CH. XIII] LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL 421 events from 1865 to 1877, men may well wish that the offer had been made. A month later, in the spirit of this Sunday, Lincoln uttered the sublime words of his second inaugural address, the greatest of presidential inaugurals, one of the noblest of State papers.1 1 V; N. & H., X; Lincoln, C. W., II; Welles's Dairy, II. CHAPTER XIV SHERMAN with an army of 60,000, which was substantially the same as that which he had led from Atlanta to Savannah, started northward from Savannah on February 1, in the execution of a plan devised by himself, and on March 23 reached Goldsborough, North Carolina, having covered the 425 miles in fifty days. His progress to the sea had been a frolic; the march northward a long wrestle with the elements. At the outset the first division encountered a deluging rain, causing a rise in the Savannah river which burst its dikes, washed over the road and nearly drowned many of the troops. Waiting until this flood abated and passing successfully the difficulties occasioned by the high water in the neighborhood of Savannah, the army plunged into the swamps of the Combahee and Edisto, and floundered through the flat quagmires of the river countries of the Pedee and Cape Fear. They crossed five large navigable rivers, - which the almost continuous rains of the winter had converted into lakes, at times marching through icy water waist deep. "One day," as Sherman related the incident, "while my men were wading a river which was surrounded for miles by swamps on each side, after they had been in the water for about an hour without much prospect of reaching the other side, one of them cried out to his chum, 'Say, Tommy, I'm blowed if I don't believe we've struck this river lengthways!"" Where the country was not actually under water, there was deep mud; the incessant downpour made roads which were always 1 Horace Porter, Century, Sept. 1897, 739. 1 CH. XIV] SHERMAN'S MARCH NORTHWARD 423 difficult almost impassable, turned swampy ways into deep quagmires. It was "chaos come again" wrote Cox, but the chaos was bridged for hundreds of miles1 by this indomitable army. The roads were corduroyed; the streams and rivers were crossed on pontoon and trestle bridges. It would have been a difficult region for an army to march through had the inhabitants been friendly and no enemy near; but, under the direction of Wheeler's cavalry, details of negro laborers had "felled trees, burned bridges and made obstructions to impede Sherman's progress." 2 To gain possession of the long causeways through the swamps it was necessary to outflank the enemy and drive him off. For this and other reasons there were skirmishes nearly every day, yet the army marched at the average daily rate of ten miles. Sherman "seems to have everything his own way," wrote Lee from Petersburg.3 "I made up my mind," said Joseph E. Johnston, "that there had been no such army since the days of Julius Cæsar." 4 The 2500 wagons of the army carried a full supply of ammunition and a large number of Government rations. The initial food supply was eked out and systematic foraging upon the country was carried on in the manner which had proved so successful in the campaign from Atlanta to the sea. The march began in South Carolina, continued directly through the centre of the State and was marked by a line of buildings and cotton bales afire. The soldiers tore up the railroads, applied the torch to their woodwork, twisted the rails and destroyed all water-tanks, engines and machinery. The Confederates set fire to cotton to prevent its falling into the hands of the Union Army and what they spared was burned by the Northern soldiers in the territory 1 J. D. Cox, 172. Feb. 19, ib., 1044. 2 O. R., XLVII, Pt. 1, 19. 4 J. D. Cox, 168, Reminiscences, II, 531. 424 SOUTH CAROLINA [1865 which they were merely traversing and could not hope to occupy permanently. In the high circles of the army a bitter feeling existed against South Carolina as the cause of all the trouble of the past four years. "The whole army,' Sherman wrote, "is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her." 1 With such sentiments at headquarters it is little wonder that the rank and file thought it legitimate to despoil the enemy and set fire to his houses: still most of these irregular acts were committed by stragglers. Sherman's orders may probably be justified from the military point of view but they left loopholes for the mania for destruction; and the necessities of the case and the burden of responsibility resting upon him may have caused him to wink at the havoc wrought by his army. The evidence shows, however, that many of the general officers did their best to stop the depredations of their soldiers and some punishments were inflicted. From this statement must again be excepted Kilpatrick, whose command suffered no restraint and were forward in destruction and pillage. The most notorious occurrence during this march was the partial destruction by fire of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina; but this was due neither to Sherman nor Wade Hampton nor any other Federal or Confederate officer. 2 The occupation of Columbia by Sherman compelled the abandonment of Charleston on February 18 by the Confederates. Efforts were made to collect a force which should be able to resist the Union Army but, in view of the steadily advancing host, they seem to have been puny and at any 1 Dec. 24, 1864, O. R., XLIV, 741. 2 V, 90 et seq. Rhodes, Historical Essays. CH. XIV] SOUTH CAROLINA 425 rate were of no avail. When Davis heard that the evacuation of Charleston was necessary, he wrote, "I had hoped for other and better results and the disappointment is to me extremely bitter." 1 In Charleston much property was destroyed, but it was the Confederates who, through accident or design, were, the agents of destruction. The Federal troops on entering the city found public buildings, stores, warehouses, railroad bridges, private dwellings and cotton afire but they afterwards wreaked their vengeance on this cradle of secession by robbery and pillage. Probably the majority of Northern people at the time had no other idea of Charleston's distress than that it was abundantly deserved; but the suffering and want in this former abode of wealth and refinement must evoke in us now sympathy with the community on whom the horrors of war were visited. To understand the march through South Carolina, the hatred of officers and soldiers for the State which had taken the lead in the secession movement must be borne constantly in mind. This undoubtedly led many of them into transgressions which they had not committed in Georgia and from which they afterwards refrained in North Carolina, while it furnished the stragglers a ready excuse for their robberies and outrages. General Blair reported on March 7 "that every house on his line of march to-day was pillaged, trunks broken open, jewelry, silver, etc., taken." 2 had evidence after the war of robberies and even partial hanging to extort the disclosure of a place where money and valuables were hidden. "Stragglers, deserters from either army, marauders, bummers, and strolling vagabonds, negroes and whites committed outrages upon the inhabitants"; "three cases of rape and one of murder" were 1 O. R., XLVII, Pt. 2, 1201. 2 O. R., XLVII, Pt. 2, 714. Cox |