Carolinas Campaign

• Major General Lafayette McLawsRivers' Bridge
• General Braxton BraggWyse Fork
• Major General Joseph WheelerMonroe's Cross
• Lieutenant General Wade HamptonMonroe's Cross
• Lieutenant General William HardeeAverasborough
• General Joseph E. JohnstonBentonville

• Major General Francis P. BlairRivers' Bridge
• Major General John M. SchofieldWyse Fork
• Brigadier General H. Judson KilpatrickMonroe's Cross
• Major General Henry SlocumAverasborough, Bentonville
• Major General William T. ShermanBentonville

Fought between January 1 and April 26, 1865, the Carolinas campaign, sometimes called the Campaign of the Carolinas, stood as the last operation the Union Army carried out against Confederate forces in the Western Theater. Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman set out from Savannah, Georgia, on January 1, pushing northward through the Carolinas with plans to join Union troops in Virginia. Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army met defeat at the Battle of Bentonville, and this loss brought the campaign to a close when his forces surrendered unconditionally to Union troops on April 26, 1865. This happened only two weeks after Robert E. Lee's army had fallen at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, making clear that the conflict was, in effect, finished.

Background

During 1864, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman led a substantial force across Georgia in what became known as the Atlanta campaign, seizing the city itself that September. As autumn set in, attention shifted toward blunting Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood's efforts in the Franklin-Nashville campaign. Sherman ultimately withdrew from that fight, entrusting Gen. George H. Thomas with finishing off Hood while he brought his main force back to Atlanta. From there Sherman launched his "March to the Sea," which ended in December with Savannah falling into Union hands.

By this stage, Sherman commanded 60,000 seasoned soldiers, and Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, serving as the Union Army's general-in-chief, wanted them shipped to Virginia instead. Grant's plan called for loading these troops onto vessels bound for reinforcing the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James, since he remained stalled outside Petersburg in a siege against Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Sherman, however, envisioned something different. He convinced Grant to let him instead push northward through the Carolinas on foot, laying waste to anything of military use along the route, much as he had done in Georgia. South Carolina held special appeal for Sherman since it had been the first state to leave the Union, and striking it would deal a heavy blow to Confederate spirits. Grant relented, giving his approval on Christmas Eve, and the remaining days of 1864 went toward organizing the campaign.

Although Sherman planned for most of his army to set out around mid-January 1865, initial troop movements actually began as early as December 30, 1864. By late January, his forces were advancing toward Columbia, South Carolina.

Reflecting on the war afterward, Sherman noted that although the march through Georgia had captured the public imagination, it paled in difficulty next to the campaign through the Carolinas.

His strategy involved staging false threats against Augusta, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, all while his real target lay in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Just as he had done in Georgia, Sherman split his forces to advance along several fronts at once, leaving the dispersed Confederate defenders uncertain of his actual goal: the South Carolina capital of Columbia.

Opposing forces

During the Carolinas campaign, Sherman organized his forces along lines similar to those used in the Atlanta campaign, splitting his 60,079 troops into two wings. Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard led the right wing, the Army of the Tennessee, made up of the XV and XVII corps, while Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum commanded the left wing, consisting of the XIV and XX corps, an organization that would eventually receive the formal name Army of Georgia. As the march north continued, fresh troops kept joining Sherman's ranks, and his total strength swelled to 88,948 men by April 1, once Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's Army of the Ohio linked up with him at Goldsboro, NC.

Following the same approach used during the March to the Sea, Sherman severed his connection to supply lines so his forces could move quickly. His men carried substantial quantities of ammunition but traveled with little in the way of rations, forage for animals, or other provisions. Sherman anticipated no fresh supplies until his forces reached the Cape Fear River in central North Carolina, meaning the troops would need to sustain themselves by drawing on the countryside and its inhabitants. Foraging was governed by tight restrictions: troops were permitted to take certain goods from residents but were forbidden from entering houses, committing trespass, or harassing civilians, and had to leave behind sufficient food for local survival. Only corps commanders held the authority to order the destruction of property, a measure tied directly to how much resistance the army faced along the way. Areas that offered no interference were to be spared entirely, whereas regions where guerrilla fighters caused trouble would suffer destruction proportional to that activity. In practice, adherence to these foraging rules was inconsistent, and some soldiers took far more from civilians than they were supposed to.

Crossing the Carolinas proved slow and muddy, made worse by the rule that roads were reserved for vehicles, forcing infantry to trek through rough terrain alongside them. Army pioneers played a crucial role throughout, constructing bridges and laying down extensive stretches of corduroy roadway. One Confederate soldier captured the army's resourcefulness by remarking that even if Sherman's men found themselves marching straight into hell with no other path available, they would simply corduroy the road and keep going.

Engagements

During the Carolinas campaign, several engagements took place as part of these military operations.

Aftermath

Covering 425 miles (684 km) in just 50 days, Sherman's push through the Carolinas mirrored his earlier march through Georgia to the sea, though it proved even harder on his men physically. Still, the Confederate troops standing against him were fewer in number and far more discouraged than before. By April 1865 Sherman had taken Raleigh, occupying the Governor's Palace there. During a meeting with Jefferson Davis in Greensboro on April 12 and 13, Joseph E. Johnston delivered a grim assessment to the Confederate president, admitting that the people were exhausted by war, considered themselves defeated, and had lost the will to keep fighting. He described a homeland overrun and stripped of military resources, contrasted against an enemy whose strength kept growing without limit, and confessed that his own dwindling force was disappearing "like snow before the sun."

Three days after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, on April 18, Johnston and Sherman put their signatures to an armistice at Bennett Place, a farmhouse close to Durham Station. Controversy followed Sherman because the surrender terms he had extended to Johnston touched on political matters beyond purely military ones, and he had done so without clearance from Grant or federal authorities. This dispute dragged on until April 26, at which point Johnston accepted terms limited strictly to military matters and formally laid down his army along with every Confederate unit still active in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. This marked the month's second major capitulation, following Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9. Together these events effectively ended the Confederacy, even though scattered forces, most notably in the Trans-Mississippi region, continued resisting on into the summer.