| Summary |
The purpose of this thesis is to undertake a detailed study of the battle of Bentonville from its beginning on March 19, 1865, until its conclusion on March 21, 1865. I also feel it is important to set the stage for this battle by describing the course of events which preceded and were the ultimate cause of this confrontation taking place. This small hamlet named Bentonville was not just the scene of "the last dying gasp of breath" for the Confederacy. This conflict was important Bentonville represented a flicker of hope for a desperate Southern cause for many reasons. This was the only serious attempt made by the South to stop General Sherman on his march north from Savannah, Georgia This fact contains a great irony for to Goldsboro, North Carolina. the reason that the battle of Bentonville need not have taken place. General Sherman himself admitted that a small force placed strategically along any of the crossings of any of the five large rivers between Savannah and Goldsboro could have made reaching his destination almost impossible. However, these questions are to be left to war game strategists. Bentonville surely did take place and represented an agonizing attempt by General Joseph E. Johnston to gather the scattered armies throughout many Southern states. These fragmented divisions were but skeletons of what were once proud armies. The fact that these troops had never fought together as a unit before made the chances of success even more remote. Johnston's army had been given orders by General Robert E. Lee to stop a veteran Union force which had swept through the South and in a matter of months and had left an unprecedented path of destruction in its wake. Many of the South's premier military personalities participated in the battle of Bentonville. Some of those present included Braxton Bragg, D. H. Hill and Wade Hampton, who was Jeb Stuart's successor. However, several of these commanders were conspicuous for previous failures on the battlefield and in their ability to cooperate with each other. Bentonville represented the last full-scale action of the Civil War where a Confederate army would be able to choose its own ground from which to stage a battle. This conflict became the largest battle ever to be fought on North Carolina soil in any war. The main thrust of this paper has to be the military aspects of the battle. However, to set this study apart from previous works, the effect of this conflict on the citizenry of the town of Bentonville and the surrounding area in Johnston County has been examined. The impact of approximately 100,000 troops from two hostile armies suddenly converging on a quiet agrarian town was catastrophic. The lives and property of these people were thrown into total disarray in a period of three days. Placing this study in the context of local history will bring to light heretofore neglected accounts of this war-ravaged area. The chances for a Confederate victory at Bentonville were slim from the beginning. The odds were made even greater when General John Schofield's army, numbering 23,000 men, captured Goldsboro. The conflict which centered upon the little town of Bentonville was truly the South's "last stand." |
