Re-enactors participate in the Battle of Bentonville. This year’s re-enactment is scheduled for March 21-22.
Taking a look back at the Battle of Bentonville By Benjamin Sanderford | Photo by Johnston County Visitors Bureau
William Tecumseh Sherman was relaxed on March 19, 1865. His march through North Carolina was proceeding smoothly. The Federal forces had encountered serious resistance only once, at Averasboro on March 15-16, since crossing the state’s southern border. This delaying action, Sherman believed, was all that the Confederates were willing to do. He knew from previous experience that their commander, Joseph E. Johnston, was averse to taking serious risks. The Northern general did not foresee that he would have to fight the last major battle of the Civil War in Johnston County. General Johnston, however, was desperate. With the Confederacy on its last legs, he was ready to put his natural caution 34 | JOHNSTON NOW
aside in order to stop Sherman. Johnston’s determination was bolstered by the knowledge that another Federal army under John M. Schofield was advancing up the Neuse to meet Sherman at Goldsboro. Time was running out. That was why Johnston ordered all available Southern forces to converge on Smithfield preparatory to an all-out attack on the Northern host. Sherman’s troops were split into two armies traveling eastward in parallel led by Henry W. Slocum to the north and Oliver O. Howard to the south. The Confederate commander’s plan was to destroy Slocum’s wing before Howard could intervene. It was Johnston’s chief of cavalry, Wade Hampton, the future Governor of South
Carolina, who suggested the battlefield: a rural neighborhood in the heart of Bentonville Township. Hampton began the fight on the morning of March 19. His troopers dismounted and started harassing the Federal column near the home of Willis Cole, one of whose slaves, Hinton, would become the grandfather of jazz musician Thelonious Monk. As expected, the Northerners pushed the Southern skirmishers back beyond the Cole plantation. They were walking into a trap. The majority of Johnston’s “Army of the South” was on the field. The left flank was held by Robert F. Hoke’s division, 5,557 men under the overall command of General Braxton Bragg. On the
