Few men being in the city, the women, with rare heroism, sought to save some little necessities of life, only to see it struck to the floor or snatched from their hands and scattered in the streets.  Here would be a lone woman hugging an infant to her breast, with a few strips of clothing hanging on her arms; helpless orphans lugging an old trunk or chest, now containing all they could call their own—­these would be snatched away, broken open, contents rifled by the drunken soldiers, or if not valuable, trampled under foot.

Soldiers, with axes and hammers, rushed from house to house, breaking in doors, smashing trunks, boxes, bureaus, and robbing them of all that was valuable, then leaving the house in flames.  Helpless women, screaming children, babes in the arms, invalids on beds, jolted and jostled against the surging mob—­none to help, none to advise—­these defenseless sufferers rushed aimlessly about, their sole purpose being to avoid the flames and seek a place of safety.  The fires originated principally in the southern section of the city, and as the fire eat its way up, the howling throng followed, driving the innocent and helpless ahead.

As the night wore on, the drunken soldiers, first made intoxicated by the wine in private cellars or the liquors in the government buildings, now became beastly drunk in their glee at the sight of the destruction they had wrought.  The women and children followed the dark back-ground of that part of the city not yet in flames.  The Federal officers, instead of offering assistance or a helping hand to the ruined and distressed people, added insult to injury by joining in with the private soldiers in the plundering of the city, insulting the women and adding fuel to the flame.

All night long did the flames rage, leap, and lick the clouds as one block of buildings after another fell—­food for the devouring elements.  This drunken orgies was kept up until their craven hearts were fully satisfied.  A few squares in the north-eastern part of the city were left, also several churches, and into these the women and children were huddled and packed, and had to remain for days and some for weeks, almost on the verge of starvation.  The Federal commander, through the boundless dictates of his sympathetic heart, after destroying all that fire and rapine could reach, left the starving thousands a few rations each of the plunder he had robbed of the planters in the country.

No vehicles nor horses were left in the city’s limits—­the bridges burned that led across the river to the west.  To the east, Blair’s Corps was laying waste everything in their pathway, while above and below the city, for a distance of fifty miles, Sherman had swept the country as bare as if a blight had fallen upon it.  How the people of Columbia subsisted during the time they were penned in the city churches and the few buildings left, will ever remain a mystery, and to none so much as the sufferers themselves.