On the 17th of January, 1865, Slocum's column crossed the Savannah River via a pontoon bridge at Sister's Ferry, and marched about 8 miles into South Carolina. Capt. Francis Crowninshield shivered against the bitter wind that "went right through my uniform and chilled my very bones." The column went through Hardeesville, which was destroyed--even the church. Sherman's soldiers took a much different view of the citizens of South Carolina than they did those of Georgia. The birthplace of Secessionism was about to feel the brunt of four long years of hatred, of the deaths of friends and realtions. Henceforth, the destruction of private property took on a decidedly malicious intent.
The weather did not smile down upon the invaders. At Purysburg the rains came and continued incessantly over the next 3 days, miring Slocum in the mud for 10 days. Lt. Col. Charles Morse put his architectural talents to work, and "by a system of very extensive ditchings I manages to get the camp on comparatively dry ground." Still, said Crowninshiled, "we were all nearly drowned." Even BG Williams was forced to sleep in the limbs of a tree in an effort to keep dry.
Morse cheered Gen. Alfred Terry's assault upon Ft. Fisher, hailing it as "delightful proof of Butler's unfitness for command," and hailed Grant's letter transmitting the official report of the action "one of the best snubs" he had ever read against the arrogant and despised Massachusetts politician-general. Clearly, the country would not have to put up with the likes of Butler much longer. "The days of the rebellion are coming to and end very fast; even its lying press cannot keep up its courage much longer. For a year they have met with a series of reverses sufficent to break the spirit of the proudest nation, and this next spring will see a combination of movements which must destroy their only remaining bulwark, Lee's army, and then the bubble will burst..."
When the roads dried enough to continue, Morse and his men pushed deeper into the "miserable, rebellious State of South Carolina." Although unimpeded by the enemy, progress was slow due to having to "cut our way for the first 10 miles through continuous rebel obstructions." After awhile, however, "the enemy evidently began to think it was no use trying to stop us, and the fallen trees became fewer and further apart."
The swamps gave way to rich plantations, most of which had been abandoned by their owners. While Morse gave his own men strict orders against looting, he acknowledged that "stragglers, wagon-men, and the various odds and ends that always accompany an army on the march pick up whatever they want or think they want, and scatter about and destroy the rest, and by the time the last column 5 oor 6 miles long gets by, the house is entirely gutted; in 9 cases out of 10, before night all that is left to show where the rich, aristocratic, chivalrous, slave-holding South Carolinian lived, is a heap of smoldering ashes."
Opposed to such loose destruction as a matter of principle, Morse asserted that the rebellious citizens of South Carolina had only themselves to blame. "Pity for these inhabitant, I have none." he declared. "They have rebelled against a Government they have never felt; they lived down here like so many lords and princes; each planter was at the head of a little aristocracy in which hardly a law touched him. This didn't content these people; they wanted 'their rights,' and now they are getting them."
Francis Crowninshield's feelings were more ambivalent. He found it a very difficult task to "go into a house full of women, take everything, and then burn the house." Still, he found himself growning hard-hearted of late, concluding, "I think S. Carolina has paid well for all the trouble she has caused this nation."
Columbia
On the 7th of February, they struck the Charleston & Augusta railroad. The next day, they commenced to tearing up the track. The Edisto River was crossed on the 13th. Three days later, some firing was heard os the 3rd Division skirmished with Wheeler's Cavalry. Columbia fell the next day. Having been the first into Atlanta, Milledgville, and Savannah, Slocum stepped aside for Howard at Columbia, passing to the west of the city, taking no part in its fate.
Who actually was responsible for the burning of Columbia is still a matter of bitter debate. Wade Hampton accused Sherman, who charged that it was the Confederates who set bales of cotton afire to prevent their falling into Union hands who started the blaze. Crowninshield was no apologist for the Federal Army, denouncing Howard's men as brutes. "They got drunk in the first place, officers as well as men, and then burnt the city to the ground...Women and children were turned out into the streets and their houses burnt over their heads. They lost everything. Some slight attempt was made by guards to put out the fires with engines, but the 'boys' cut the hose. In short, the whole affair was disgraceful, it was a perfect sack."
