fighting ... it is mercy in the end". One of Sherman's tactics was to destroy the railways by pulling up the rails, heating them over a bonfire, and twisting them to leave behind what came to known as "Sherman's neckties". This made repairs extremely difficult at a time when the Confederacy lacked both iron and heavy machinery. The severity of the destructive acts by Union troops was significantly greater in South Carolina than in Georgia or North Carolina. This appears to have been a consequence of the animosity felt by Union soldiers and officers for the state that they regarded as the "cockpit of secession". One of the most serious accusations against Sherman was that he allowed his troops to burn the city of Columbia. Some pro-Confederate sources have repeated a claim that Oliver Otis Howard, the commander of Sherman's 15th Corps, said in 1867 that "It is useless to deny that our troops burnt Columbia, for I saw them in the act." Sherman himself stated that "[i]f I had made up my mind to burn Columbia I would have burnt it with no more feeling than I would a common prairie dog village; but I did not do it ..." Sherman's official report on the burning placed the blame on Confederate lieutenant general Wade Hampton, who Sherman said had ordered the burning of cotton in the streets. In his memoirs, Sherman said, "In my official report of this conflagration, I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and confess 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." Historian James M. McPherson has concluded that: In this general connection, it is also noteworthy that Sherman and his subordinates (particularly John A. Logan) took steps to protect Raleigh, North Carolina, from acts of revenge after the assassination of President Lincoln. Postbellum service In May 1865, after the major Confederate armies had surrendered, Sherman wrote in a personal letter: In June 1865, two months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Sherman received his first postwar command, originally called the Military Division of the Mississippi, later the Military Division of the Missouri, which came to comprise the territory between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Sherman's efforts in that position were focused on protecting the main wagon roads, such as the