66 Days of Hell - E-book - ePub

This is an account of Gen. Sherman's destruction of South Carolina in January and February, 1865. Robertsville, Lawtonville, Lopers Crossroads, Barkers Mill, Salkehatchie River, McPhersonville, Hayward Plantation, Hickory Hill, Whippy Swamp, Ferguson's Branch, McBride's Bridge, Tennant's Branch, DuBoise Landing, Tobys Bluff, Roberts Ford, Broxton's Bridge, River's Bridge, Buford's Bridge, Fiddle Pond, Morris Ford, Springtown, Blackville, Barnwell, White Pond, Orangeburg.
Johnson's Crossing, Aiken, Lexington, Cheraw, Columbia, Lynch's Creek "Again at the hospital I see the horrid results of every battle.  Men mutilated in every shape conceivable, groaning, begging for assistance and gasping in death. Many of our wounded will have to lie all night in that horrid swamp, it being impossible to find them and carry them out on the narrow foot bridge that has been made. Many have had their heads  propped up out of the water where they lay to keep them from drowning." Gen.
Sherman's march through South Carolina began in late December, 1864.  By March 9, 1865, his troops had passed out of the state into North Carolina - leaving behind a path of total destruction 100 miles wide and extending the entire length of the state. Today many people only remember the "March To The Sea" which was largly unopposed and not nearly as destructive as what happened in South Carolina. "When I go through South Carolina, " he promised, " it will be one of the most horrible things in the history of the world.
The devil himself couldn't restrain my men in that state." During the first part of the march houses were burned as they were found. Whenever a view could be had from high ground black columns of smoke were seen rising here and there within a circuit of twenty or thirty miles. Solid built chimneys were the only relics of plantation houses after the fearful blast had swept by. The destruction of houses, barns, mills, &c., was almost universal.
Families who remained at home occasionally kept the roof over their heads. 'Refugeeing, ' as the Yankee soldiers termed fleeing from the wrath to come, was taken as evidence that the refugees were rebels, and the property they had left was destroyed.