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Confederate Veteran Mag., dated Jan.,
1928, page 10.
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."
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