so might endanger the city.' From that hour I saw nothing more of General Hampton until the war was over." "Not one bale of the cotton had been fired by the Confederate troops when they withdrew from Columbia. The only thing on fire at the time of the evacuation was the depot building of the South Carolina railroad, which caught fire accidentally from the explosion of some ammunition." This is the statement of General Beauregard himself. It is sustained by the testimony of the officer, high in rank, but higher still in character, who commanded the rear guard of the Confederate cavalry (General M. C. Butler), and is concurred in by other witnesses, comprising officers, clergymen and citizens—witnesses of such repute and in such numbers as to render the proof overwhelming.
The fire at the South Carolina railroad depot burned out without extending to any other buildings. Shortly after the first detachment of General Sherman's troops had entered the town, and while the men were seated or reclining on the cotton bales in Main street, and passing to and fro along them with lighted cigars and pipes, the row of cotton bales between Washington and Lady streets caught fire, the bales being badly packed, with the cotton protruding from them. The flames extended swiftly over the cotton, and the fire companies with their engines were called out and by 1 o'clock P. M. the fire was effectually extinguished. While the fire companies were engaged about the cotton, an alarm was given of fire in the jail, and one of the engines being sent there the flames were soon subdued, with slight injury only to one of the cells. About five o'clock in the afternoon, as deposed to by a witness (Mrs. E. Squire), the cotton bales in Sumter street, between Washington and Lady streets, were set on fire by General Sherman's wagon train, then passing along the cotton. But the fire was soon extinguished by the efforts of the witness referred to and her family. "I saw," says a witness (John McKenzie, Esq.), "fire-balls thrown out of the wagons against Hon. W. F. Desaussures' house, but without doing any damage." No other fires in the town occurred until after night, when the general conflagration began. As already stated, the wind blew from the west, but the fires after night broke out first on the west of Main and Sumter streets, and to windward of where the cotton bales were placed. "The cotton," it is testified and proved (Ed. J. Scott, Esq.), "instead of burning the houses, was burned by them."
General Sherman, as has been shown, on the night of the 17th
