The Washington herald., 1915-02-28
SHERMAN WAS DESTROYING
SOUTHERN PROPERTY.
February rs, 1865.

FEBRUARY 70, 1000.
Fifty years ago today Gen. Sherman's
Federal army was marching across South
Carolina from Columbia, the State capt.
tai. to Cheraw. on the Peedee River. close
up to the border of North Carolina, In
one of the most devastating campaigns
of the war.
Smoldering ruins of once pretentious
farmhouses. groups of weeping women
and children. and in some instances the
corpses of aged men. marked the route
over which the Federals marched. All
the pent up feeling OF four years of Bit
terness against the South seemed to have
been loosed by the soldiers under Sher-
man upon the civilians of South Caro-
lima. The scum Of Northern cities that
had been put into Sherman's forces by
the bounty system now asserted itself.
AS result the march through the Caro-
linas so abounded in outrages as to dwarf
those of the march to the sea"
In the guise of peaceful foragers, these
men robbed burned and even murdered.
until accounts OF their ill-doings that
reached the Confederate camps so en-
FILTERED the Southern commanders that
they resorted to severe reprisals.
on February 81 Gen. Judson Fitzpatrick.
of Sherman's cavalry, reported that an
infantry lieutenant and seven men were
murdered by the Eighth Texas Cavalry
after they had surrendered We found
their bodies all together and mutilated,'
he wrote. with paper on their breasts
saying, Death to foragers." Eighteen of
my men We're killed yesterday and some
had their threats cut. There Is no doubt
about this. and 1 have sent Hampton
the Confederate cavalry commander)
word that 1 intend to hang eighteen of
his men. and II the cowardly act Is re-
peated to burn every house along my line
Of march"
Sherman at once gave Gen. Fitzpatrick
orders to shoot and leave by the road
side an equal number OF their uhe Con-
federates) prisoners and append a label
to their bodies stating that man for man
shall be killed for every one of our men
they kill" At the same time a letter
was sent to Gen. Wade Hampton demand
ing an explanation and threatening Sc
we're reprisals.
On February "a Gen. Fitzpatrick report
ed that Private Charles Wright. Of the
Ninth Ohio Cavalry. had come into camp
the night before and told of finding the
bodies of twenty-one Federal infantry
men in a deep ravine some eighty rods
from the main road near the village of
baskerville with their threats cut and
stripped of most of their clothing. An
other report told that a soldier belonging
to the Ninety-second Illinois Mounted In
fantry was found strung up to the limb
of tree near the roadside.
Hampton's Defiant Reply.
To Sherman's note Hampton returned
a defiant reply. After threatening to
shoot two Federals for every Confederate
murdered" by Sherman, he went on to
say:
No orders given by me authorize the
killing of prisoners after capture
do not believe my men killed any of
yours, except under circumstances in
which it was perfectly legitimate and
proper that they should kill them.
1T is a part of the system of the
thieves whom you designate as your for
ayers TO fire the dwellings Of those citi-
zens whom they rob. To check this in
human system. which is justly execrated
by every civilized nation, / have directed
my nen to shoot down all of your men
who are caught burning houses"
There is little evidence favorable to
Sherman's "bummers." They did effec-
tive work as scouts and as forasers. but
beyond that they were a source Of terror
10 the peaceful population Of the country
through which they passed
One of the Federal officers has left
careful exposition as to their method of
doing business. when they come to a
house where an old man is living-a man
so aged as to have escaped the most rigid
conscription-they assume
that he has gold and silver hidden. and
demand II. If he gives up the treasure
cheerfully he escapes personal violence.
If he denies the possession of treasure
and they believe him he escapes. II they
do not believe him they resort to violent
means to compel it's surrender. With a
rope they will hang him until he is nearly
gone then let him down and demand the
this is repeated until he or
they give up.
Again. they will compel a man to
for one. two or three miles,
until he sinks from exhaustion, and then
threaten him with death unless he re-
vesls the hiding place of his riches. Then
they prepare the torch, and threaten to
burn his house and all IL contains unless
the money is forthcoming.
This robbery extends to other valu-
ables i'm addition TO money
One one occasion Gen. Fitzpatrick COM
planned to Sherman because Gen. A. S.
Williams, of the Twentieth Corps had
seen fit to punish some of his (kilpat-
ricks) men because they were "forag-
ing" But il developed that the men
who had been punished had been found
by one of Gen. Williams officers throw
ng the furniture of an old woman into
the street and threatening to burn down
her house.
Gen. Fitzpatrick was lax in enforcing
any sort of discipline. and as a result
mis- men were second to none in the
army as destroyers of private
1t is told that before the march
through the Carolinas began Gen. XII
patrick in a speech to party of his off, |
,ers remarked that I'm after years. when
travellers passing through South Caro- |
ina shall see chimney stacks without |
houses and the country desolste and shall
lsk Who did this?' some Yankee will
answer. .Kilpatrick's cavalry"
A DimcuIt March,.
AS this part of Sherinan's campaign |
will never be forgotten by South Caro- |
inians, SO the Federal soldiers will al |
Ways remember il as one of the hardest |
.ver made. From Columbia to Cheraw |
about eighty-five miles) the country was |
tut up by numberless rivers and creeks. |
md the rainy season having begun. these |
lad been turned into raging torrents or |
lad overlooked their banks and trans
ormed the adjacent country into almost |
mpassable swamps.
Having moved from Columbia February |
Q, the bulk of the army was concentrated |
It winnsboro. thirty miles north. the |
,ext night Every indication pointed to |
l further movement north along tho
abroad to Charlotte. N. c.. where Gen. |
J. I. Beauregard, with a small Confed- |
rate force, was posted.
But that was not Sherman's plan. From |
he made a sharp turn to the |
ast. It was his purpose to continue |