The following was
contributed by ROBERT W. SANDERS, of Greenville, S.C.
:
" A native of South
Carolina, and one whose residence has been in the 'Palmetto
State' since his birth - now over 80 years ago - I was 13
years old when the Secession Ordinance of South Carolina was
adopted, Dec. 20, 1860. More than once the venomous printed
statement has gone forth that the ordinance was passed in
Columbia, S.C. That however , is a mistake.... I remember well when
the news of the secession of S.C. was flashed to
Barnwell, my native county[ dist. as it was called then].
There was great excitement and also enthusiasm over it.
Cleaving, as S. Carolinians still do, to the State Rights
doctrine as advocated and defended by JOHN C. CALHOUN, but
few people in the state perhaps expected the bloody war to
follow. They mistakenly thought that the State would go out
of the Union and join with other states, peaceably forming
the Confederacy.
The
Secession Convention held its meetings while sitting in
Columbia, in the First Baptist Church edifice, which stands
there yet, with its stately columns fronting Hampton Ave.
The congregation had previously worshipped there for years in a much
smaller and far less imposing church building on another
street. And I read this story [ no doubt a true one] that
when Sherman's army entered Columbia, Feb. 17, 1865, some of
his men made inquiries of an old negro as to where the old
building was, so they might burn it. They did burn the small
old church house, believing that the Secession Convention had
been held in it, instead of the large new building in which
the convention had really met. Hence, the building in
which the assembly took place, before moving to Charleston,
escaped the enraged enemy's torch. This cruel torch[ or
rather torches] was applied by Sherman's soldiers in many
other places, however and much of the beautiful city was
left in ashes, as were homes, ginhouses and the like, burned by that
army along its relentless march from Savannah, Ga. to
Greensboro, N.C.
Misled people,
in some sections of our great country, seem to have believed
the false allegation against Gen. WADE HAMPTON that he
burned Columbia by having bales of cotton fired on the
streets of that city. There is no doubt that the city was destroyed
by numerous fires from the hands of Sherman's army. This fact
has been several times stated to me by aged, truthful, and
honorable citizens of Columbia , eyewitnesses of the
cruelties of the Northern soldiers whom they saw set the
fires a-going.
The story that
HAMPTON burned Columbia has no more truth in it than the
cruelly false report that President JEFFERSON DAVIS was in
woman's clothes when he was captured on that memorable night
while camping near a spring, a day's journey from
Washington, Ga., whence he had departed that morning about nine
o'clock."