My great-grandfather was a 14 year old guard at the POW camp in Columbia. He died in 1943 and was one of the last surviving veterans in SC. I wish I could have known him.

Byers was a first cousin of my great-grandmother, they were both born in 1838 in western Pennsylvania. My father remembered when he was a young boy an elderly man came to visit relatives in the area. This was Byers come to visit family where he had been born near Pulaski, PA, probably in the mid- to late 20's.

Scraps and bits of paper were the emails of the 1860s!

The lesson here is, if you can't be useful, at least be pleasant company.

Confederate states burned cotton bales when union forces entered southern cities to prevent union from confiscation and sale of bales (10k).

Thank you for that video. The American Civil War was, mercifully, the last conflict where I know I had relatives on both sides of a battle.

My paternal grandmother’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Caroline Maria Sherman, a distant cousin of the General and his brother, the Senator. Thank you for this touching story of our Cousin Cump.

WOW, that is an excellent piece of history brought back to us. Thank you for your excellent work.

I can't help but wonder how easily insanity and criminality and valor are easily combined in war !

One brother wore blue One brother wore gray One brother went One brother stayed One brother's here One brother's there Oh, where shall I fight Oh, what shall I wear? I'm gonna wear my tight blue pants And my gray sport jacket And stay at home with the girls Now, now, now I don't want to get to Gettysburg No, no, no, no I got a protest sign And a bottle of wine And my baby and I are gonna Go, go, go, go Now, Grant and Lee Don't mean nothin' to me And fightin's nothin' but a bore I'll wear my tight blue pants And my gray sport jacket And to hell with the Civil War

Great story. I love learning of the personal accounts of those who participated.

Great story. It traveled well. All the way to to 2024 with its magic intact.

One of my great great grand fathers marched with Sherman to the Sea. Indiana artillery attached to an Ohio infantry regiment. Wounded five times.

great reading Ron, you took us there...

Most of the men in the South did not own slaves . Only the very wealthy plantation owners but we all surfed .

My great grandfather was in Sherman's Army, and I have lived in the area they conquered since 1961.

My great great great grandfather fought in the battle at Gettysburg. I am in my mid sixties and found this out through geneology a year ago. I am originally from and grew up in Western Pennsylvania.

Great piece. Very much helps to bring history into realism.

My forefathers fought against Sherman. As Sherman marched towards Charleston, any Confederate solders left in hopes of diverting the union soldiers away. Also Sherman did his early training at Fort Moultrie in Charleston and made friends with many families there. That was two reasons he did not obliterate Charleston as he did Atlanta.

That was such a great story.

Excellent! Thank you!

Another great show. Many of my family members fought Sherman all the way to around Atlanta and one chased him on his march to the sea. Ah well, by gones are by gones. Great show.

Wow. I was rapt! What a story! Thank you!!!

WOW! THANK YOU! Amazing! Great history and insights. Very Good Useful information of real actual historical events. ~ Be Safe out there folks ~ Peace & Health to Us All.

Gen Sherman was born and grew up just around the corner from here. Lancaster, Ohio, long a Confederate stronghold, did not appreciate him much. There's a small statue of the gentleman downtown, just standing there holding his hat. Ohio offered to erect a far larger, equestrian statue around 1900, but the locals refused it. Check out the across the street from the Plaza Hotel (in Central Park, actually) in New York City. Sherman never came back to Lancaster..

Thank you for posting

this is the first time I have heard of Sherman's march in anything but a negative connotation. thank you

Most of my family was Pennsylvania Dutch, with a few Quakers scattered in, but one, the son of a Union militia colonel, became a minister called to serve a church in Charleston S C, where he married the daughter of a Confederate captain. The Confederate branch of the family learned that Sherman was advancing from Savannah, figured that he was certain to make his main target their city, so they shipped most of their valuables up country to their plantation to the NE of Columbia for safety. Naturally, Sherman, did the unexpected and bypassed Charleston, took Coumbia, and continued straight across their plantation. Thus, we have relatively few heirlooms from that branch of our ancestors.

Wonderful living history. We have changed.

Wonderful song....Thanks very much..... Old F-4 Phantom ll pilot Shoe🇺🇸

The song written in 1864/65 I guess it is safe to assume that he won't be demonetized by KZfaq for copyright infringement🙂

Us Iowa folks are very creative...

As I recall, the SC statehouse has several bronze stars on one side, to mark where Gen. Sherman's cannon balls struck. The population did not want to forget!

Nice song. Sherman must have been quite pleased.

I’m a Texas A&M Aggie but I’ve been to a football game in Columbia before. Bet the note said “Go Cocks!!” #SEC 😂👍🏼

wow to live that long and witness so many changes...

Quite an episode. I would really loved to have heard the POW glee club sing this song. Thanks for doing this research…...

Very Interesting. All trained historians long to discover true to life moments of humanity like this. Great work!

