[“SACK AND DESTRUCTION OF COLUMBIA” originally written in 1865 by Wm. Gilmore Simms, Esq., for the Phoenix, in Julian A. Selby, Memorabilia and Anecdotal Reminiscences of Columbia, S.C., and Incidents Connected Therewith. Columbia, S.C.: The R. L. Bryan Company, 1905], pages 154-156:
'It
has pleased God, in that Providence which is so inscrutable to man, to visit
our beautiful city with the most cruel fate which can ever befall States or
cities. . .
When,
by a crime, no less than blunder, General Johnston was removed from the
command of the Confederate armies in Georgia, which he had conducted with such
signal ability, there were not a few of our citizens who felt the impending
danger, and trembled at the disastrous consequences which they partly foresaw.
The removal of a General so fully in the confidence of his troops, who had so
long baffled the conquests, if he could not arrest the march, of the opposing
army, was of itself a proceeding to startle the thoughtful mind. General
Sherman declared his satisfaction at the event, and on repeated occasions since
has expressed himself to the same effect. He was emboldened by the change, and
almost instantly after, his successes became rapid and of the most decided
character.
General Johnston was by nature, no less than training and education, the very best of
the Confederate generals to be opposed to General Sherman. To the
nervo-sanguine temperament, eager and impetuous, of the latter, he opposed a
moral and physical nature — calm, sedate, circumspect; cool, vigilant and wary
— always patient and watchful of his moment — never rash or precipitate, but
ever firm and decisive — his resources all regulated by a self-possessed will,
and a mind in full possession of that military coup d'oeil which, grasping the
remotest relations of the field, is, probably, the very first essential to a
general having the control of a large and various army.
The
error which took Hood into the colder regions of Tennessee, at the beginning of
winter, was one which the Yankee general was slow to imitate, especially as, in
so moving, Hood necessarily left all the doors wide open which conducted to the
seaboard. It required no great effort of genius to prompt the former to take
the pathways which were thus laid open to him. Even had he not already conceived
the propriety of forcing his way to the Atlantic coast, and to a junction with
his shipping, the policy of then doing so would have been forced upon him by
the proceeding of his rival, and by the patent fact that there were no
impediments to such a progress. We had neither army nor general ready to impede
his march. It suggested itself. The facility of such a progress was clear
enough, and, with that quickness of decision which distinguishes the temperament
of Sherman, he at once rushed into the open pathway. . .
Our
people felt all the danger. They felt it required the first abilities, the most
strenuous exertions, the most prompt and efficient reinforcements, to prevent
the threatening catastrophe. Hardee, though of acknowledged ability, and
considered able as the leader of a corps, was not the man to grasp the business
of a large army. All eyes looked to General Johnston as the one man, next to
Lee, to whom the duty should be confided and the trust. It was confidently
hoped and believed that he would be restored to the command, and that adequate
reinforcements would be furnished. At all events, no one doubted that, with
adequate supplies of men and material, Johnston would most effectually arrest
the farther progress of Sherman's army.
Applications
of the most urgent entreaty were addressed by our delegates and leading men in
the Confederate Congress to President Davis, urging these objects. But he
declined to restore the commander whom he had so greatly wronged, and, in
respect to reinforcements, these were too tardily furnished, and in too small
number, to avail much in offering requisite resistance. The reinforcements did
not make their appearance in due season for a concentration of the strength at
any one point, and opposition to Sherman, everywhere, consisted of little more
than a series of small skirmishes, without result on either side.
No
pass was held with any tenacity; no battle fought; Sherman was allowed to
travel one hundred and fifty miles of our State, through a region of swamp and
thicket, in no portion of which could a field be found adequate to the display
of ten thousand men, and where, under good partisan leaders, the Federals might
have been cut off in separate bodies, their supplies stopped, their march
constantly embarrassed by hard fighting, and where, a bloody toll exacted at
every defile, they must have found a Thermopylae at every five miles of their
march. The Confederates had no partisan fighting, as in days of old. They had a
system, which insisted upon artillery as paramount — insisted upon arbitrary
lines for defence, chosen without any regard to the topography of the country.
"We will make a stand," said the Confederate chiefs, "at this river
crossing or that," then fall back to the next river, and so on to the
last. Although in a thousand places of dense swamp, narrow defile, and almost
impenetrable thicket, between these rivers, it would have been easy to find
spots where three hundred men, under competent commanders, who knew the
country, might most effectually have baffled three thousand.'
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