Instead of Hampton giving an order to burn the cotton, I am satisfied that he urged Beauregard, the general in command, to issue an order that this cotton should not be burned, lest the fire might spread to the shops and houses, which for the most part were built of wood, and I am further satisfied that such an order was given. Unfortunately the evidence for this is not contemporary. No such order is printed in the "Official Records," and I am advised from the War Department that no such order has been found. The nearest evidence to the time which I have discovered is a letter of Wade Hampton of April 21, 1866, and one of Beauregard of May 2, 1866. Since these dates, there is an abundance of evidence, some of it sworn testimony, and while it is mixed up with inaccurate statements on another point, and all of it is of the nature of recollections, I cannot resist the conclusion that Beauregard and Hampton gave such an order. It was unquestionably the wise thing to do. There was absolutely no object in burning the cotton, as the Federal troops could not carry it with them and could not ship it to any seaport which was under Union control. An order of Beauregard issued two days after the burning of Columbia and printed in the "Official Records" shows that the policy of burning cotton to keep it out of the hands of Sherman's army had been abandoned. Sherman's charge, then, that Wade Hampton burned Columbia, falls to the ground. The other part of his account, in which he maintained that the fire spread to the buildings from the smoldering cotton rekindled by the wind, which was blowing a gale, deserves more respect. His report saying that he saw cotton afire in the 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.