HISTORY: Last months of the Civil War

NOTE: April 9 (Thursday) marks the 150^th anniversary of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union General U.S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. While skirmishes continued after this date, it generally is considered the end of the Civil War. More.

In January 1865 Sherman began shifting his army’s right wing through Beaufort to Pocotaligo. Then on February 1 the soldiers at Pocotaligo moved inland while Sherman’s left wing crossed the Savannah River and marched through Robertsville and Lawtonville. The only engagement of any consequence before he approached Columbia occurred on February 2 and 3 at Rivers Bridge on the Salkehatchie River.

Some 8,000 Federals attempting to cross there were delayed briefly by nine hundred Confederates, who were quickly outflanked and forced to withdraw, clearing the way for Sherman’s advance through the state. Though Sherman feinted as if he were headed for Charleston, his force reached the outskirts of Columbia by February 16. Charleston was quietly evacuated the next day, at the same time that the major Confederate force defending the two Carolinas evacuated Columbia.

Columbia, after Sherman’s troops went through in 1865

In the capital city, Sherman’s soldiers ransacked both the existing State House and the new unfinished one, and many of them roamed the streets drinking, frightening citizens, and looting at will. High winds throughout the night of February 17–18 helped spread multiple fires, and about a third of the city burned, although numerous Union officers and men tried to reestablish order and help Columbians save their homes and churches. Sherman continued toward North Carolina, occasionally skirmishing along the way and burning or ransacking portions of Winnsboro, Camden, Chester, and Cheraw during the next two weeks.

A limited Federal raid by troops under General Edward E. Potter in April made its way through Georgetown, Manning, Sumter, and Camden and was the last significant military operation in the state during the war.

One of the more painful costs of Confederate defeat was that 18,000 to 21,000 men, or one of every fourteen white South Carolinians, had been killed or mortally wounded or had died from disease. The most significant consequence of Union victory was the emancipation of 400,000 slaves and their subsequent attempt to adjust to their new place in South Carolina society.

Whether bitter amid defeat, devastation, and memories of the past or optimistic amid victory, freedom, and expectations for the future, South Carolinians would struggle with the results—and the legacy—of the war for generations to come.

– Excerpted from the entry by J. Tracy Power. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)