Columbia soon behind them, the 12th Corps plodded over bad roads, reaching Alston's Ferry on the 19th and Rocky Mount Post-Office on the 22nd. Then it rained again, so by the time they reached Hanging Rock on the 26th, they had made only 20 miles in 4 days. If anything lifted their spirits, it was the news that Schofield had captured Wilmington on the 22d and that Charleston had been evacuated, leaving the Confederacy without a major port. The news that Joseph Johnston had been recalled to halt Sherman's advance was a sure sign of desperation.
On the 1st of March--after a brief skirmish with some enemy cavalry--the 20th Corps, accompanied by Sherman, marched into Chesterfield. Another 3 days brought them to Cheraw, where the enemy appeared to be ready to make a stand, but, said Crowninshield, "we flunked them right out of it." A large quantity of ammunition was captured, which, Crowninshield continued, "some Western soldier blew up, killing 15 men and smashing all the windows in town."
March 6th brought the 2nd MA to the Pee Dee River, which was subsequently crossed without incident. Five days later they marched into North Carolina. Weather, bad roads, burnt bridges, abd an occasional skirmish aside, it was clear that nothing could stop the Sherman Express, which, said Crowninshield, had "literally wiped out the greater part of S. Carolina." With the memory of the mud marches in the Army of the Potomac a dream, Capt. Henry Comey bragged, that the Army of William T. Sherman had gone through the rebellious state "like a swarm of locusts."
North Carolina
One of the first things Capt. Daniel Oakey noted as he passed into North Carolina was the burning resin pits. "Great columns of black smoke rose high into the air, spreading and mingling together in gray clouds." This scene suggested to Oakey the "roof and pillars of a vast temple." Then, all traces of habitation were left behind as he entered into a "grand forest with its beautiful carpet of pine-needles. The straight tree trunks "shot up to a great height, and then spread out into a green roof, which kept us in perpetual shade."
Compared to South Carolina, there was considerably less pillaging and burning of houses. The frenzy of revenge had spent itself.
Fayetteville
Fayetteville was occupied on March 12th. The welcomed arrival of the tug-boat, Davidson, up the Cape Fear River from Wilmington, heralded the opening of the supply line from the sea and restablished the communications which had been suspended since February 1. Col. Morse seized upon the opportunity to reassure his family that he was in good health "and have been in but one skirmish since leaving Savannah." While he had no time to go into the details of the present campaign, he noted with dry understatement, "This has been no picnic excursion, I can assure you."
The column marched out of Fayetteville on the 14th. An exhausted Crowninshield hoped that the campaign would end at Goldsboro. "We are all of us pretty ragged and pretty nearly worn out with constant marching....Many of the men are about barefooted, and all their clothing in rags." Even the officers were in a sorry state of appearance. "If I was to walk down Beacon St., I should be mobbed."
A mile from the Lumber River the country, already flooded ankle-deep, was rendered still more inhospitable by a new steady down-pour. To Capt. Daniel Oakey's dismay, the bridges had been partially destroyed by the enemy and the remains just about swept away by the flood.
By the 15th, all of Sherman's army was across the Cape Fear River, and began threading its way northeast.
"An attempt to carry heavy army wagons and artillery across this dreary lake might have seemed rather foolhardy, but we went to work without loss of time. The engineers were promptly floated out to the river, to direct the rebuilding of bridges, and the woods all along the line of each column soon rang with the noise of axes. Trees quickly became logs, and were brought to the submerged roadway. No matter if logs disappeared in the floating mud; thousands more were coming from all sides. So, layer upon layer, the work went bravely on. Soon the artillery and wagons were jolting over our wooden causeway."
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