e streets was written April 4,
1865, and Howard's in which the same fact is stated was written April 1,
very soon after the event, when their recollection would be fresh. All
of the Southern evidence (except one statement, the most important of
all) is to the effect that no cotton was burning until after the Federal
troops entered the city. Many Southerners in their testimony before the
British and American mixed commission under examination and
cross-examination swear to this; and Wade Hampton swears that he was one
of the last Confederates to leave the city, and that, when he left, no
cotton was afire, and he knew that it was not fired by his men. But this
testimony was taken in 1872 and 1873, and may be balanced by the sworn
testimony of Sherman, Howard, and other Union officers before the same
commission in 1872.

The weight of the evidence already referred to would seem to me to show
that cotton was afire when the Federal troops entered Columbia, but a
contemporary statement of a Confederate officer puts it beyond doubt.
Major Chambliss, who was endeavoring to secure the means of
transportation for the Confederate ordnance and ordnance stores, wrote,
in a letter of February 20, that at three o'clock on the morning of
February 17, which was a number of hours before the Union soldiers
entered Columbia, "the city was illuminated with burning cotton." But it
does not follow that the burning cotton in the streets of Columbia was
the cause of the fire which destroyed the city. When we come to the
probably correct account of the incident, we shall see that the
preponderance of the evidence points to another cause.

February 27, ten days after the fire, Wade Hampton, in a letter to
Sherman, charged him with having permitted the burning of Columbia, if
he did not order it directly; and this has been iterated later by many
Southern writers. The correspondence between Halleck and Sherman is
cited to show premeditation on the part of the general. "Should you
capture Charleston," wrote Halleck, December 18, 1864, "I hope that by
some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be
sown upon the site it may prevent the growth of future crops of
nullification and secession." Sherman thus replied six days later: "I
will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think salt will
be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth Corps will be on the right of
the Right Wing, and their position will bring them natu