Bentonville was a Civil War engagement fought in North Carolina, 1865. It was a Union victory.
While Slocum's advance was stalled at Averasborough by Hardee's troops, the right wing of Sherman's army under command of Maj. Gen. O.O. Howard marched toward Goldsborough. On March 19, Slocum encountered the entrenched Confederates of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston who had concentrated to meet his advance at Bentonville. Late afternoon, Johnston attacked, crushing the line of the XIV Corps. Only strong counterattacks and desperate fighting south of the Goldsborough Road blunted the Confederate offensive. Elements of the XX Corps were thrown into the action as they arrived on the field. Five Confederate attacks failed to dislodge the Federal defenders and darkness ended the first day's fighting. During the night, Johnston contracted his line into a "V" to protect his flanks with Mill Creek to his rear. On March 20, Slocum was heavily reinforced, but fighting was sporadic. Sherman was inclined to let Johnston retreat. On the 21st, however, Johnston remained in position while he removed his wounded. Skirmishing heated up along the entire front. In the afternoon, Maj. Gen. Joseph Mower led his Union division along a narrow trace that carried it across Mill Creek into Johnston's rear. Confederate counterattacks stopped Mower's advance, saving the army's only line of communication and retreat. Mower withdrew, ending fighting for the day. During the night, Johnston retreated across the bridge at Bentonville. Union forces pursued at first light, driving back Wheeler's rearguard and saving the bridge. Federal pursuit was halted at Hannah's Creek after a severe skirmish. Sherman, after regrouping at Goldsborough, pursued Johnston toward Raleigh. On April 18, Johnston signed an armistice with Sherman at the Bennett House, and on April 26, formally surrendered his army.
Fought from March 19 to 21, 1865, near the small settlement of Bentonville in Johnston County, North Carolina, this clash formed part of the war's Western Theater and marked the final confrontation between the western armies commanded by William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston.
Sherman had split his forces into two wings. While Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard led the right wing on a march toward Goldsborough, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum's left wing ran into Johnston's dug-in troops. Fighting broke out on the opening day when Confederate forces struck the 14th Army Corps, shattering two of its divisions, though the remainder of Sherman's forces held their ground. When the second day arrived, Sherman brought reinforcements forward, anticipating that Johnston would pull back, and only scattered, limited combat took place. By the third day, amid continuing skirmishes, Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Mower's division found a route behind Confederate lines and launched an assault there. Confederate defenders managed to push back this attack after Sherman called Mower's men back to rejoin their own corps. That same night, Johnston chose to pull his forces off the field entirely.
Facing Union numerical dominance and having sustained substantial losses during the engagement, Johnston capitulated to Sherman roughly five weeks afterward at Bennett Place, close to Durham Station. This surrender, occurring alongside Gen. Robert E. Lee's capitulation on April 9, essentially brought the conflict to its close.
After completing his March to the Sea, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman led the Military Division of the Mississippi on a push northward across the Carolinas. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, serving as the Union's general in chief, wanted Sherman to march his forces to Virginia so they could join the fight against the Army of Northern Virginia. Sherman resisted this plan, insisting the journey north would consume too much time, and proposing instead that his columns could sever Confederate supply routes leading to Petersburg while overcoming rebel forces along the way through the Carolinas. As winter gave way to spring in 1865, Sherman's men left a trail of ruin across South Carolina. By March 8, Union troops had pushed into North Carolina, even as Confederate commanders scrambled to unite their scattered units against the advancing enemy. Sherman split his forces into two columns: the Left Wing, known as the Army of Georgia under Maj. Gen. Henry Warner Slocum, and the Right Wing, the Army of the Tennessee, led by Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard. Starting on March 13, these two wings advanced independently toward Goldsboro, with Union leadership giving little thought to the possibility of serious opposition from Johnston.
Nine days earlier, on February 23, Confederate general in chief Lee had instructed Johnston to assume command over the Army of Tennessee along with other Confederate forces scattered through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, urging him to gather every available soldier and push Sherman back. Johnston succeeded in bringing together, within North Carolina, the Army of Tennessee under Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, a division from the Army of Northern Virginia led by Maj. Gen. Robert Hoke, soldiers from the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida under Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee, and cavalry commanded by Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton. He designated this combined force the Army of the South. Faulty Confederate intelligence placed the distance between the two Union wings at twelve miles, or nineteen kilometers, suggesting that a full day's march separated them from reinforcing one another. Seizing on this apparent gap, Johnston devised a plan to mass his entire army against Slocum's wing, hoping to wipe out its supply trains before the Union forces could reunite. He set the assault to begin as early as possible after daybreak on March 19.
The fighting opened on March 19, when Slocum's troops advanced along the Goldsboro Road, roughly a mile (1.6 km) south of Bentonville. On the Confederate side, Hoke's division, under Bragg, took position on the left and faced west, while Stewart's army held the right and faced south. Convinced that only enemy cavalry and artillery stood before him rather than a full army, Slocum told Sherman he was meeting nothing more than token opposition near Bentonville and needed no assistance. Sherman, for his part, doubted Johnston would risk battle with the Neuse River at his back.
Acting on his mistaken assumption, Slocum tried to push past what he thought were mere horsemen by sending forward
Casualty totals from the fighting ran heavy on both sides. Confederate losses reached nearly 2,600 men, broken down as 239 dead, 1,694 injured, and 673 unaccounted for, with roughly half of these losses falling on the Army of Tennessee. On the opposing side, Union forces counted 194 dead, 1,112 injured, and 221 missing, adding up to 1,527 casualties overall. Injured soldiers received care at John Harper's residence, and 360 Confederate dead whose identities remain unknown were laid to rest together in a mass grave beside the Harper family's burial ground.
Under cover of darkness on March 21, continuing into the early hours of the next day, Johnston pulled his forces back over Mill Creek, destroying the bridge as his troops crossed and stationing a cavalry unit to guard the rear. Union forces remained unaware of this withdrawal until it had already been completed. Rather than chase after the retreating Confederates, Sherman kept moving toward Goldsboro, linking up there with Union troops commanded by Terry and Schofield. Once his combined force had rested and resupplied, Sherman intended to push forward toward Petersburg, Virginia. That plan changed, however, once Lee capitulated at Appomattox Court House; Johnston subsequently yielded his own army to Sherman at the Bennett Place in North Carolina on April 26.
Following their loss at Bentonville, Confederate troops regrouped near the property of Everitt P. Stevens, where the army held its final Grand Review on April 6, 1865. Generals William J. Hardee and Joseph E. Johnston attended this event, along with Governor Zebulon Baird Vance.
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