The Burning of Columbia, SC

Robert, I would point out that our former slave was talking about things he had experienced himself, whereas much of Emma's account can only be called hearsay, and that is being charitable. There is no way she saw or experienced all she wrote about. She wasn't everywhere in the city, and she even talks about things she "heard" about.

I think it implausible that the survivor, smack dab in the middle of a horrific experience, should be expected to see all, experience all or be everywhere in the city. I would certainly give Emma’s account at least as much, if not more, credence than the likely coached or selected accounts of slaves’ treatment – often retold decades later.

"You have no right to ask, or expect that she will at once profess unbounded love to that Union from which for four years she tried to escape at the cost of her best blood and all her treasure. Nor can you believe her to be so unutterably hypocritical, so base, as to declare that the flag of the Union has already surpassed in her heart the place which has so long been sacred to the 'Southern Cross.' "
Wade Hampton

And yet if you read her account she's talking about things happening all over the town that she couldn't possibly have known, and you give her more credence than a former slave talking a year after the war about what he himself experienced.

My point was that Emma LeConte knew enough of what was happening in Columbia to make her account at least as credible as that of an ex slave whose account, after the war, may have been coached or made under duress.

"A sea rolls between them and us - a sea of blood. Smoking houses, outraged women, murdered fathers, brothers and husbands forbid such a union. Reunion! Great Heavens! How we hate them with the whole strength and depth of our souls!”

Emma LeConte, wrote in her journal on December 31, 1864.

Like Larry once said, "If you wish to secede, you had best succeed."

So why couldn't she have been coached? How do we know she didn't make up what she claimed to have seen? If you're going to question a black man's response that referred to his personal experiences, I see no reason why we can't question a white teenager's claims to things she couldn't possibly have witnessed in their entirety.

This is how she felt, rightly or wrongly. We all interperet events in our own way. I'm sure she was terrified to see Union soldiers.. and does it matter if they were a block up the street or ten miles down the road. The very thought of it terrified her, no doubt. This was a young girl, experiencing something that very few have ever experienced before and obviously she had a lot of **** on her mind. She choose to write it out, probably very therapuetic for her to do so. So read it, put yourself in her mindframe, let it terrify you and maybe you can try to understand what it was she was going through. Should it be taken as gospel? No, Sweet Jesus, what teenager's rambling diary should be? But it does give us a glimpse of what it was like for someone living through this time. If you want gospel.. go to the OR's.