NY Times 2-19-1865
It seems like it was a rough week 150 years ago for the Palmetto state, the first star on the Confederate flag. Columbia, South Carolina’s capital fell to Sherman’s army and much of the city burned. The next day Charleston, that one-time fire-eater’s paradise, and Fort Sumter, the crumbling symbol out in the harbor, was occupied by Union forces. Charleston also burned. A local newspaper in upstate New York seemed to appreciate the symbolism of the Northern success but assumed real hard fighting was just beginning. What to do? Destroy the vaunted rebel armies and then implement a “wise and humane policy.”
NY Times 2-20-1865
From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in February 1865:
The Evacuation of Charleston.
Official dispatches elsewhere in to-day’s paper announce the occupation of Charleston, S.C., by the federal forces. This event creates no little excitement in the public mind, from the fact that it was at Charleston where this terrible civil war was inaugurated, and where the flag of the old Union was first humbled by the Confederate power. It is some satisfaction after all the fierce and sanguinary battles which have followed that event, to see the same old flag flying high above the remains of Sumpter [sic], and the boasted pride of the Palmetto state in turn humbled to the dust. It must indeed be humiliating to the Southern people to give up Charleston after they have defended it so long and heroically against the combined forces of the Federal army and navy; but the manner in which they gave it up – almost a barren waste – is but another exhibition of their inflexibility of purpose and their determined resistance to the invading foe.
NY Times 2-21-1865
The abandonment of Charleston by the enemy we do not believe is evidence of weakness on their part, but simply the carrying out of a long cherished plan of concentrating their forces for the final struggle. The South cannot be conquered by the mere capture of undefended cities. Past experience has sufficiently demonstrated this fact. It is only the defeat and dispersion of Confederate armies, and the interposition of a wise and humane policy, that is to permanently restore the authority of the government. Gen. Sherman has accomplished, and is still accomplishing wonders, almost, but it should not be forgotten he has had no fighting to do since he left Atlanta. He is now where he will have graver work to perform than the capture of unoccupied cities. With the fall of Charleston and perhaps of Richmond, we verily believe, commences in reality and terrible earnestness the tug of war. The President having made the struggle one of abolition and subjugation, the South will sacrifice their all in defence of their homes and firesides.
symbolic analysis (“Fort Sumter, South Carolina at the time of its capture February 18th, 1865. Showing the effects of the bombardment from Morris Island ” (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/99448802/)
