"Columbia has been burnt to H--l."

This unidentified image of a Confederate soldier comes from the Library of Congress.

Sunday, May 7, 1865, Columbia

We are getting closer to getting home, some of us much closer than others.

We arrived here in Columbia yesterday. I could easily have bypassed this city and not been so disheartened as I am now and I am not the only one. It is the worst for those in our humble party who live in the capital city or anywhere nearby. This is a horrible place. Columbia has been burnt to H--l.
The Yankees know how to torch or city. It is one of the things that they do very well.

After we left Camden, it was evident that Sherman's men had passed through the area.We passed by farmhouses, barns and outbuildings, both burned up and intact. We could decipher no rhyme or reason to this.

Major General William T. Sherman.

We could smell Columbia before we saw it. There has been mush devastation here. Those without shelter are many. There are many refugees here and all are hungry. The Yankees have reduced this once-fine city to a desolate wasteland. We would never do such a thing.

Columbia ruins.

Ruins of Christ Episcapol Church.

The government warehouses have all been destroyed so there is no chance of filling our haversacks. This city's citizens are busy looking for food themselves. There is little here to sustain us and we dare not stay long.

Burning of Columbia.

We continue to decrease in size. We have lost most of my regiment. The rest of the Twelfth left the party north of Columbia except for Lieutenant Colonel Kinsler and as his home is here, when I leave, I will be the only one left. I shall have to travel with those from the First as only they remain from our original party which left Lancaster on Wednesday last.

I hope that we leave this wretched place soon. There is nothing to keep us here. Things will be better in Charleston.


I Send You These Few Lines.

Tooms and those he is traveling with are largely following, in reverse, the route that Sherman's army took as it moved through South Carolina from Savannah. The XVth Corps, of Sherman's army passed closest to Camden on their march north.

Major General John A. Logan, commander of XV Corps.

Columbia suffered greatly during the closing days of the war. A great deal of the city was gutted by fire. Who started the fire has long been a source of heated, emotional contention. Sherman did order that buildings and supplies of military use to the Confederacy be burned but not a general conflagration. As with the burning of Richmond in April, things got out of hand. High winds blew the fires out of control. Some fires were supposedly started by Wade Hampton's cavalry as he ordered the destruction of cotton bales. Whomever started the fires aside, once the winds kicked in, the fire went off of itself. Tooms' anger against the Federal forces is perhaps unjustified.

Major General Wade Hampton.

The fleeing Jefferson Davis is reunited with his wife and family 150 years ago today on the banks of the Oconee River in the woods northeast of Abbeville, Georgia.

Jefferson Davis

Varina Davis