On the 15th of February the advance column of the Twentieth Corps came in sight of Columbia.  All the bridges leading thereto were burned and the Southern troops withdrawn to the eastern side.  Frank Blair’s Corps left the road leading to Columbia at Hopkin’s, and kept a direct line for Camden.  Another corps, the Fifteenth, crossed the Broad at Columbia, while the Fourteenth and Twentieth were to cross at Freshley’s and Alston.  Orders had been given to evacuate Charleston, and all the troops under General McLaws, at Four Hole Swamp, and along the coast were to rendezvous at St. Stephen’s, on the Santee, and either make a junction with the Western Army at Chester, S.C., or if not possible, to continue to Chesterfield or Cheraw.  The plan of the campaign was now to concentrate all the forces of Hood’s State Troops and Hardee’s at some point in upper South Carolina or in North Carolina, and make one more desperate stand, and by united action crash and overthrow Sherman’s Army, thereby relieving Lee.

On the morning of the 16th of February the enemy, without any warning whatever, began shelling the city of Columbia, filled with women and children.  Now it must be remembered that this was not for the purpose of crossing the river, for one of Sherman’s corps had already crossed below the city and two others above.  One shell passed through the hotel in which General Beauregard was at the time, others struck the State House, while many fell throughout the city.  General Hampton withdrew his small force of cavalry early on the morning of the 17th, and the Mayor of the city met an officer of the Federal Army under a flag of truce and tendered him the surrender of the city, and claimed protection for its inhabitants.  This was promised.

All during the day thousands of the enemy poured into the city, General Sherman entering about midday.  Generals Davis’ and Williams’ Corps crossed the Saluda and continued up on the western bank of Broad River, one crossing ten, the other twenty-five miles above Columbia.  The people of Columbia had hopes of a peaceful occupation of the city, but during the day and along towards nightfall, the threatening attitude of the soldiers, their ominous words, threats of vengeance, were too pretentious for the people to misunderstand or to expect mercy.  These signs, threats, and mutterings were but the prelude to that which was to follow.

About 9 o’clock P.M. the alarm of fire was given and the dread sound of the fire bells, mingled with the hum and roar of ten thousand voices and the tread of as many troops hurrying to and fro on their cursed mission, could be heard by the now thoroughly frightened populace.  The people, with blanched countenances, set features, looked in mute silence into the faces of each other.  All knew and felt, but dared not even to themselves to whisper, the unmistakable truth.  Now another alarm, another fire bell mingles its sound with the general chorus of discord, shouts of the soldiery, the frightened cries of the people—­jells of the drunken troops all a scathing, maddening turbulance in the crowded streets.  A lurid glare shoots up above the housetops, then the cracking and roaring of the dread elements told but too plainly that the beautiful city was soon to be wrapped in flames.  The sack and pillage had begun!