Rescuing Southern History

The 17-year-old Emma LeConte kept a full diary during the havoc reeked by Sherman’s uniformed arsonists and looters on the city of Columbia, South Carolina, which she saw up close.


Incomplete and distorted versions of the diary have been made into books in the past. The true and complete thing has now been provided by two outstanding Southern historians—Karen Stokes and James Kibler. Shotwell Publishing has just brought out their work as The Diary of Emma Leconte: A Story of War and Survival, 1864-1865.


Emma lived on the South Carolina College campus in what is now known as Lieber College, a place where I spent a good deal of time in earlier and better years. Lieber is at the open end of what is called The Horseshoe, two lines of wonderful antebellum buildings. It is directly across from the now de-Southernised South Caroliniana Library, where I also spent a lot of time.


Emma was the daughter of Joseph LeConte, an eminent scientist and professor. She saw and heard what was going on during the December night when Sherman was at work intimidating women and old folks, destroying their houses and other city institutions, and looting the property of the population. She also observed and recorded the aftereffects. The liberators in blue did not spare the black people from their atrocities. On the positive side, some of the Union soldiers were so drunk that they perished in their own fires.


The college remained relatively unscathed, though in the midst of a large devastated area. It had a wall around it made up of sturdy buildings and was considered not to have much useful loot. Union soldiers did manage to set fire to the roofs of two buildings where wounded Southern soldiers were, but the wounded men were able to put out the fires.


Emma felt deeply the sufferings of her family and friends and townspeople, but she recorded facts.


Those interested in this book should also look for Joseph LeConte’s ‘Ware Sherman: A Journal of Three Months’ Personal Experience in the Last Days of the Confederacy. The book was published in 1937 by another of LeConte’s daughters, Caroline, with interesting drawings. The LSU Press brought out a version in 1999, but the work is now rare and hard to find.


LeConte and his brother John were Confederate scientists. He vividly describes the weeks following the fire, during which he made trips to the country to bring back food to devastated Columbia while avoiding being made prisoner by the Union. This is relatively unnoticed history.


Among other insufficiently noticed history was the good will shown by some Northerners after the war. Joseph and his brother were among the first professors to be appointed to the newly-established University of California at Berkely in the late 1860s. They were already distinguished, versatile, and prolific scientists and they were recommended by many of the distinguished scientific men of the time.


Their careers in California were long and honoured. Joseph became the president of several national societies and was noted, among other things, as a conservationist. It was the University of California Press that first published ‘Ware Sherman.”


While refamiliarising yourself with the destruction of Columbia, also take a look at A City Laid Waste, the 2005 edition of the work of the great William Gilmore Siimms, also a firsthand witness to the event who wrote shortly thereafter. His newspaper report, later a pamphlet, is called The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia.


It is good to remember the destruction of Columbia which is greatly documented, although it was only one of hundreds of such happenings. There are people, including local carpetbaggers, who still retell Sherman’s lie that the fire was caused by Confederates.


Keep in mind what happened to our people, mine and yours, when their independence and self-rule was dishonourably suppressed by the invasion and conquest of their own government which they had founded and had until then supported with sacrifice.  

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