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For the next few month , we ’ll be deal the final day of the Civil War exactly 150 yr after . This is the 5th installment of the series .
March 19-21, 1865: Battle of Bentonville
The Battle of Bentonville , from March 19 - 21 , 1865 , was the last large - scale engagement of the war for Joseph E. Johnston ’s Army of the South , a despairing and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to terminate the much larger Union army under William Tecumseh Sherman from advancing Union , where he intend to join force with the Army of the Potomac under Ulysses S. Grant . The Confederates agitate valiantly and won some tactical victories but in the end they were simply outnumbered , reflecting the huge imbalance in manpower and equipage that would shortly settle the war .
After layingwasteto South Carolina , Sherman ’s army of around 60,000 men marched north-east into North Carolina , where he ordered his troops not to loot and burn dimension , since many topical anesthetic dislike the Confederacy and he hope to pull ahead them over ( although they would still have to scrounge , have in mind requisition solid food from inhabitants , broadly without payment ) . Meanwhile another Union personnel of around 20,000 man under John Schofield capture Wilmington on February 22 , 1865 and then headed inland , with orders to join up with Sherman ’s U. S. Army in the eastern part of the state .
With fewer than 20,000 men in the ragged but majestic Army of the South , Johnston know his only probability of defeating Sherman , or even slowing his advance , was to attack before Schofield arrived at the nearby rail hub of Goldsboro , return Sherman an overwhelming vantage . After concentrate his forces in Smithfield , North Carolina , about 20 miles southeast of Raleigh , Johnston decided to attack Sherman ’s give flank , under the statement of Henry W. Slocum , which was relatively isolated from the rest of the army as it approached the township of Bentonville ; this held out the possibility of get the better of the different part of Sherman ’s big force “ in detail , ” or one at a fourth dimension .
At first Johnston ’s architectural plan met with majuscule achiever on the first mean solar day of the battle , as the Confederate sprang a ambuscade on Slocum ’s force , which decrease back in disorder before finally managing to take up unattackable justificatory locating towards nightfall . The battle rag through one of the body politic ’s famous true pine wood , with predictable consequences for the dry , highly inflammable Tree . One Confederate , A.P. Harcourt , described the field of battle .
Indeed Johnston ’s initial success come at a considerable price , as his small force suffered 2,462 casualties – dead , wounded and wanting – including a one-fifth of the beleaguered Army of Tennessee . Another Confederate soldier , Arthur Peronneau Ford , recounted the bally fit as his unit approached the scrap :
On the other side Union colonel William Hamilton described a virtually identical scene : “ A 12 surgeons and attendants in their shirt arm stood at underbred work bench cutting off branch and legs and throwing them out of the window , where they lay scattered on the grass . ”
Although the Confederates had succeed in driving Slocum ’s Union personnel back , reinforcement did n’t make it in time to uphold the assault , due in part to communication failures , and Johnston end up withdrawing his troops to their original start degree , where they took up strong defensive positions in a rough “ V ” soma facing south . He desire to provoke Sherman into attacking in haste , allowing the dug - in Confederates to inflict heavy losses – but Sherman did n’t fall for the trap .
There was picayune fighting the next day , March 20 , but the tide of conflict all the same gradually turn against the Confederates as Sherman ordered his right wing under Oliver Howard ahead to threaten Johnston ’s flank and take the pressure off Slocum ; Sherman also ordered Schofield to hurry his troops to Goldsboro , admit him to threaten Johnston from the bottom . As these forces come into alliance , Johnston found himself threatened with encirclement .
After a showery night , on the morning of March 21 the Union force continued digging themselves in , while both sides commit out skirmishing squad to test their enemy ’s defenses and render to determine their purpose . This continued until the late afternoon , when Union corps commander Francis Preston Blair Jr. pass a reconnaissance mission in force by Joseph A. Mower on the utmost right flank ; Mower interpreted these orders generously and led two brigade in a surprise attempt on Johnston ’s rear , which endanger to cut off Johnston ’s only line of hideaway , dispatch the blockade . However Sherman ordered Mower to fail off his impromptu onslaught , and Johnston was able to draw that night ; Sherman by and by admitted this was a fault , as he might have been capable to defeat Johnston and shorten the state of war considerably . On the other hand the defeat at Bentonville further subvert the Confederate troops . A Union soldier , Theodore Upson , add up the situation : “ I should consider those gull Johnnys would quit . They might as well endeavor to break a crack cocaine as Uncle Billy [ Sherman ] and his boy . ”
For his part , on March 23 Johnston warn Robert E. Lee that there was nothing he could do to stop Sherman , whose ground forces now number over 80,000 with the arriver of Schofield ’s troops and other reenforcement . Johnston ’s substance to the Confederate general - in - head was fatalist : “ I can do no more than get to him . I respectfully suggest that it is no longer a interrogative whether you leave present position ; you have only to decide where to cope with Sherman . I will be near him . ”
In short Lee ’s Army of Northern Virginia , hanging on desperately at the Siege of Petersburg , was now on its own . Lee would have to disclose out of the siege on his own , before Sherman go far , or face sure defeat .
See the previous entryhere . See all entrieshere .
