Forgotten Rape of Columbia, South Carolina: and the Rape of Scores of Black Women by Drunken Union Soldiers on February 17-18, 1865 by Tucker Phillip Thomas

Author:Tucker, Phillip Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter II

A Fatal Reckoning, February 17, 1865

As mentioned, more than 60,000 battle-hardened soldiers of Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee desired to take their revenge on the beautiful city that they viewed as having begun the secession of the South from the Union. Indeed, here in the picturesque lands of the Piedmont of central South Carolina, Columbia was seen by the Yankees as the very birthplace of secession. In consequence, the battle-hardened soldiers of Sherman’s Army could not have been more highly motivated to do pure evil in Columbia. Even before departing Savannah, Georgia, in early January 1865 to cross the wide, turbid Savannah River and march into South Carolina, Sherman had informed General Henry Halleck, who was known as “Old Brains,” in some amazement how: “the whole army is crazy to be turned loose in [South] Carolina,” while “burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina.” At this point, the Army of the Tennessee very nearly had a mind and will of its own.

This was no exaggeration because their feeling for revenge increased as Sherman had pushed north through South Carolina with confidence, while meeting with practically no Confederate opposition of any kind. By this time in the war during the most brutal war of attrition ever seen on American soil, most of the young men and boys of the South had been killed in this murderous conflict that had left the South devoid of males of military age and grieving widows across the land. It was clear that the battered Confederacy was now on its last legs. Many teenagers in threadbare and ragged gray uniforms now served in the ranks of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the absence of full-grown fighting men, who were mostly now buried in shallow graves across the South. Offering a wise warning, an insightful Federal soldier had earlier advised one Southern woman not to journey to Columbia, because of the common sentiment that dominated the army’s ranks: “It is the cradle of Secession and must be punished.”

The well-educated daughter of a distinguished professor, Emma LeConte, had written from Savannah not long after Sherman’s legions had entered in the cosmopolitan city on the Savanah River near the Atlantic: “They are preparing to hurl destruction upon the State they hate most of all, and Sherman the brute avows his intention of converting South Carolina into a wilderness.” In consequence, she now realized and envisioned how Columbia would be “sacked and laid in ashes.” In Savannah, the prophetic feeling had been prevalent even before General Sherman’s departure with the Army of the Tennessee that: “Everyone seems to feel that Columbia is doomed.” Ironically, this was the antithesis of the feeling that existed among the overly optimistic inhabitants of Columbia, who continued to look upon the bright side nearly to the very end, believing and hoping that their beloved city in the South Carolina Piedmont would be spared.

With General Sherman and the entire Army of the Tennessee having advanced far north and to a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.