Part 22

In the same year I read a discriminating eulogy of George Bancroft, ending with an intelligent criticism of his history, which produced on me a marked impression. The reviewer wrote: Bancroft falls into "that error so common with the graphic school of historians—the exaggerated estimate of manuscripts or fragmentary material at the expense of what is printed and permanent.... But a fault far more serious than this is one which Mr. Bancroft shared with his historical contemporaries, but in which he far exceeded any of them—an utter ignoring of the very meaning and significance of a quotation mark." Sound and scientific doctrine is this; and the whole article exhibited a thorough knowledge of our colonial and revolutionary history which inspired confidence in the conclusions of the writer, who, I later ascertained, was Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

These two examples could be multiplied at length. There were many reviewers from Harvard and Yale; and undoubtedly other Eastern colleges were well represented. The University of Wisconsin furnished at least one contributor, as probably did the University of Michigan and other Western colleges. Men in Washington, New York, and Boston, not in academic life, were drawn upon; a soldier of the Civil War, living in Cincinnati, a man of affairs, sent many reviews. James Bryce was an occasional contributor, and at least three notable reviews came from the pen of Albert V. Dicey. In 1885, Godkin, in speaking of The Nation's department of Literature and Art, wrote that "the list of those who have contributed to the columns of the paper from the first issue to the present day contains a large number of the most eminent names in American literature, science, art, philosophy, and law." With men so gifted, and chosen from all parts of the country, uniformly destructive criticism could not have prevailed. Among them were optimists as well as pessimists, and men as independent in thought as was Godkin himself.

Believing that Godkin's thirty-five years of critical work was of great benefit to this country, I have sometimes asked myself whether the fact of his being a foreigner has made it more irritating to many good people, who term his criticism "fault-finding" or "scolding." Although he married in America and his home life was centered here, he confessed that in many essential things it was a foreign country. Some readers who admired The Nation told Mr. Bryce that they did not want "to be taught by a European how to run this republic." But Bryce, who in this matter is the most competent of judges, intimates that Godkin's foreign education, giving him detachment and perspective, was a distinct advantage. If it will help any one to a better appreciation of the man, let Godkin be regarded as "a chiel amang us takin' notes"; as an observer not so philosophic as Tocqueville, not so genial and sympathetic as Bryce. Yet, whether we look upon him as an Irishman, an Englishman, or an American, let us rejoice that he cast his lot with us, and that we have had the benefit of his illuminating pen. He was not always right; he was sometimes unjust; he often told the truth with "needless asperity," as Parkman put it; but his merits so outweighed his defects that he had a marked influence on opinion, and probably on history, during his thirty-five years of journalistic work, when, according to James Bryce, he showed a courage such as is rare everywhere. General J. D. Cox, who had not missed a number of The Nation from 1865 to 1899, wrote to Godkin, on hearing of his prospective retirement from the Evening Post, "I really believe that earnest men, all over the land, whether they agree with you or differ, will unite in the exclamation which Lincoln made as to Grant, 'We can't spare this man—he fights.'"

Our country, wrapped up in no smug complacency, listened to this man, respected him and supported him, and on his death a number of people were glad to unite to endow a lectureship in his honor in Harvard University.

In closing, I cannot do better than quote what may be called Godkin's farewell words, printed forty days before the attack of cerebral hemorrhage which ended his active career. "The election of the chief officer of the state by universal suffrage," he wrote, "by a nation approaching one hundred millions, is not simply a novelty in the history of man's efforts to govern himself, but an experiment of which no one can foresee the result. The mass is yearly becoming more and more difficult to move. The old arts of persuasion are already ceasing to be employed on it. Presidential elections are less and less carried by speeches and articles. The American people is a less instructed people than it used to be. The necessity for drilling, organizing, and guiding it, in order to extract the vote from it is becoming plain; and out of this necessity has arisen the boss system, which is now found in existence everywhere, is growing more powerful, and has thus far resisted all attempts to overthrow it."

