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A bronze star, one of six on the South Carolina State House walls, marks a spot where a Union cannonball took out a chunk of granite in 1865.
Photo by Josh Crotzer
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Construction of the new State House was underway when the existing wooden capitol was burned by Sherman’s troops. But the Civil War and Reconstruction interrupted the building’s construction, which wasn’t fully completed until 1907. A historic photo by George Barnard shows its progress.
Photo courtesy of Library of Congress
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A marker at the modern South Carolina State House remembers its predecessor, burned by Sherman’s troops in 1865 when the current State House was still under construction.
Photo by Josh Crotzer
Most conflicts today in the South Carolina State House are confined to lawmakers’ debates on the House and Senate floors.
But more than 150 years ago, a much more devastating struggle struck the state capitol. And the scars of that moment in American history are still present.
Many notable markers of history dot the State House grounds in downtown Columbia, obvious to visitors casually strolling the well-manicured paths: statues memorializing famous figures from Benjamin Tillman to Strom Thurmond, and markers honoring heroes of war and law enforcement and African American history-makers.
But it takes a more astute observer to alight on the six small-ish bronze stars adorning the granite walls of the capitol building. The stars have hung there for nearly a century, placed by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1929 to mark damage caused by Union cannonballs that made their mark in the waning days of the Civil War.
The war comes to Columbia
Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s cannons sat in prime position on Feb. 16, 1865, on hills along the south side of the Congaree River, in present-day West Columbia. They fired upon the State House, which was still being constructed. Six of the shots landed on the western and southwestern faces of the building.
Sherman and his 60,000-man army arrived in Columbia after their devastating March to the Sea, which left Atlanta in ashes and many other places decimated, as the Confederacy clung to its final breaths. Sherman’s army faced little resistance as it moved into the heart of the Palmetto State.
His troops marched through Columbia and left it in a similar state to the smoldering Atlanta. Somewhere between a third and half of South Carolina’s capital city was destroyed. Accounts are muddled on the full extent of the destruction, as well as on who actually set the city ablaze: Union soldiers were a common scapegoat, but Sherman himself claimed the fires were initiated by Confederates and made worse by high winds.
Federal troops ransacked and burned the original wooden State House, which stood beside the current capitol. Before moving on, Sherman’s men raised the United States flag over the partially-built State House and repealed the Ordinance of Secession.
Today, a close look at the stars reveals the cracks of damage, all relatively minor, caused by the impact of Sherman’s cannonballs.
The stars aren’t the only reminder of the scars from this conflict. A statue of George Washington, which now stands on the front steps of the State House, was installed inside the original capitol in 1864. While never proven, Union soldiers have long been blamed for damaging the statue, including breaking the lower half of Washington’s cane, which remains incomplete to this day.
The war and Reconstruction interrupted the construction of the new State House, which wasn’t fully completed until 1907. South Carolina leaders added the stars to the building half a century after the war, a time when social and political wounds were still fresh.
Generations later, these simple markers still serve as a stark reminder of a dark period in American history in the state where it all began.