Sherman treated South Carolina harshly because?

Because Confederate forces first opened fire at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina on 12 April 1861,This is seen by many historians as the true beginning of the civil war and SC was looked upon as the bed of the War. General Sherman, feeling that he himself was a true patriot, felt it was his duty to administer appropriate punishment to those "no good rebs in South Carolina" by giving them an all out trouncing............and then some. Many southern people, to this day, believe that Teseh Sherman was evil incarnate! What he did to the south was not war but rather it was the act of someone possessed by the devil. There was no reason for the depth of destruction and pillaging that this man wrought upon, not just South Carolina, but the entire South! He was a bully long before Eddie Haskell came along.