Confederate Phoenix: Rebel Children and Their Families in South Carolina

8. Baptism by Fire

8 Baptism by Fire B etween 1861 and 1865, South Carolina underwent a baptism by fire. In November 1861 the Great Fire of Charleston swept though the city. During a 587-day siege, Greek fire rained down on the population. On the morning of February 18, 1865, the fate of the city was sealed when the last Confederate troops left. An enormous explosion at the city’s Northeastern Depot followed their departure. Caused by children playing, the disaster killed more than one hundred people and injured about an equal number. As Union soldiers entered the city, Confederates rushed to destroy the Palmetto State, the repaired ironclad that had been built by the donations of women and children. That same day, Columbia, the capital now occupied by Sherman and his army, went up in flames. A collage emerges that shows how women and children responded to these catastrophes.1 Perhaps no other campaign has come to symbolize the victimization of South Carolina than Sherman’s rampage through the state. ‘‘Sherman’’ became a general term to cover all Yankee misdeeds and atrocities. An eleven-year-old boy recalled later in life that Sherman and his army were synonymous with death and destruction. Given events in Georgia and the fall of Savannah, it was inevitable that South Carolinians would brace for the worst. In December 1864, Edgefield was ‘‘flooded . . . with Yankee officers who [had] escaped from a prison in Columbia.’’ They were ‘‘making their way to Sherman’s Army.’’ The Upcountry was no longer secure from the fire of the general’s wrath.2 In January 1865, a month before its impending disaster, Columbia seemed eerily oblivious. On the seventeenth, the ladies held a great ‘‘Bazaar’’ in the State Legislature to help wounded soldiers. Booths named for Confederate states were brimming with wartime luxuries. Coffee and other delicacies, previously hoarded, were in abundance. Some gifts had come through the blockade from Great Britain, among them a beautiful doll from Liverpool. More than three thousand individuals attended. The frivolity and luxuries created a surrealist aura of decadence. Partygoers forked over $350,000 in what would soon become worthless Confederate currency. Young people enjoyed dressing up and feasting. Some older citizens reverted to long-lost childhood. Romping with the children, they escaped the war but only momentarily. Play turned to Baptism by Fire 93 bedlam. The boys got out of hand; a hundred of them, in packs of a dozen or less, rampaged through the fair.3 Ironically, the day after the bazaar, the Confederate Baptist issued an announcement of hope entitled ‘‘A Ray of Life.’’ This Columbia weekly opined that the tales of horror emanating from Georgia were exaggerated. The religious organ surmised that Sherman, a husband and father, was not ‘‘a modern Bluebeard ’’ uttering ‘‘fiendish sentiments.’’ It cautioned, ‘‘Hatred and fear sometimes transform an enemy into a demon and people turn pale at the exaggerated stories of his enormities.’’ To substantiate its claims, the paper reprinted an editorial from the Mobile Register, which declared that those who had passed over Sherman’s track through Sparta, Milledgeville, and Macon ‘‘saw fewer signs of devastation than . . . expected.’’ Stories of ‘‘incredible wrong and outrage’’ were spread to frighten women and children, and to make them leave their homes. The Baptist paper, trying to calm its anxious readers, underestimated the enemy at its gate.4 The gaiety of the Columbia Bazaar was more feigned than real. The people were near panic. Within days many rushed to the railroad depots to depart before the Federals came. This encouraged remaining Confederate troops to despoil vacant homes and loot stores. The shelling of the capital magnified the danger. ‘‘Women and children’’ were ‘‘running to escape the terrible missiles that were thrown by the vilest of foes.’’ The city was ablaze. A number of factors made the burning of Columbia possible, but no historian has fully exonerated the Yankees for the fire or for what happened during the blaze. An officer on Sherman’s staff saw drunken soldiers involved in arson and looting. He was moved by the sight of ‘‘men, women, and children huddled about a few articles of clothing and household wares . . . saved from their ruined homes.’’ An Illinois soldier confessed that such campaigning corroded the discipline of the Union army.5 Parents were worried sick about their children. Mrs. Joseph LeConte was convinced the family home would be burned. She swaddled baby Carrie in a blanket and took her into the back garden where...