_Richmond Whig_, by F. G. de F., who remained in Columbia until
the day before the entrance of the Union troops.

Two days before the entrance of the Federal troops, Columbia was placed
under martial law, but this did not prevent some riotous conduct after
nightfall and a number of highway robberies; stores were also broken
into and robbed. There was great disorder and confusion in the
preparations of the inhabitants for flight; it was a frantic attempt to
get themselves and their portable belongings away before the enemy
should enter the city. "A party of Wheeler's Cavalry," wrote F. G. de F.
to the _Richmond Whig_, "accompanied by their officers dashed into town
[February 16], tied their horses, and as systematically as if they had
been bred to the business, proceeded to break into the stores along Main
Street and rob them of their contents." Early in the morning of the
17th, the South Carolina railroad depot took fire through the reckless
operations of a band of greedy plunderers, who while engaged in robbing
"the stores of merchants and planters, trunks of treasure, wares and
goods of fugitives," sent there awaiting shipment, fired, by the
careless use of their lights, a train leading to a number of kegs of
powder; the explosion which followed killed many of the thieves and set
fire to the building. Major Chambliss, who was endeavoring to secure the
means of transportation for the Confederate ordnance and ordnance
stores, wrote: "The straggling cavalry and rabble were stripping the
warehouses and railroad depots. The city was in the wildest terror."

When the Union soldiers of Colonel Stone's brigade entered the city,
they were at once supplied by citizens and negroes with large
quantities of intoxicating liquor, brought to them in cups, bottles,
demijohns, and buckets. Many had been without supper, and all of them
without sleep the night before, and none had eaten breakfast that
morning. They were soon drunk, excited, and unmanageable. The stragglers
and "bummers," who had increased during the march through South
Carolina, were now attracted by the opportunity for plunder and swelled
the crowd. Union prisoners of war had escaped from their places of
confinement in the city and suburbs, and joining their comrades were
eager to avenge their real or fancied injuries. Convicts in the jail had
in some manner been released. The pillage of shops and houses and the
robbing of men in the streets began soon after the entran