Let us leave the matter here as one of the calamities of war concerning which the responsibility is so hopelessly involved in a mass of conflicting testimony that no historian mindful of fairness can feel himself safe in passing judgment with respect to it. Columbia has been rebuilt in all its beauty. The country in whose crown it is a jewel has grown to be the greatest and freest on earth. Surely we can leave the dead past to bury its dead, so far as such matters as this are concerned. From Columbia northward Sherman's advance was contested at every step with all the vigor and determination that General Joseph E. Johnston could bring to bear. That able general was a grand master of the art of so retreating as to make his retreat more costly to his enemy than an advance would have been. His force was exceedingly small as compared with Sherman's columns, but it was made up of veteran troops, as good as ever stood up before an enemy, and it was perfectly responsive to any and every demand that its commanding general might make upon it either for daring or for endurance. The country through which Sherman had to march was swampy, forest grown, and laced with watercourses difficult to pass. Its roads were mere tracks through woods and fields, which, when rain fell, quickly became quagmires. At every stream Johnston's ceaselessly active men burned the bridges and obstructed the fords. In every forest stretch they felled trees across the roads, and planting cannon in commanding positions, rendered the progress of their foes as dangerous as it was difficult. Wherever a vantage ground lay, the Confederates--war-educated as they were, and still determined--took position and inch by inch contested the difficult ground. Not in all the war was there an operation more gallant on either side than this advance and retreat. Still keeping the protecting sea on his right flank which he could at any moment change into his rear, Sherman left the ashes of Columbia on the twentieth of February and advanced towards Fayetteville, where he arrived on the eleventh of March. In the meanwhile the city of Wilmington, on the coast, had been captured by General Terry's Fort Fisher expedition, and communication was established between Terry and Sherman. Thus a way was opened by which both supplies and reinforcements might be sent without limit or molestation to the army that was for the third time cutting in twain what remained of the Confederacy. From Fayetteville, Sherman pushed on to Goldsboro fighting with Johnston's desperate Confederates at every step. Thence he advanced toward Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina. At Averysboro, a point between, the two armies came into direct collision on the sixteenth of March and each lost about half a thousand men in a severe conflict. Three days later on the nineteenth they met again at Bentonville and in a small, but bloody conflict, the Federals lost 1,600 men and the Confederates somewhat more than 2,000.