Page:A narrative of service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry.djvu/188

 picking up a living in such a country, where the only products of the soil seemed to be tar and rosin, and pitch pines the only visible vegetation, they felt confident of their ability to find a living anywhere.

Our Corps did not enter Columbia, but crossed the Saluda River about ten miles above. The Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps of the Army of the Tennessee occupied the city, and destroyed everything in it. They released about sixty Union officers who were confined there; and between them and the soldiers and the whiskey that was found Columbia soon ceased to exist. Scarcely a private residence, even, was left. The only thing that would not burn was the new state-house, said to have been the finest in the Union, and this was mined and blown up. South Carolina was having a bitter taste of the horrors of war.

On February 21 we struck at Winnsboro the railroad running between Columbia and Charlotteville; and following this northward for a distance, destroyed it as we went along. Then turning toward the northeast, by way of Rocky