As a Nevadan. Nevada sent Silver, gold, and men to the North, to fight the South. How Nevada became a state in the United States.

Thanks for another winner Ron. Would it be possible to do some research into the song's intended melody? I would very much like to know the melody to which these lyrics would be sung to. As it stands, it is a wonderful and clever panegyric poem, but it would be more pleasurable and more easily memorized if it could be sung to a tune. I know that there were many such songs in those days (when people had to make their own music) that were sung to older Irish, Scottish, French, German and English Folk tunes, in addition to the very popular Steven Foster melodies of the day.

thank you

Great story.

I remember in Charleston when some somebody at a bar heard my northern accent he had to take a dig at me that his" great great great grandaddy kilt himself a yankee." I responded " cool, my parents emigrated from Europe. Thats got nothing to do with me." Great Story about Sherman acknowledging this man

Considering modern times as they are today, and then hearing this, I fear that we have lost something, something very important and very wonderful along the way. What it is we will never know, and will never understand, unless we discover it again....

“ A song from the American Civil War. In September 1864 General Sherman advanced from Chattanooga to Atlanta and then cut a swath of desolation through central Georgia to Savannah. After reaching his objective on the Georgia coast in December, he turned North, where hundreds of ragged Federal soldiers in Charleston Jail were eagerly awaiting their freedom. One of them, Lieutenant S. H. M. Byers, composed this song. Although he wrote a tune, it was more frequently sung to the Irish melody of "Rosin the Beau". The song became a big hit in the North, appearing in thousands of copies of song sheets and songbooks.” More at: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b8qmqbifubDMZJs.html&pp=ygUhU29uZyAtIFNoZXJtYW4ncyBtYXJjaCB0byB0aGUgc2Vh

Amazing story!

Always interesting. Especially the biographic details of the people involved.

Good one. Uplifting 😊

This is the first time I've listtened to your program. Well done! I am distantly related to Champ Ferguson, who turned outlaw at the end of the war. If I remember correctly his father was a brother to my great great grandfather on my mother's side of the family. I am interested in the stories of the civil war. My mother's family, on both sides, were from Clinton county, KY. My dad's family were from Virginia, but to my knowledge did not serve on either side.

I’m glad you are so happy and delirious about a city which was surrendered intact and days later was burned to the ground. A happy time for you, but not for the unfortunate citizens of the city. This was a true war crime and an outrage.

"With Fire and Sword" and "Switzerland and the Swiss" were authored by S.H.M. Byers. Thanks for the great information. These books are available on Amazon.

The commandant of Andersonville was a Swiss guy named Wirtz.

Thank you!

"Here ARE the words..."

Fascinating!

why don't you read the part of his memior where he rescued a lady who had a book signed by Sherman....Sherman could have recovered all the men at Andersonville while he was chilling in Atlanta...but he did not because they would slow him down.....

Thank you

Being born in Iowa and raised in CA, I knew that my grandfather had in his heritage a grandfather who marched with Sherman down to the sea. It was a shock when our family moved to Lexington SC just across from Columbia. The people here are so lovely and we call it home. I worked for some years in Columbia and used to imagine what it was like for Grandfather Cook fighting there, especially as I crossed the bridge into the city. I marveled seeing the scars on the statehouse where cannon balls from my grandfather’s troop hit the marks. I was always proud that he had fought for the Union and to free the slaves. My heart swelled hearing your reading of the song. I can’t thank you enough for telling this remarkable story. I’ll be sharing this with my history loving son to show to his sons.

I was born and raised in Columbia, my family on my mother's side going back at least four generations in Columbia and nearby Lexington County. My grandmother told me that she remembered stories from her grandmother telling of Sherman's march through Columbia, and no one was singing songs. She said; "Everyone was hiding their good silver because them damn Yankees was stealing everything they could get their hands on".

As a South Carolinian, I take umbrage with this story. So typical of "the victor writing the history". Sherman actually wrote that he told the mayor that no harm would come to the people of Columbia or the town? If so, he was a damned liar! History shows that Sherman exacted a particularly brutal treatment upon the town, burning most of it to the ground and leaving its citizens devoid of food and shelter. He did so deliberately to punish the capitol of South Carolina for being the first state to secede from the Union. And that nice little song? What a delightful description of the hell Sherman's troops brought to those they encountered along their storied march to the sea. Sherman said he would "make Georgia howl", remember? Well, the Georgians did and they were primarily women and children as their men were either dead, POWs or trying to return home. Crops were destroyed, homes were burned and though Sherman ordered that his men not engage in rape, thievery or other crimes, they did anyway and with very little reprimand. That you could tell this story with a smile and without a hint of an inclusion of the facts behind it leaves me speechless.

Excellent! Earned a sub!

"Uncle Billy" has been my hero all my life.

loved that !