I shall not stop to urge a qualification of some of these statements, but will proceed to the brighter side of our case, which Godkin, even in his pessimistic mood, could not fail to see distinctly. "On the other hand," he continued, "I think the progress made by the colleges throughout the country, big and little, both in the quality of the instruction and in the amount of money devoted to books, laboratories, and educational facilities of all kinds, is something unparalleled in the history of the civilized world. And the progress of the nation in all the arts, except that of government, in science, in literature, in commerce, in invention, is something unprecedented and becomes daily more astonishing. How it is that this splendid progress does not drag on politics with it I do not profess to know."

Let us be as hopeful as was Godkin in his earlier days, and rest assured that intellectual training will eventually exert its power in politics, as it has done in business and in other domains of active life.

R. Ogden's Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin, I, 255.

Rhodes's History of the United States, II, 72 (C. M. Depew).

Ogden, II, 88.

Ibid., I, 257.

Parton's Greeley, 331, 576; my own recollections; Ogden, I, 255.

Godkin, Random Recollections, Evening Post, December 30, 1899.

Ogden, I, 168.

Ogden, I, 221, 249, 251, 252; II, 222, 231.

Letters of J. R. Lowell, II, 76.

Ibid., I, 368.

Ogden, I, 1.

Evening Post, December 30, 1899; Ogden, I, 11.

Evening Post, December 30, 1899.

Ibid.; Ogden, I, 113.

Evening Post, December 30, 1899; Ogden, I, passim; The Nation, June 25, 1885, May 23, 1902.

Ogden, II, Chap. XVII.

Ogden, II, Chap. XI.

Ibid., II, 51.

Studies in Contemporary Biography, 372.

Tacitus, History, I, 1.

Republic.

June 23, Rhodes, VI, 382.

Ogden, II, 66.

Ogden, II, 140.

Problems of Modern Democracy, 209.

Ogden, II, 199.

Ibid., II, 202.

Random Recollections, Evening Post, December 30, 1899.

Ogden, II, 202.

Ibid., II, 214.

Ibid., II, 238.

Ibid., II, 219.

Ibid., II, 237.

Biographical Studies, 378.

Ogden, I, 301, 307.

Life and Letters, II, 485.

Random Recollections, Evening Post, December 30, 1899.

Ogden, II, 30, 136, 213, 214, 247, 253.

Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy, 117.

Ogden, II, 51.

Essays, 38.

Vol. 52, p. 267.

Vol. 52, p. 66.

June 25, 1885.

Ogden, II, 116.

Ibid., I, 252.

Biographical Studies, 370.

Ogden, II, 229.

Evening Post, December 30, 1899.

WHO BURNED COLUMBIA?

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the November meeting of 1901, and printed in the American Historical Review of April, 1902.

WHO BURNED COLUMBIA?

The story goes that when General Sherman lived in New York City, which was during the last five years of his life, he attended one night a dinner party at which he and an ex-Confederate general who had fought against him in the southwest were the chief guests; and that an Englishman present asked in perfect innocence the question, Who burned Columbia? Had bombshells struck the tents of these generals during the war, they would not have caused half the commotion in their breasts that did this question put solely with the desire of information. The emphatic language of Sherman interlarded with the oaths he uttered spontaneously, the bitter charges of the Confederate, the pounding of the table, the dancing of the glasses, told the Englishman that the bloody chasm had not been entirely filled. With a little variation and with some figurative meaning, he might have used the words of Iago: "Friends all but now, even now in peace; and then but now as if some planet had outwitted men, tilting at one another's breast in opposition. I cannot speak any beginning to this peevish odds."

But the question which disturbed the New York dinner party is a delight to the historian. Feeling that history may be known best when there are most documents, he may derive the greatest pleasure from a perusal of the mass of evidence bearing on this disputed point; and if he is of Northern birth he ought to approach the subject with absolute candor. Of a Southerner who had himself lost property or whose parents had lost property, through Sherman's campaign of invasion, it would be asking too much to expect him to consider this subject in a judicial spirit. Even Trent, a moderate and impartial Southern writer whose tone is a lesson to us all, when referring, in his life of William Gilmore Simms, to "the much vexed question, Who burned Columbia," used words of the sternest condemnation.

