In 1867, two years after this Confederate stronghold was devastated by fire at the close of the Civil War, a group of New York City firemen made a magnanimous peace offering. They shipped a state-of-the-art hose carriage to Columbia, and when it sank in a shipwreck off the Outer Banks, they raised $2,500 to send another.

The Southerners were clearly touched by the gesture from their former antagonists, and promised to return the favor should similar misfortune ever strike New York. At the ceremonial presentation of the hose carriage, Col. Samuel W. Melton, a former Confederate officer and a legal adviser to the Independent Fire Engine Company of Columbia, told the visiting New Yorkers that he hoped his city would one day be able to ''obey that golden rule by which you have been prompted in the performance of this most munificent kindness to a people in distress.''

Now, 134 years later, that day has come. Led by a brigade of schoolchildren, Columbia is raising $354,000 to buy a fire engine for New York. In addition to losing 343 firefighters in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, the Fire Department of New York lost 98 vehicles, including 19 pumpers and 15 ladder trucks. The replacement cost of the equipment has been estimated at $47 million.

Civic leaders here say that the fire truck campaign has completed a historical circle. ''It brings some closure for us,'' said Samuel J. Tenenbaum, a local businessman and philanthropist who is active in the campaign, ''and it links generation to generation.''