Original Photographs Taken on the Battlefields during the Civil War of the United States — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Original Photographs Taken on the Battlefields during the Civil War of the United States
John Stuart Mill · en
THE final blows of the Civil War came quick and sharp. Grant had taken
Petersburg; Thomas had annihilated the Confederate forces under Hood
along the Mississippi River; Sherman had swept through Georgia and
overrun the Carolinas. Exactly four years after the inauguration of
Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy, historic Columbia and
Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered. The closing days sowed flame
and devastation. The war cameras followed Sherman's Army into Columbia
and the old negatives tell the tragedy of the destroyed Confederate
cities. One of them here reproduced is historic Secession Hall in ruins.
It was here that the first Ordinance of Secession was passed. This view
shows the historic edifice as it appeared when the Union troops took
possession of the city. Adjoining the Hall are the ruins of Central
Church, and in the background is St. Phillips Church. The fall of
Columbia occurred on February 12, 1865. Charleston surrendered the
following day, and the Federal Government took possession. One of these
photographs shows the ruins of the Northeastern Railroad Depot at
Charleston where two hundred persons were blown up on the day of
evacuation, February 17, 1865. Sherman moved on through North Carolina
and fought his last battle at Bentonville, where the National loss was
1,604 men and the Confederate loss 2,342. During these last days of the
war occurred a disaster on the Mississippi River. The "Sultana" was on
her journey from New Orleans to St. Louis, receiving on board 1,964
Union prisoners from Columbia, Salisbury, Andersonville and other
Confederate prisons. Anxious to proceed North, little heed was given
that the ship was already carrying a heavy load of passengers on board,
occupying every foot of available space on all the decks to the tops of
the cabins and the wheelhouse, and on the twenty-seventh of April, when
about eight miles above Memphis, one of her boilers blew up. The dead at
the scene numbered 1,500.
[Illustration: STEAMER "SULTANA" CONVEYING EXCHANGED UNION
PRISONERS--DESTROYED IN MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN 1865]