JUNCTION WITH SHERMAN AT GOLDSBOROUGH--THE MARCH ON RALEIGH--CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES
Occupation of Kinston--Opening of Neuse River--Rebel ram destroyed--Listening to the distant battle at Bentonville--Entering Goldsborough--Meeting Sherman--Grant's congratulations--His own plans--Sketch of Sherman's march--Lee and Johnston's correspondence--Their gloomy outlook--Am made commandant of Twenty-third Corps--Terry assigned to Tenth--Schofield promoted in the Regular Army--Stanton's proviso--Ill effects of living on the country--Stopping it in North Carolina--Camp jubilee over the fall of Richmond--Changes in Sherman's plans--Our march on Smithfield--House-burning--News of Lee's surrender--Overtures from Governor Vance--Entering Raleigh--A mocking-bird's greeting--Further negotiations as to North Carolina--Johnston proposes an armistice--Broader scope of negotiations--The Southern people desire peace--Terrors of non-combatants assuaged--News of Lincoln's assassination--Precautions to preserve order--The dawn of peace.
Reconnoitring parties sent toward Kinston on the 11th showed that only a rear-guard occupied that town and that we could occupy it when we pleased. General Couch joined us on the 12th, and Hoke having sent in a flag of truce offering to exchange prisoners, of whom we had nearly 400, I sent Major Dow of my staff with General Schofield's answer declining to do so. The major found no enemy on our side of the Neuse. The railroad bridge was burned and the middle part of the wagon bridge destroyed. The roads were so nearly impassable that we could hardly feed the troops where we were, and whilst the railroad building went on, we hastened also the opening of a supply line by water. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 933, 934; pt. ii. pp. 801, 802, 814.] Commander Rhind of the navy efficiently co-operated in this, and we marched to Kinston bridge on the 14th, laid pontoon bridges on the next day, and occupied the town. The Confederate ram had been burnt and her wreck lay a little below the bridge. The transports and their convoying war vessel did not get up till the 18th, but as they then brought a hundred thousand rations, we were able to begin accumulating stores at Kinston as an advanced depot. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 836-839, 880, 883.] Small additions to our wagon-trains also arrived, and orders were issued to march toward Goldsborough on the 20th. Meanwhile 2000 men had been set at work getting out railroad ties and timber for bridges. [Footnote: Id., pp. 836, 851.]
During the halt at Kinston we partly reorganized the troops in view of the approaching union with Sherman. The officers and men who belonged to the divisions in Sherman's army were separately organized into a division under General Greene, so that they could easily be transferred to their proper commands. The rest of Palmer's and Carter's divisions were united in one under Carter, and Palmer was assigned to the District of Beaufort, from which I was relieved. Ruger's division remained in my provisional corps with the other two. General Stiles was assigned to a brigade in Ruger's division. [Footnote:Id., pp. 839, 895.]
On Monday, the 20th, we were in march for Goldsborough, leaving a brigade to garrison the post at Kinston and protect the growing depot there. On Sunday we had heard all day the very distant artillery firing, which we knew indicated a battle between Sherman and Johnston. It was a scarcely distinguishable sound, like a dull thumping, becoming somewhat more distinct when one applied his ear to the ground. We judged that this final battle in the Carolinas was near Smithfield, and we were not far out of the way, for Bentonville was only a little south, and either place about fifty miles from us. Two days' march took us into Goldsborough with no opposition but skirmishing with the enemy's cavalry. We found the railroad uninjured, except that the bridges were burned; but they were small and would not delay Colonel Wright long when the large one at Kinston should be completed. Captain Twining, General Schofield's engineer and aide, had carried dispatches to Sherman on the 20th, and the latter was now in full possession of the story of our movements since the fall of Fort Fisher. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 942.] On the 22d Sherman was able to announce in field orders the retreat of Johnston toward Raleigh and our occupation of Goldsborough, whilst Terry had laid his pontoons across the Neuse completing the connection with Wilmington also. His declaration for the whole army that the "campaign has resulted in a glorious success" was more than justified. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 44.]
On Thursday, the 23d, Sherman joined us in person, and we paraded the Twenty-third Corps to honor the march-past of Slocum's Army of Georgia, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps, as they came in from Bentonville. Sherman took his place with us by the roadside, and the formal reunion with the comrades who had fought with us in the Atlanta campaign was an event to stir deep emotions in our hearts. The general did not hesitate to speak out his readiness, now that his army was reunited, to meet the forces of Lee and Johnston combined, if they also should effect a junction and try to open a way southward. The men who had traversed the Carolinas were ragged and dirty, their faces were begrimed by the soot of their camp-fires of pine-knots in the forests, but their arms were in order, and they stepped out with the sturdy swing that marked all our Western troops. Our men were in new uniforms we had lately drawn from the quartermaster, and the tatterdemalions who had made the march to the sea were disposed to chaff us as if we were new recruits or pampered garrison troops. "Well, sonnies!" a regimental wag cried out, "do they issue butter to you regularly now?" "Oh, yes! to be sure!" was the instant retort; "but we trade it off for soap!" The ironical emphasis on the "we" was well understood and greeted with roars of laughter, and learning that our men were really those who had been with them in Georgia and had fought at Franklin and Nashville before making the tour of the North to come by sea and rejoin them in North Carolina, they made the welkin ring again with their greeting cheers.
