Sherman conducted his Carolina Campaign in a manner similar to his “March to the Sea.” He confounded the rebels by splitting his army into two columns - headed respectively toward Charleston and Augusta - before converging them in the direction of Columbia, the state’s capital. Sherman’s objective, other than winning Columbia itself, was “to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.”

Through ice, bogs and muddy rivers, Sherman’s spirited soldiers accomplished that mission. They blazed their own trails where no roads existed, torching and looting homes along their path. Indeed, Sherman’s army caused even more destruction in South Carolina than in Georgia.

Thanks to Sherman’s determination, most of Columbia lay in ashes by mid-February. Even Joseph Johnson, a former Confederate commander, admitted that “there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar.”