Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, probably April 6-7, 1866.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,        

IN THE FIELD NEAR COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 16, 1865.

Special Field Orders,}

No.

EXTRACT.

The next series of movements will be at Fayetteville, N.C., and thence to Wilmington or Goldsboro, according to events. Great care must be taken to collect forage and food, and at the same time in covering the wagon trains from cavalry dashes.

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. He will then move to Winnsboro, destroying en route utterly that section of the railroad.

By order of Major-General

W. T. SHERMAN.

L. M. DAYTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.

This order was made the day before we entered Columbia, about the time the rebels were cannonading our camps on the west side of the Congaree, and burning their three splendid bridges (Saluda and Broad unite at Columbia and make the Congaree). During the 16th Howard crossed the Saluda at the factory above Columbia, and that night crossed Stone's brigade to the east side of the Broad River, and under its cover laid the pontoon bridge, completing it about noon of the 17th. Stone's brigade went into Columbia about 11 A.M., the mayor having come out three miles and notified him that Beauregard and Hampton had evacuated. They evacuated because they knew that Slocum and Kilpatrick were moving straight for Winnsboro, 26 miles in their rear, and I wanted them to stay in Columbia another day. Their hasty evacuation was not to spare Columbia, but to save being caught in the forks of the Congaree and Catawba, which would have resulted, had they given time for Slocum to reach Winnsboro. Mayor Goodwin complained to me of the cotton-burning order of Wade Hampton, and especially that Hampton and Beauregard would not consent to his request that the liquor (which had run the blockade and been transferred from the coast to Columbia for safety) was not removed or destroyed. This liquor, which our men got in bucketfuls, was an aggravation, and occasioned much of the disorder at night after the fires had got headway. We all know how the soldiers and junior officers hated South Carolina, and I can hardly say what excesses would have resulted had the general officers allowed them free scope.

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 268-9