Soon afterwards, before he left Columbia, Sherman changed his tune and started passing the blame to Confederate General Wade Hampton, saying his men started the fire by burning the cotton they had left in the streets.Sherman's subordinates, however, did not substantiate this view. General Charles Woods, whose division was first into the city, wrote in his report, dated February 21, 1865, just after leaving Columbia, that the fire and its spreading was due to alcohol and it effects on "drunken negroes and the vilest vagabond soldiers, the veriest scum of the entire army." In his March 26th report, General William Woods, brother of Charles, stated, "I am satisfied by statements made to me by respectable citizens of the town that the fire was first set by the negro inhabitants." Likewise, XV Corps commander, General John A. Logan, made no mention of any burning cotton in his report, dated March 31, instead blaming the fire on "drunken soldiers."
On April 4, 1865, Sherman submitted his official report of the Carolinas Campaign. In it he still held Hampton accountable:
I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire, but, on the contrary, claim that we saved what of Columbia remains unconsumed. And without hesitation I charge general Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia, not with a malicious intent, or as the manifestation of a silly "Roman stoicism," but from folly and want of sense, in filling it with lint, cotton, and tinder.
Though the general admitted that "others not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned there, rescued by us, may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had once begun, and may have indulged in unconcealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina."
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In 1875, in his Memoirs, Sherman freely admitted he lied about Hampton: "I did so pointedly, to shake the faith of his people in him, for he was in my opinion boastful, and professed to be the special champion of South Carolina." Sherman also said that his men had "utterly ruined Columbia."
The self avowed war criminal lied? I am shocked, shocked I tell ya!