Capture of Columbia

Columbia was small for a capital town; only 8,052 residents, some 3,500 whom were slaves, had been counted in the 1860 census.[2] Charleston, South Carolina, by comparison had 40,522 residents in 1860.[3] The aging wooden statehouse of South Carolina had been recently moved and was in the process of being replaced by a granite one. But it lay unfinished, much like the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. at the time.[2]

The Columbia economy was based around the cotton trade, and many warehouses were dedicated to its storage. The South had overproduced cotton for years leading up to the war. Combined with the Union blockade of the South, Columbian warehouses, and even basements and outbuildings of unrelated properties, were packed full of cotton.[4] A cotton fire in January 1864 had burned down several warehouses, destroying some $3.4 million worth of property and cotton (equivalent to $58,906,809 in 2021). Another fire followed in June 1864, burning even more cotton than the January fire had.[5]

The city was of considerable importance to the Confederacy. Columbia was the site of the first Southern secession convention, which assembled in the First Baptist Church on December 17, 1860. Secession may well have been declared in Columbia, were it not for a smallpox outbreak which moved the convention partway through to Charleston, where South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union on December 20.[6] A considerable military infrastructure sprung up in Columbia. The state arsenal was located in Columbia, along with the state military academy. The grounds of the University of South Carolina were converted into a military hospital, since its role as an educational institution had been made moot after its entire student body volunteered for the Confederate Army.[7] In 1863, the city became one of the only domestic sources of medical supplies for the Confederacy, under Dr. Joseph LeConte.[8] The city's most important industrial contribution was the Palmetto Iron Works, which in concert with a nearby gunpowder factory, manufactured shells, bullets, and cannons.[9] The Confederate Army sock factory was located in Columbia, which worked together with 500 local women who finished the rough socks.[9] The Confederate treasury's printing presses were relocated to Columbia in 1862, which was an ever more important enterprise as inflation forced the printing of $1.5 billion in currency, three times as much as the Union printed.[10] The city's strategic importance was made even more clear by being a junction of numerous railroads. By 1865, it was also the Confederacy's last breadbasket. All of these factors combined to make it the obvious next target for General William T. Sherman after his successful March to the Sea.[11]

Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who led the Union campaign into the Carolinas.

Following the fall of Savannah, Georgia, at the end of his March to the Sea, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman turned his combined armies northward to unite with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia and to cut General Robert E. Lee's supply lines to the Deep South.[12] He planned to march through South Carolina to Columbia, then capture and destroy the Confederate arsenal at Fayetteville, North Carolina, before uniting with the XXIII Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. John Schofield, at Goldsboro, North Carolina. To confuse the Confederates, he sent his left wing westward towards Augusta and his right wing eastward towards Charleston.[13]

Confederate forces in South Carolina were part of the Department of the West, under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard. He attempted to defend both Augusta and Charleston and divided his available forces between the two cities to defend them as long as possible. He hoped that doing so would give the Confederacy an advantage during negotiations at the Hampton Roads peace conference; he also thought that he could reconcentrate his forces if Sherman changed course for Columbia.[14]

Sherman sought to maximize his speed and deception as he entered South Carolina. He stripped the army down to its barebones, leaving behind most of its baggage, opting to go without supply lines and forage on the march. He then split his army into two prongs, making one appear to go for Charleston, and the other for Augusta, Georgia. The Confederates fell for the ruse, split their forces, and were resoundingly defeated by Sherman's extremely mobile army.[15] Most importantly, the Confederates had left Columbia mostly unprotected since they believed that Sherman's army was not heading for it. But Columbian citizens saw the impending threat, and organized civilian petitions for defense starting in December 1864.[16] Repeated attempts by Columbian citizens to arrange for Confederate reinforcements failed; by January 1865, the Confederate government believed that Charleston (and by extension Columbia) could not be held and was unworthy of reinforcement.[17] A plea by Governor Andrew Gordon Magrath to General Robert E. Lee was only slightly more successful, leading Lee to dispatch a token force of 2,000 troops to bolster the 30,000 already in South Carolina.[18] But the nature of the threat to Columbia remained mostly unconsidered as late as February 14th. Only on February 10 was the first sign of the danger apparent, when Dr. LeConte received orders to pack up the Confederate medical/chemical facilities and ship them to Richmond. But even Dr. LeConte believed the city to be safe, having heard that only 300 troops threatened the city, compared to its 5,000 defenders.[19]

Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard, who was in charge of the Carolina's defense.

