Columbia, South Carolina’s capital, is burned on…

Columbia, South Carolina’s capital, is burned on February 17, either by Union or (as Sherman will claim on April 4), by Confederate soldiers: “I charge [Confederate General] Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia, not with a malicious intent ... but from folly and want of sense, in filling it with lint, cotton, and tinder.”

Controversy surrounding the burning of the city will start soon after the war ends, with Sherman blaming the high winds and retreating Confederate soldiers for firing bales of cotton, which had been stacked in the streets.

Sherman will deny ordering the burning, though he did order militarily significant structures, such as the Confederate Printing Plant, destroyed.

Firsthand accounts by local residents, Union soldiers, and a newspaper reporter offer a tale of revenge by Union troops for Columbia's and South Carolina's pivotal role in leading Southern states to secede from the Union.

Still other accounts portray it as mostly the fault of the Confederacy.

On February 18, Sherman's forces destroy virtually anything of military value in Columbia, including railroad depots, warehouses, arsenals, and machine shops.