Sherman's March to the Sea was an American Civil War campaign lasting from November 15 to December 21, 1864, in which Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman led troops through the Confederate state of Georgia, pillaging the countryside and destroying both military outposts and civilian properties.

Great! Thanks for this!

Doesn't make Sherman any less of a scalawag. Damn him and his name.

FWIW, a slightly different account of the out-of-control fires in Columbia was that evacuating Confederate military leaders advised city leaders to destroy all liquor supplies in advance of the arrival of occupying Union forces. Apparently, the city leaders failed to do this and later, drunken Union soldiers, bent on punishing South Carolina for starting the war, set fire to cotton bales, which then spread to numerous buildings. Apparently, as the city had surrendered, the burning of Columbia was not intentional. Note: this account was in a book - read decades ago - about the closing months of the war. (The author and title escape my memory, at the moment.) Apparently, the Union soldiers wanted to advance on and burn Charleston in revenge, but the Union forces bypassed Charleston to proceed north towards Richmond, VA.

Nice Civil War interlude, with a musical side story. We're so glad you didn't try to sing it, Ron. You've got a good, sincere, gravelly voice for documentary. We appreciate what you bring. But music is a refined and different discipline. Leave it to the inmates. Whose fans were the Southern Belles.

Epic lyrics ❤️😘🐐🎠🌙

Very impressive...

I thought for certain Ron would SING the song Luciano Pavarotti or Placido Domingo style ha ha!😂

Absolutely brilliant.

amadeususawater Yes we are! I am surprised that an Iowa Union soldier was a POW in South Carolina. I thought Iowa soldiers mainly served in the west.

The Geneva Convention had just been formed in the early 1860’s. in Europe. I’ve read If it had had a few more years Sherman would have probably been one of the first prosecuted under their laws. He burned and allowed his troops to pillage from the citizens all across the Southeast. Civilian’s starved because of his actions. Remember, The winner writes the History Books. They omit these parts.

Awesome history

Well, all I can say, that Capt Rhett Butler, at Tara, warned the South about what was to come! They didn't listen!🤪

The story is excellent but I am alarmed at the atrocious misspelling of several key words. There is a casual, if not cavalier air of ignorance and neglect that reflects a dark downturn in our country's education in the last 25 or so years. We used to have, and maintained a reading and comprehension level in this country on par with an eighth grade education level. But it is so sad to see how much lower that reading and comprehension level is now. The transcript has several key words that are so butchered that it destroys the story. For example: in lieu of the word "bales," which is referring to cotton bales, it reads "bells" which is an instrument for a musical note. Then there's the word "Lee," which being capitalized refers to some one's name and should have read, "lea" which in this case would refers to a grassy open area or field. This is only the tip of the iceberg of social media spelling. Our education system has dumbed down several generations and it needs to be overhauled and returned to it's former standards.

wonderful bits of history

A great story! In the US Army during the Civil War, an adjutant was most likely a captain.

wow, this should be should not be forgotten ,powerfull words. thank you

Sherman and civility are mutually exclusive!

If anyone wants to hear the song's melody accompanied by voice and acoustic guitar there is a KZfaqr --- raymondcrooke video titled "Sherman's March to the Sea (by SHM Byers)" you can check out.

Amazing

War is Hell!

History is always written through the eyes of the victors. Sherman, remembered in the South as a villainous conqueror, was doing the business of the Union’s leadership. Sadly, it has always been so, those who set in motion the destruction of property and loss of life are too “civilized” to contemplate the harsh realities of conquest/pacification.

I always like your podcasts. This one was especially fun.

My maternal grandmother was a niece of Col. Nelson A. Miles.

I would dearly love to hear that played by guitar & harmonica

My great grandfather's brothers unit was the 3rd Wwisconsin and was therw.

I love all the comments from the defenders of the Lost Cause. I lived in Columbia for a time several years ago. One of the questions I frequently encountered was "So who are your people", meaning where did I come from and what was my background. It came across not as a friendly inquiry a type of value judgment. I usually explained that I came Colorado via Iowa. My grandfather was from upstate New York. His father was too young but six of his uncles fought in is Civil War for the Union. One of them died at Fredericksburg. Eventually I tired of the "who are your people" question and finally chose to answer by telling them that my people were the ones that kicked your butts in the Civil War. That usually brought a quick end to the inquiries.

sure would be cool to hear the song sung!

And now for my third and final comment: what were the circumstances behind Byers capture? Was he taken prisoner during the Battles of Atlanta, or during the March to the Sea?

Good ol' Uncle Billy!

Sherman’s march to the sea was absolutely epic!

Thank you, just found and subdcribed.

I find this video quite interesting, as my Great Grandfather was an OVI Sargent who fought along side of Sherman to the sea.

Hoorah!

Thanks

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,... ...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Seems like the South had every right to succeed...

sherman burns still in the hot place, for his war crimes against humanity.