Sherman, with his army of 60,000, left Savannah February 1, 1865, and reached the neighborhood of Columbia February 16. The next day Columbia was evacuated by the Confederates, occupied by troops of the fifteenth corps of the Federal army, and by the morning of the 18th either three fifths or two thirds of the town lay in ashes. The facts contained in these two sentences are almost the only ones undisputed. We shall consider this episode most curiously if we take first Sherman's account, then Wade Hampton's, ending with what I conceive to be a true relation.

The city was surrendered by the mayor and three aldermen to Colonel George A. Stone at the head of his brigade. Soon afterwards Sherman and Howard, the commander of the right wing of the army, rode into the city; they observed piles of cotton burning, and Union soldiers and citizens working to extinguish the fire, which was partially subdued. Let Sherman speak for himself in the first account that he wrote, which was his report of April 4, 1865: "Before one single public building had been fired by order, the smouldering fires [cotton] set by Hampton's order were rekindled by the wind, and communicated to the buildings around. [Wade Hampton commanded the Confederate cavalry.] About dark they began to spread, and got beyond the control of the brigade on duty within the city. The whole of Woods' division was brought in, but it was found impossible to check the flames, which, by midnight, had become unmanageable, and raged until about 4 A.M., when the wind subsiding, they were got under control.

"I was up nearly all night, and saw Generals Howard, Logan, Woods, and others, laboring to save houses and protect families thus suddenly deprived of shelter, and even of bedding and wearing apparel. I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire, but, on the contrary, claim that we saved what of Columbia remains unconsumed. And without hesitation I charge General Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia, not with a malicious intent or as the manifestation of a silly 'Roman stoicism,' but from folly, and want of sense, in filling it with lint, cotton, and tinder. Our officers and men on duty worked well to extinguish the flames; but others not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned there, rescued by us, may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had once begun, and may have indulged in unconcealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina." Howard, in his report, with some modification agrees with his chief, and the account in "The March to the Sea" of General Cox, whose experience and training fitted him well to weigh the evidence, gives at least a partial confirmation to Sherman's theory of the origin of the fire.

I have not, however, discovered sufficient evidence to support the assertion of Sherman that Wade Hampton ordered the cotton in the streets of Columbia to be burned. Nor do I believe Sherman knew a single fact on which he might base so positive a statement. It had generally been the custom for the Confederates in their retreat to burn cotton to prevent its falling into the hands of the invading army, and because such was the general rule Sherman assumed that it had been applied in this particular case. This assumption suited his interest, as he sought a victim to whom he might charge the burning of Columbia. His statement in his "Memoirs," published in 1875, is a delicious bit of historical naivete. "In my official report of this conflagration," he wrote, "I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly, to shake the faith of his people in him, for he was in my opinion boastful and professed to be the special champion of South Carolina."

Instead of Hampton giving an order to burn the cotton, I am satisfied that he urged Beauregard, the general in command, to issue an order that this cotton should not be burned, lest the fire might spread to the shops and houses, which for the most part were built of wood, and I am further satisfied that such an order was given. Unfortunately the evidence for this is not contemporary. No such order is printed in the "Official Records," and I am advised from the War Department that no such order has been found. The nearest evidence to the time which I have discovered is a letter of Wade Hampton of April 21, 1866, and one of Beauregard of May 2, 1866. Since these dates, there is an abundance of evidence, some of it sworn testimony, and while it is mixed up with inaccurate statements on another point, and all of it is of the nature of recollections, I cannot resist the conclusion that Beauregard and Hampton gave such an order. It was unquestionably the wise thing to do. There was absolutely no object in burning the cotton, as the Federal troops could not carry it with them and could not ship it to any seaport which was under Union control.

