Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1866-02-22

ly hnlshed built OF marble, the pillars and
cornioes of which were torn down and ham
mered into fragments that now strew the
ground. Three or four splendid churches
and as many ehapels, spacious convent in
which many poor ladies fled for shelter till
they were driven forth by the soldiery, q
State library, many scbools-af were burn
ed to the ground. There we're nearly 140o
houses thus destroyed, the rich and the poor
sharing in the common wreck. This mis-
erable work was accomplished on the day
and night of the 18th of February last,
and the horrors of that night can never be
forgotten by those who witnessed them
More than IA, 900 persons, mostly women
and children, many of them sick, took to
the outskirts, with hardly rag to cover
them, and with hot mouthful of food to
eat. Gen. Sherman promised to leave be.
hind him cattle enough to sustain them,
but the cattle he left them died at the rate
of twenty head each day, from sheer ex.
haustion, and those that we're killed Yere
| heshless and blOodless.
1t should be understood that the city had
offered no resistance to Sherman's approach,
but that, on the contrary, the small Con-
federate force within it all withdrew the day
before, and the Mayor drove out Some miles
with white flag, to meet the invaders
He carried with him letter to General
Sherman surrendering the city, and asking
for its citizens "the usages of civilized war
fare" That same night Sherman said to
the Mayor, "not a fingers breadth, Mr..
Mayor of your city shall be harmed. You
may lie down to sleep satisfied that your
town shall be as safe in my hands, as if
wholly in your own"
Some cotton had been set on fire in the
streets during the day, but it was extin-
guished by the fremen of the city, until
the soldiers cut their hose and broke their
engine to pieces. Then the reign of terror
began. Houses were first pillaged, and then
set on fire. The soldiers, writes an old in
habitant, "could be seen staggering off with
huge walters and smaller vessels Ladies
were hustled from their chambers, their orna-
ments plucked from their persons, their bun
dies from their hands" The eldest clergy
man in the city was subjected to gross i'll
usage, while vainly endeavoring to save the
communion plate Of bis church In other
instances, men we're hung up till they we're
nearly choking, and made to tell where their
property was bid. The soldiers we're by
this time skilful in finding buried treasure,
and they we're busy with probing rods in the
gardens of all the houses.
1t may we'll be supposed that, with all
their property sunk in Confederate paper,
and their houses razed to the ground, the
people in this part of the country are in
deep distress am told of families who
have always been in affluent circumstances
now working for an uncertain livelihood, :,
and these are more fortunate than many
others who are not fit for work, or cannot
get it to do The state of the poorer classes
is wretched beyond description, for they
have no friends capable of helping them
1t is not too much to say that thousands of
families in this part of the country will be
in state of absolute want, this winter, un.
less something is done for them. They have
not the means to buy the barest necessaries
of life. The horses and cattle were killed
and burnt for many miles around, and, in
deed, all along the track of Sherman's
march, so thatthe whole country is bare and
destitute. 1t is quite certain that timely
aid would save hundreds from fate little
short of starvation.