotton rolled out into
westores ntered
they the city,ppo se d
the streets, and whi▪
ch was
e s
u
burning before we
entered Columbia. I myself was in the city as early
as noon and saw those fires, and knew that efforts
were made to extinguisl! them ; but a high and
strong wind kept them alive. I gave no orders for
the burning of your city, but, on the contrary, the
reverse ; and I believe the conflagration resulted
from the great imprudence of cutting the cotton
bales, whereby the contents were spread by the
wind, so that it became an impossibility to arrest
the fire. I saw in your Columbia newspapers the
printed orders of General Wade Hampton, that on
the approach of the Y ankee army all the cotton
should thus be burned, and from what I saw myself
have no hesitation in saying that he was the cause
of the destruction of your property. Your true
remedy is against him, and such others of your own
citizens as conspired wi▪ th him and made the mili-
tary occupation of your city an absolute necessity.
I hardly think it is fair that Congress should tax
the people of Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri to pay for
.
such losses ; but as i▪ s not my province to judge
in such matters, I wi▪ ll send your petition according
to its address."

The amount of silver received from Nevada
during the last quarter was $4,204,776, and the
receipts for the year $1.5,800,000. This is a slight
falling off from last year. Nevada has yielded in
the 1a5t544,000.000. The old average
of the
Was $7,120,000 ; of the
Mexican r7e
Nevada as a mining country
t Peruvianh e 95 y2e,a oros mineso.
is without doubt sure to eclipse permanently both
Mexico and Peru. Lack of transportation has al-
ways troubled the miners of Peru ; want of energy
and skill and scarcity of capital have been the great
difficulties iu Mexico.