Keeping close watch of Sherman's movements, as hinted at in the Southern newspapers, [Footnote: Till the capture of Columbia, the Southern newspapers gave Sherman's movements with satisfactory accuracy, and Grant's information on the subject was chiefly drawn from them. Afterward a more rigid censorship was enforced. Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 385, 405, 428, 441, 455, 472, 499, etc.] Grant concluded on the 22d that he must have reached Goldsborough, and wrote him congratulations on the same day that Sherman announced to his army the good result. "I congratulate you and the army," said Grant, "in what may be regarded as the successful termination of the third campaign since leaving the Tennessee River less than one year ago." [Footnote:Id., p. 948.] He briefly but clearly outlined his own plans. Sheridan was to start with his cavalry on the 25th, and, passing beyond the left of the lines before Petersburg, to strike the Southside railroad as near the town as might be, and destroy enough of it to interrupt its use by the enemy for three or four days. This done, he was to push for the Danville Railroad, do the like, and again cut the Southside road near Burkesville. After that Grant would leave Sheridan at liberty to join Sherman or to return to his own army. At the same time he would himself diminish the forces in his investing lines to the smallest that could hold them, and with all the rest crowd to the westward to prevent Lee from following Sheridan. He would attack if Lee should detach part of his army to follow Sheridan or to join Johnston, or would fight a decisive battle if the Confederates came out in force. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 948. See also p. 859.] The general principles which resulted in Five Forks and the abandonment of Richmond are here clearly evident, and Sherman could plan his own work accordingly.
The latter was also writing on that day to the Lieutenant-General, taking up the thread of his own story from the time he reached Fayetteville and learned that Johnston had been put in command of all the forces opposing him. He sketched the sharp combat between Slocum and Hardee at Averasborough on March 16th, where the latter had taken a strong position across the narrow swampy neck between Cape Fear River and North River at the forks of the Raleigh and Goldsborough roads. Hardee was working for time, as Johnston was collecting his forces at Smithfield after Bragg's unsuccessful blow at us near Kinston. A day's delay was gained at heavy cost for the Confederates. At Bentonville, on the 19th, Johnston had concentrated his army and struck fiercely at Slocum again, for the almost impassable mud had made it necessary for Howard's wing to seek roads some miles to the right. Slocum had to give some ground and draw back his advanced division to a better position, on which he formed the rest of his troops, Kilpatrick's cavalry covering his left. Here he repulsed all further efforts of Johnston and held his ground till Sherman could bring forward the right wing, when the enemy was forced to intrench and was put on the defensive. On the 21st Howard's extreme right broke through or turned the line, and nearly reached Johnston's headquarters. The blindly tangled swampy ground prevented full advantage being reaped from this success, and Johnston managed to hold on till night, when he abandoned his lines and retreated on Raleigh. Sherman's casualties of all sorts in the two engagements of Averasborough and Bentonville were 2209. He had buried on the abandoned fields 375 of the Confederate dead, and held 2000 prisoners. Johnston's wounded were 1694 at Bentonville, besides several hundred at Averasborough. [Footnote: Sherman to Grant, Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 949; his report, Id., pt. i. pp. 27, 66, 76; Johnston's do., Id., pp. 1057, 1060.] The last battle in the Carolinas had been fought, Johnston had added to his reputation as a soldier by quick and strong blows skilfully delivered, first at Schofield, then at Sherman; but his numbers were not enough to make either blow successful, and the junction of our armies at Goldsborough made further fighting a mere waste of life, unless he and Lee could unite for a final effort. This Grant would not permit, and Johnston's message to Lee on the 23d was in substance the old one from Pavia, "All is lost but honor." "Sherman's course cannot be hindered by the small force I have. I can do no more than annoy him. I respectfully suggest that it is no longer a question whether you leave your present position; you have only to decide where to meet Sherman. I will be near him." [Footnote:Id., p. 1055.]
General Lee, from his own point of view, saw with equal clearness the net that was closing round him. He had telegraphed to Johnston on the 11th, "I fear I cannot hold my position if road to Raleigh is interrupted. Should you be forced back in this direction both armies would certainly starve." [Footnote:Id., pt. ii. p. 1372.] On the 15th he repeated, "If you are forced back from Raleigh and we deprived of the supplies from east North Carolina, I do not know how this army can be supported." [Footnote: Id., p. 1395.] But while he pointed out the vital importance of repulsing Sherman, he did not urge rashness in giving battle without prospect of success. Supplies in Virginia, he said, were exhausted. The western communication by Danville was now his only reliance. Since sending Hoke, Conner, and Hampton south, his forces were too weak to extend his lines, and he apprehended the very break in the Danville road which Grant was planning to make by Sheridan. "You will therefore perceive," he added, "that if I contract my lines as you propose, with the view of holding Richmond, our only resource for obtaining subsistence will be cut off and the city must be abandoned; whereas, if I take a position to maintain the road, Richmond will be lost." If Sherman could not be checked, "I cannot remain here, but must start out and seek a favorable opportunity for battle. I shall maintain my position as long as it appears advisable, both from the moral and material advantages of holding Richmond and Virginia." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1395.] Danville, he saw, was his necessary aim if he broke away, and he pointed out the advantages they would have for manoeuvre if Sherman could be kept well to the east, giving them more room and a wider region to live upon after uniting. But Grant saw all this too, and the inexorable tenacity and vigor with which, a few days later, he pushed Lee north of the Danville line and cornered him at Appomattox, showed that his measure of the situation was as accurate as Lee's, and that he knew the quick ending of the war depended on his preventing at all hazards the junction of the Confederate armies. Nothing in military history is more interesting than the comparison of the letters and dispatches of the leaders on both sides in this crisis. Grant was not content with being upon Lee's heels when he abandoned Richmond, as he had promised Sherman he would be. He would do better. Well served by Sheridan's fiery energy, he would out-foot his adversary in the race for Danville, and even block his path on the road to Lynchburg when the junction with Johnston had to be given up.