The defense of Columbia was made mostly ineffectual by the poor decisions of General P. G. T. Beauregard, who further split his forces trying to counter Sherman, rather than keeping his forces together.[20] Historian Marion Lucas assesses that Beauregard failed to learn from Sherman's March to the Sea. Had he learned, Lucas argues that Beauregard would have realized that Sherman would again split his forces, and that the best counter would have been to keep Confederate forces united and attack Sherman's weak flanks. He also argues that the Confederate forces had the advantage: they had considerable stores of food and ammunition, compared to Sherman's foraging troops. Further, Sherman was being slowed by torrential winter rains and impassable roads. But Lucas ultimately argues that Beauregard had already succumbed to defeatism, and that the spirit had infected the troops.[21] Beauregard sent a dejected message to Lee on February 15, indicating that he would be withdrawing towards North Carolina, implicitly meaning that Columbia was to be abandoned.[22]

On February 15, 1865, a mere 15 days after entering the Carolinas, Sherman's army had advanced to within four miles of Columbia. Skirmishes broke out repeatedly.[23] Confederate forces shelled Union positions in their sleep on the night of February 15th, after Union forces gave away their positions by lighting campfires.[23] Sherman was angered by the killing of his sleeping troops, and contemplated retaliation, but decided against it.[24] The last Confederate troops pulled back across the Saluda and Congaree rivers on February 16, burning the bridges across the rivers, disobeying Beauregard's orders.[25] Confederate sharpshooters harassed Union troops from across the Congaree; Union troops quickly shelled the sharpshooters into silence.[26] At this point, it still appeared that the city would not be taken without a fight, and Sherman made plans for its capture. He issued Special Field Order No. 26, which was nearly identical in its terms to the order issued for the capture of Savannah a couple of months prior:[26]

General Howard will cross the Saluda and Broad rivers as near their mouths as possible, occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops, but will spare libraries and asylums and private dwellings.

Little consideration had been made by Confederate authorities for a potential evacuation. Thus, by February 14th, when it was finally apparent that the full might of the Union Army was bearing down on Columbia, the city descended into panic. Citizens and government officials competed for space on outgoing railroad trains, with no system for priority.[27] The town fell into a further state of chaos as retreating Confederate troops streamed into the city. Martial law was declared on the 16th as rioting began to take hold.[28] The Confederates did have some successes in evacuation. They managed to get out the treasury presses, and the treasury employees with all their baggage (save from the women's hoop skirts) aboard a train. Further, the Union prisoners of war had been successfully evacuated on February 12, in perhaps the only act of preplanning in the evacuation, though planning for proper provisions had not been arranged.[29] Otherwise, the evacuation of Confederate property was a disaster. The commander of the Palmetto Armory desperately sought permission to prioritize the Armory's irreplaceable stock machines, but became bogged down in Confederate inefficiency and communication issues, the machines just barely escaped Columbia. The rest of the Armory was not so lucky, it was rendered de facto captured on the 16th as Union artillery came within range.[30]

Confederate Major N. R. Chambliss arrived in the city on February 14 with the intent of evacuating the considerable military stores. Though initially he tarried in evacuating supplies, Chambliss proved to be the most dedicated and capable Confederate official regarding evacuation. He found the rail lines packed on the 14th, and opted to take no action that day. But on the 15th he realized that there was no effort being undertaken whatsoever to remove government property. He sought out Major John T. Trezevant, and came up with a plan to procure wagons to be loaded after dark. But Chambliss did not put all his faith in Trezevant, and continued his own efforts throughout the day to requisition evacuation. Around midnight, Trezevant had still not appeared, and Chambliss went to the armory; Trezevant was nowhere to be found. Chambliss managed to requisition one railcar, which he found packed with treasury employees. He ordered them out by force, and with the help of the arsenal's mechanics, loaded the single car with a mere 105,000 rounds of ammunition, and some official documents. To have removed all of the stores in the arsenal, it was estimated that at least 20 cars would have been needed. Further, 70 cars worth of supplies had been sent from Charleston, which were not evacuated from Columbia. The loss of 90 train cars worth of military supplies was perhaps the greatest of the whole war.[31]

Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton, who oversaw the final day of Confederate control of Columbia.

