General Johnston having learned that the enemy was marching in the direction of Goldsboro, instead of Raleigh, and that the right wing was a day's advance of the left, ordered a concentration of his troops near the little hamlet of Bentonville, situated near the junction of the roads, one leading to Raleigh and the other to Goldsboro, and there fall upon the one wing of the army and defeat it before the other came up. This was not so difficult in contemplation as in the performance, under the present condition of the troops and the topography of the country. General Johnston was misled by the maps at hand, finding afterwards that the Federal General, Howard, was much nearer Bentonville than was General Hardee. But General Hampton put [523] General Butler's Division of Cavalry in front of this whole force, behind some hastily constructed breastworks, and was to keep Slocum at bay until the troops had all gotten in position.
General Hardee began moving early on the morning of the eighth, and on reaching Bentonville we now, for the first time, came up with all the other troops of the army. Hoke's Division lead off to take position and stood on both sides of a dull road leading through the thickets. Batteries were placed on his right. Next to the artillery was posted the Army of Tennessee, its right thrown forward. Before Hardee could get in position the enemy attacked with the utmost vigor, so much so that General Bragg, who was commanding in person at this point, asked for reinforcements. General Hardee, moving by at this juncture, ordered McLaws' Old-Division to the aid of Hoke. But the almost impenetrable thicket prevented hasty movement, and the smoke in front, overhead and the rear, with bullets passing over the heads of Hoke's men, made it impossible for these unacquainted with the disposition of the troops to know whether it was friend or foe in our front. The troops became greatly entangled and some of the officers demoralized. Some troops on our right, by mistaking the head of direction, began to face one way, while Kershaw's Brigade was facing another. But after much maneuvering, McLaw's got the troops disentangled and moved upon the line, and after several rounds at close range, the enemy retreated. Hardee was then ordered to charge with his wing of the army, composed of troops under Stuart and a division under Taliaferro, while Bragg was to follow by brigades from right to left. The firing was now confusing, our troops advancing in different direction, and the sound of our guns and cannon echoing and reverberating through the dense forest, made it appear as if we were surrounded by a simultaneous fire. But finding our way the best we could by the whizzing of the bullets, we rushed up to the enemy's first line of entrenchments, which they had abandoned without an effort, and took position behind the second line of works. After firing a round or two, the Confederates raised the old Rebel yell and went for their second line with a rush. Here General Hardee led his men in person, charging at their head on horseback. The troops carried everything before them; [524] the enemy in double columns and favorably entrenched, was glad to take cover in the thicket in the rear. On the extreme left our troops were less successful, being held in check by strong breastworks and a dense thicket between the enemy and the troops of General Bragg. After sweeping the enemy from the field, General Hardee found it necessary to halt and reform his line and during this interval the enemy made an unsuccessful assault upon the troops of General Stuart. After nightfall and after all the killed and wounded had been removed from the field, General Johnston moved the troops back to the line occupied in the morning and threw up fortifications. Here we remained until the 21st; McLaws was detached and placed on the left of Hoke; the cavalry deployed as skirmishers to our left. There was a considerable gap between our extreme left and the main body of cavalry, and this break the writer commanded with a heavy Hue of skirmishers. Late in the day the enemy made a spirited attack upon us, so much so that General McLaws sent two companies of boys, formerly of Fizer's Brigade of Georgia Militia. The boys were all between sixteen and eighteen, and a finer body of young men I never saw. He also sent a regiment of North Carolina Militia, consisting of old men from fifty to sixty, and as these old men were coming up on line the enemy were giving us a rattling fire from their sharpshooters. The old men could not be induced to come up, however. The Colonel, a Venerable old gray-beard, riding a white horse, as soon as the bullets began to pelt the pines in his front, leaped from his horse and took refuge behind a large tree. I went to him and tried every inducement to get him to move up his men on a line with us, but all he would do was to grasp me by the hand and try to jerk me down beside him. "Lie down, young man," said he, "or by God you'll be shot to pieces. Lie down!" The old militiaman I saw was too old for war, and was "not built that way." But when I returned to the skirmish line, on which were my own brigade skirmishers, reinforced by the two boy companies, the young men were fighting with a glee and abandon I never saw equalled. I am sorry to record that several of these promising young men, who had left their homes so far behind, were killed and many wounded.
This ended the battle of Bentonville, and we might say the war. The sun of the Confederacy, notwithstanding the hopes of our Generals, the [525] determination of the troops, and the prayers of the people, was fast sinking in the west. The glorious rising on the plains of Manassas had gone down among the pine barriers of North Carolina. The last stroke had been given, and destiny seemed to be against us. For hundreds of miles had the defeated troops of Hood marched barefooted and footsore to the relief of their comrades of the East, and had now gained a shallow victory. They had crossed three States to mingle their blood with those of their friends who had fought with dogged resistence every step that Sherman had made. But their spirits were not broken. They were still ready to try conclusions with the enemy whenever our leaders gave the signal for battle. The South could not be conquered by defeat—to conquer it, it must be crashed. The tattered battle flags waved as triumphantly over the heads of the shattered ranks of the battle-scared veterans here in the pine barriers as it ever did on the banks of the Rapidan.
It is sad to chronicle that on this last day, in a battle of the cavalry, in which the infantry had to take a part, the gallant son of the brave General Hardee fell at the head of his column as the Eighth Texas Cavalry was making a desperate charge.
In the battle of Bentonville the Confederates had fourteen thousand infantry and cavalry. The cavalry being mostly on the flanks, and General Wheeler on the north side of Mill Creek, could not participate in the battle in consequence of the swollen stream. The Federal Army had thirty-five thousand engaged on the 19th and seventy thousand in line on the 20th. The loss on the Confederate side was one hundred and eighty killed, one thousand two hundred and twenty wounded, and five hundred and fifteen missing. The enemy's losses in killed and wounded far exceeded the Confederates, besides the Confederates captured nine hundred prisoners.
On the night of the 21st the army began its retreat, crossing Mill Creek on the morning of the 22nd, just in time to see the enemy approach the bridge as our last troops had crossed.
On the 23rd General Sherman marched his army to Goldsboro, there uniting with General Schofield. It was the intention of General Lee that as soon as General Sherman had approached near enough, to abandon the trenches at Petersburg, and, with the combined armies, turn and fall upon his front, flank, and rear.