"South Carolina must be destroyed"

South Carolina, the home office of treason.

As his army had approached Savannah in December 1864, Georgians said to Sherman, "Why don't you go over to South Carolina and serve them this way? They started it." Sherman had intended to do so all along. He converted Grant to the idea, and on February 1, Sherman's 60,000 blue avengers left Savannah for their second march through the heart of enemy territory. This one had two strategic purposes: to destroy all war resources in Sherman's path; and to come up on Lee's rear to crush the Army of Northern Virginia...

Sherman's soldiers had a third purpose in mind as well: to punish the state that had hatched this unholy rebellion...[A] soldier declared: "Here is where treason began and, by God, here is where it shall end!" A South Carolina woman whose house was plundered recalled that the soldiers "would sometimes stop to tell me they were sorry for the women and children, but South Carolina must be destroyed."

Destroyed it was, through a corridor from north to south narrower than in Georgia but more intensely pillaged and burned. Not many buildings remained standing in some villages after the army marched through. The same was true of the countryside. "In Georgia few houses were burned," wrote an officer; "here few escaped." A soldier felt confident that South Carolina "will never want to seceed again...[sic]. I think she has her 'rights' now." When the army entered North Carolina the destruction of civilian property stopped.

-- James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, ch. 27

Unfortunately, the rich history of the state shows that the inhabitants of South Carolina never really did get the message.