1874.

CHAPTER SECOND.

AFTER THE WAR.

It is impossible to conceive of a more gloomy and cheerless welcome than that which awaited the Confederate soldier returning to his home in South Carolina. If it was in the broad track of Sherman across the State, two chimneys alone, in most cases, would mark the place of his once happy dwelling; or, if his house was spared, his famished family could only welcome him to a shelter, a forlorn picture of desolation. If his house was gone, the returned soldier would have to travel many a weary mile in search of his loved ones, who had been compelled to seek for food and shelter elsewhere. There was no hope of hospitality in the immediate vicinity, where every morsel was prized far more than gold had been in former years.

And when his house was spared, he would have to listen to harrowing accounts of officers and privates of the invading army indulging themselves in such acts of cruelty and barbarism as seemed to belong to another age, and another country. The "standing order," in the whole march across the State, was to pillage and burn to the ground every abandoned dwelling; but, if occupied, then to pillage, but not to burn.

Exuno disce omnes.

The indignant wife would have to tell of the rude entering of rough and boisterous squads. Some would go to the out-buildings to learn from the servants the circumstances of the familythe first question always being as to the probability of any hid treasure. If they found cause to suspect that money had actually been secreted, how the soldier's heart would fire at the dastardly means resorted to to extort confession. Pistols ready cocked were held to the head of the defenceless wife, or the aged father would be taken to some convenient place, whatever its character, and hung by the neck, until life. was nearly extinct. If these failed, then he would be whipped until, either their purpose was gained, or the victim deprived of consciousness. In the meantime, other parties would be equally busy. The smokehouse would soon be broken open, and the family carriage, with horses attached, stood ready for the unusual freight. Hams, sides of bacon, corn, flour, all the supplies so carefully guarded, and economically used, would be piled in the carriage, till the load would reach the roof, then horses and carriage, with supplies, would disappear, the horses going at a furious rate. While some would be busy killing the cattle and poultry of every kind, another party would swagger into the dwelling and ransack it from cellar to garret. After breaking into every place that had a lock, and throwing out of the windows whatever their friends below could put to any possible use, they would call the servants in, to help themselves to whatever might strike their fancies. Then returning to the room where

they had left the whole family, of wife, daughters and children, cowering in one corner, they would utter the coarsest abuse of husband and brothers, and gloat over their terror and their tears. Not satisfied yet, with this, their manly revenge, they would lead in the servant girls, all dressed in the finest they could find in their young mistress's wardrobes, and dance with them over carpets, soon to be ripped into suitable breadths for saddle-cloths. The piano, which furnished the jingle for the dance, would afterwards be disjointed by their bayonets, and the fragments thrown out of the window. On leaving the house, if they found anything that could be of any possible use to the family, they would most wantonly destroy it— sometimes emptying barrels of sorghum into the watering troughs, and, ripping open feather-beds and pillows, discharge their contents into this, and with their bayonets stir the whole into a thorough mixture. If any domestic animal was left, it was shot down, and rendered unfit for food.

It required many hours for this immense army to march by, but when the last squad of bummers departed there would be absolutely nothing left which could contribute to food or any other family comfort. The servants, of course, were all enticed to follow the army, and, for days, such families would subsist on selected parts of the animals so wantonly killed and cut to pieces, and on corn scattered on the ground where the cavalry horses had been last fed-there were no hogs left now, to dispute possession of such relics.

Such was the tale of desolation for the returned soldier, if his home had been anywhere in that wide belt so thoroughly ploughed by Sherman, from the Georgia line, near Savannah, to the North Carolina line.

If his home had been in Columbia, his heart would be wrung by the recital of those terrible and horrible scenes of that stormy February night, of which the world has already heard so much. A whole city burned to the ground, including the State House and other public buildings, and all in half a night, was no very wonderful feat for so large a body of incendiaries. This treat had been promised his army, by Sherman, all through his weary march through Georgia, and his men enjoyed it, as only such an army could be expected to do. None but those who witnessed their bacchanalian orgies can fully appreciate them, and form a just conception how nearly those clothed in human forms can personate devils. incarnate.

If he had once lived in ease and luxury in those favored sea islands, or if his home had once been in the midst of the culture, wealth and refinement of Beaufort and its vicinity, a heart-sickening account of ruin and poverty awaited him. He would hear how the fall of Port Royal, early in the war, left them exposed to the inroads of enemies, just a little less barbarous than Sherman's bummers. These did not. use the torch as their favorite weapon, but were very little behind them in the cowardly revenge of insulting the vanquished. They were told to stay at home,

but on condition of full equality with their former slaves. In this, too, all possible collision must be avoided, as they were bound to favor the "wards of the nation." Of course, in this early stage of the war, with the whole State before them, and yet confident of final success, these natives would submit to no such humiliating conditions, and nearly all that section of country was abandoned to negroes and camp-followers. Their exodus was a sad one, and the consequences were deplorable and lasting. Those who could afford it, chartered steamers and removed their families and furniture to Charleston for refuge. Others, and much the greater part, left their all behind them, and escaped with their families alone. Those who had removed to Charleston fared no better. The great fire which followed soon after, and swept diagonally across the city, from the Cooper to the Ashley, and over the quarter where they had just domiciled, consumed in one night the accumulations of long years of labor and economy. The sufferings of these people were more deplorable than those of any other section of the State. Their estates thus abandoned were seized by their negro slaves and by strangers, and in most cases have passed entirely from their possession. What from dividing them out by military order, and from selling for United States taxes, the titles even have passed into other hands, and they are left destitute. Impoverished and ruined in fortune, they even now can be found scattered over the State, in circumstances of great destitution.