We say proof of his ordering (or permitting, which is just as bad) the destruction of Columbia is overwhelming. (See report of Chancellor Carroll, Chairman of a committee appointed to investigate the facts about this in General Bradley T. Johnson's Life of Johnston, from which several of these extracts are taken.) Our people owe General Johnson a debt of gratitude for this and his other contributions to Confederate history. And Sherman had the effrontery to write in his Memoirs, that in his official report of this conflagration, he "distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and (says) I confess I did so pointedly to shake the faith of his people in him." (See 2 Sherman's Memoirs, page 287.)
The man who confessed to the world that he made this false charge with such a motive needs no characterization at the hands of this Committee.
General Sherman set out to "make Georgia howl" and proposed, as he said, to "march through that State smashing things to the sea." He wrote to Grant after his march through South Carolina, saying:
"The people of South Carolina, instead of feeding Lee's army, will now call on Lee to feed them."
(2 Memoirs, page 298.)
So complete had been his destruction in that State, he also says:
"Having utterly ruined Columbia, the right wing began its march northward," &c.
2 Memoirs, page 288.
On the 21st of February, 1865, only a few days after the burning of Columbia, General Hampton wrote to General Sherman, charging him with being responsible for its destruction, and other outrages, in which he said, among other things:
"You permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of these offences against humanity and the rules of war. You fired into the city of Columbia without a word of warning. After its surrender by the Mayor, who demanded protection to private property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving amid its ruins thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are
