I apologize for the long reply below, but I found some things I want to cite.
Like Sherman, Wheeler had unassociated groups of people following his troops too. Those groups apparently did pillage. Like Sherman’s troops, Wheeler’s cavalry lived off of foraging and people complained when their food stuffs were taken by either side. I don’t think Wheeler’s cavalry did any burning of homes like Sherman’s troops did. They destroyed things (bridges, railroads, etc.) and ran off stock and sometimes took stock that approaching Federal troops might use.
On the other hand, Sherman’s regular troops, not the bummers or Kilpatrick’s robbers, participated in wholesale burning of homes, villages, towns, and cities and the robbing of citizens in South Carolina. Consider the following from "A City Laid Waste; The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia," by William Gilmore Simms, edited by David Aiken (an excellent book by the way). Simms was an eyewitness to the destruction and sacking of Columbia, South Carolina, and he published eyewitness accounts of the actions of Sherman’s troops in an 1865 Columbia newspaper just weeks after the city was burned. From page 61, originally from Simm's newspaper account:
Hardly had the [Union] troops reached the head of Main street, when the work of pillage was begun. Stores were broken open in the presence of thousands within the first hour of their arrival. The contents, when too cumbersome for the plunderers, were cast into the streets. Gold and silver, jewels and liquors, were eagerly sought. No attempt was made to arrest the burglars. The officers, soldiers, all, seemed to consider it a matter of course. And wo to him who carried a watch with gold chain pendant; or who wore a choice hat, or overcoat, or boots, or shoes. He was stripped by ready experts in the twinkling of an eye. It is computed that, from first to last, twelve hundred watches were transferred from the pockets of their owners to those of the robbers. Purses shared the same fate; nor was Confederate currency repudiated.
Sherman's troops had marched into town in an orderly fashion. Then when they were dismissed, wholesale robbery and plunder began and lasted the rest of the day and night. From page 64:
Sherman, at the head of his cavalry, traversed the streets everywhere – so did his officers – yet they saw nothing to rebuke or restrain. Subsequently, these officers were everywhere on foot, yet beheld nothing which required the imposition of authority. Robbery was going on at every corner – in every house – yet there was no censure, no punishment.
The huge fires that destroyed much of the city began at night started by Sherman's troops. They would rob a house of its valuable contents, then burn it. A few of Sherman’s sympathetic troops had earlier warned locals that this was coming. When local fire fighters attempted to put out fires, some of Sherman’s troops bayoneted and cut up the fire hoses.
Simms did report some plundering of commissary and quartermaster stores by Wheeler's cavalry and others just prior to the entry of Sherman's troops into Columbia.
I did find a report of apparent robbery by people under Wheeler’s command. From a Tennessee source about an 1863 raid by Wheeler: [Link]:
Following the surrender [of Union troops], according to Major Patterson, there occurred "the most brutal outrages on the part of the rebels ever known to any civilized war in America or elsewhere." The Major was shocked as the cavalrymen proceeded to outfit themselves in new clothes from head to foot, taking "boots, watch, pocket-book, money, and even finger-rings, or, in fact, anything that happened to please their fancy". Patterson, observing that General Wheeler had arrived on the scene, appealed to him directly to stop the pillaging. Wheeler only replied that he could not control his men, and that they would do as they pleased. Considering the dire condition of Forrest's men, whom most of these were, and their known reluctance to obey Wheeler's orders, the General probably stated the simple truth.
The book, “Those Damn Horse Soldiers” by George Walsh, reported (on page 234) that Patterson’s claim above was exaggerated.
Finally, here is a link to a National Parks Service site that says plundering by Confederate calvary became necessary for survival. [Link2] It mentions that Wheeler’s cavalry had not been resupplied for two years and that the clothes worn by Wheeler’s men were very tattered and that many did not have overcoats for the cold weather. It explains why they might have taken clothes from Union troops like in the 1863 raid above.
I don't know anything about the Captain Brown you mentioned. When and where was this and what exactly happened?
I know that this was much more common than one would surmise, as the census data immediately thereafter (tax rolls and other documents) listed numerous children unrelated to the HoH living with them.
My ancestor's wife and three small children left the devastation and the state to middle Florida to escape the yankees and Reconstruction.
And yankees think that they were the epitome of nobility during the war and Reconstruction.
The Captain Brown story is found in the old book about the Civil War years in Bradley County, Tennessee that I often reference here. It's available on Google books. The page linked contains an overview of the character of Captain Brown.
page 89 of "HISTORY OF THE REBELLION IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE"
Page 108-109 contains a partial list of some of the Unionists who were victims of Brown's extortion, one of whom is one of my relatives.
Beginning on page 245, chapter 23, "Murder of the Two Carters", details a grotesque atrocity occurring in the wake of a Wheeler raid with possible partial knowledge by the general himself. Today this episode would be labelled a war crime. There is also an account of a rebel crime spree in the wake of another Wheeler raid through Bradley, but this one was pretty obviously done without the knowledge of the general.
This book's early chapters also details the progress of secession in Tennessee and shows why many considered the Tennessee secession an illegal travesty not even considering the Constitutional issues. And if anybody had relatives in Bradley at the time, the appendix has an extensive listing of the sheep and goats, Bradley's Union and rebel soldiers and Union and Confederate citizens.
As far as Sherman's raid, I have to admit the conduct in South Carolina often crossed the line. It was no surprise that SC got it worst, it had a bad reputation even among some Southerners. But much of what happened, such as Columbia, was against Sherman's wishes. And the view that the SC conduct was significantly a response to SC's leading secession role is supported by the way the the rampage quieted down once in NC.
Sorry I'm tardy in responding, but your posts often require a day or two to study and think about which is a compliment to the quality of your contributions.