Most consequentially, the slipshod planning prevented the planned destruction of the city's cotton stores. Confederate policy was to burn valuable cotton rather than let it fall into Union hands. But the utter lack of transportation meant that the cotton could not be taken outside the city, to be safely burned as planned. The post commander, Major Green, came up with the idea to pull the cotton into the streets to be burned; his orders were published in the Columbia papers on the 15th. By the 16th, most of the city's cotton had been pulled out of the warehouses, basements, and sheds it was stockpiled in.[32] A change in command followed. Wade Hampton III was promoted to Lt. Gen., effective the morning of the 17th. His first order was to forbid the burning of the cotton, since he realized that burning the cotton in situ would represent an extreme fire hazard. But Hampton's orders likely did not make it to most Confederate soldiers on the ground, since Major Green had deserted his post by the time Hampton took command of the area.[33]

Sherman's forces, which had been split into two prongs, reunited on the west bank of the Congaree river on February 16. Sherman directed Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard to take the city proper with the army's right wing, while Maj. Gen. Henry Warner Slocum was given the task of taking the army's left wing to capture Winnsboro, South Carolina, 13 miles upstream the Saluda river.[34] Heavy rains complicated Howard's task: the rivers were swollen and the Confederates had burned all the bridges. Crossing the Saluda river would be necessary, and engineers set about building a pontoon bridge. Confederate sharpshooters delayed completion, but Union troops dislodged the shooters, and the bridge was finished before day's end. The next river to cross was the Broad river, which still had a bridge across it being held by Confederates. The bridge was nearly taken whole after a short fight, but the Confederates had already rigged it to burn, and once again the Union army found itself at a river with no bridges. Again, the troops set about engineering a crossing with gusto, working through the night. Around 3 in the morning, engineers successfully shot a pontoon line across the river and the army ferried two boats of sharpshooters to the far side to establish a beachhead. But a suitable pontoon bridge to allow the bulk of the army to cross would not be finished until around 9 in the morning on the 17th.[35]

The city had a considerable store of alcohol. Much of the alcohol of Charleston had been shipped to Columbia for safekeeping. Local merchants had on hand large quantities. The medical factory also had considerable stores of whiskey. The mayor of Columbia beseeched the Confederate generals Beauregard and Hampton to destroy the liquor, but the generals were of the opinion they had no such authority. A period of considerable drunkenness broke out on the night of the 16th. The withdrawing Confederate army lost all discipline, and combined with rampaging civilians to terrorize the town. Numerous fires were set in the night, likely by a combination of drunks and continuing Union bombardment. A large explosion of gunpowder set off by a plunderer destroyed the South Carolina Railroad depot around 6 a.m. on the 17th. Numerous cotton fires were burning by the morning of the 17th.[36]

The only Confederates defending the city by this point were small detachments from Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry corps, Maj. Gen. Matthew Butler's cavalry division, and Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee's corps from the Army of Tennessee.[37] General Beauregard had expressed to the mayor of Columbia that he hoped to have all Confederate troops out of the city before daybreak on the 17th; this had not been achieved. But the explosion of the SCRR depot (whose cause was then unknown) sent the mayor into a panic. He attempted to surrender soon after, but was stopped by Lt. Gen. Hampton. Hampton then rode out to assess the battlefield, and found that Union forces had already crossed the Congaree river, putting his forces in an untenable position. He commanded the remaining troops to withdraw from Columbia, and ordered Maj. Gen. Matthew Butler to burn the Charlotte and South Carolina Rail Road terminal. The mayor and the city's aldermen, without Hampton to stop them, rode out to surrender around 9 am. The last of the Confederate troops, some 5,000 strong, pulled out sometime between 10 and 11 in the morning. The last act of the fleeing Confederates was to set ablaze the Charlotte and South Carolina Rail Road.[38]