An order of Beauregard issued two days after the burning of Columbia and printed in the "Official Records" shows that the policy of burning cotton to keep it out of the hands of Sherman's army had been abandoned. Sherman's charge, then, that Wade Hampton burned Columbia, falls to the ground. The other part of his account, in which he maintained that the fire spread to the buildings from the smoldering cotton rekindled by the wind, which was blowing a gale, deserves more respect. His report saying that he saw cotton afire in the streets was written April 4, 1865, and Howard's in which the same fact is stated was written April 1, very soon after the event, when their recollection would be fresh. All of the Southern evidence (except one statement, the most important of all) is to the effect that no cotton was burning until after the Federal troops entered the city. Many Southerners in their testimony before the British and American mixed commission under examination and cross-examination swear to this; and Wade Hampton swears that he was one of the last Confederates to leave the city, and that, when he left, no cotton was afire, and he knew that it was not fired by his men. But this testimony was taken in 1872 and 1873, and may be balanced by the sworn testimony of Sherman, Howard, and other Union officers before the same commission in 1872.

The weight of the evidence already referred to would seem to me to show that cotton was afire when the Federal troops entered Columbia, but a contemporary statement of a Confederate officer puts it beyond doubt. Major Chambliss, who was endeavoring to secure the means of transportation for the Confederate ordnance and ordnance stores, wrote, in a letter of February 20, that at three o'clock on the morning of February 17, which was a number of hours before the Union soldiers entered Columbia, "the city was illuminated with burning cotton." But it does not follow that the burning cotton in the streets of Columbia was the cause of the fire which destroyed the city. When we come to the probably correct account of the incident, we shall see that the preponderance of the evidence points to another cause.

February 27, ten days after the fire, Wade Hampton, in a letter to Sherman, charged him with having permitted the burning of Columbia, if he did not order it directly; and this has been iterated later by many Southern writers. The correspondence between Halleck and Sherman is cited to show premeditation on the part of the general. "Should you capture Charleston," wrote Halleck, December 18, 1864, "I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be sown upon the site it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession." Sherman thus replied six days later: "I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think salt will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth Corps will be on the right of the Right Wing, and their position will bring them naturally into Charleston first; and if you have watched the history of that corps you will have remarked that they generally do their work up pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance on South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her.... I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston."

The evidence from many points of view corroborating this statement of the feeling of the army towards South Carolina is ample. The rank and file of Sherman's army were men of some education and intelligence; they were accustomed to discuss public matters, weigh reasons, and draw conclusions. They thought that South Carolina had brought on the Civil War, was responsible for the cost and bloodshed of it, and no punishment for her could be too severe. That was likewise the sentiment of the officers. A characteristic expression of the feeling may be found in a home letter of Colonel Charles F. Morse, of the second Massachusetts, who speaks of the "miserable, rebellious State of South Carolina." "Pity for these inhabitants," he further writes, "I have none. In the first place, they are rebels, and I am almost prepared to agree with Sherman that a rebel has no rights, not even the right to live except by our permission."

It is no wonder, then, that Southern writers, smarting at the loss caused by Sherman's campaign of invasion, should believe that Sherman connived at the destruction of Columbia. But they are wrong in that belief. The general's actions were not so bad as his words. Before his troops made their entrance he issued this order: "General Howard will ... occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops, but will spare libraries and asylums and private dwellings." That Sherman was entirely sincere when he gave this order, and that his general officers endeavored to carry it out cannot be questioned. A statement which he made under oath in 1872 indicates that he did not connive at the destruction of Columbia. "If I had made up my mind to burn Columbia," he declared, "I would have burnt it with no more feeling than I would a common prairie dog village; but I did not do it."

Other words of his exhibit without disguise his feelings in regard to the occurrence which the South has regarded as a piece of wanton mischief. "The ulterior and strategic advantages of the occupation of Columbia are seen now clearly by the result," said Sherman under oath. "The burning of the private dwellings, though never designed by me, was a trifling matter compared with the manifold results that soon followed. Though I never ordered it and never wished it, I have never shed many tears over the event, because I believe it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war." It is true that he feared previous to their entry the burning of Columbia by his soldiers, owing to their "deep-seated feeling of hostility" to the town, but no general of such an army during such a campaign of invasion would have refused them the permission to occupy the capital city of South Carolina. "I could have had them stay in the ranks," he declared, "but I would not have done it under the circumstances to save Columbia."