[rustbucket]

Savannah was spared the wrath of Sherman’s army because it surrendered. Once it surrendered, Sherman had no reason to make war on the city.

Tell that to Columbia, South Carolina which also surrendered to Sherman.

Link to the 1865 version of William Gilmore Simms' recounting of his own first-hand observations and those of other witnesses describing what happened to Columbia, South Carolina during Sherman's occupation of the city

[Bull Snipe]

Tell that to Columbia, South Carolina

Would hardly consider Simms and impartial observer of events. Sherman’s men burned his plantation in South Carolina and he was an ardent advocate of slavery.

According to Marion B. Lucas, author of Sherman and the Burning of Columbia, “the destruction of Columbia was not the result of a single act or events of a single day. Neither was it the work of an individual or a group. Instead it was the culmination of eight days of riots, robbery, pillage, confusion and fires, all of which were the byproducts of war. The event was surrounded by coincidence, misjudgment, and accident. It is impossible, he maintains, to determine with certainty the origin of the fire. The most probable explanation was that it began from the burning cotton on Richardson street. Columbia at this time was a virtual firetrap because of the hundreds of cotton bales in her streets. Some of these had been ignited before Sherman arrived and a high wind spread the flammable substance over the city.”