The Final Campaign of the Army of Tennessee (Lecture)

I'd like to welcome you all to Gettysburg National Military Park my name is Philip Brown uh i'd like to welcome you all to the one of the final installments of the winter lecture series if you're paying attention to the schedule you probably saw that I'm listed as being from Guilford Courthouse National Military Park which most of you probably know that's a Revolutionary War battlefield you might be wondering what the world is a Revolutionary War park ranger doing at Gettysburg well the truth is that I'm also a ranger here at Gettysburg and some of you may have seen me on some programs I've been working seasons here since 2012 so I spent my summers here in Gettysburg with you all and my school years down in Greensboro I'd like to welcome you to this program we're going to be talking about the title suggest that how the Confederacy collapses in North Carolina in 1865 I've titled the program to the brink of collapse the final campaign of the army of Tennessee we're going to be talking about how first an army and then a government and finally a people collapse from February to May of 1865 if this program piques your interest I brought with me a few of the books that I've based the program off of that I would recommend for further reading the first book is the Confederate surrender at Greensboro the final days of the army of Tennessee April 1865 this is written by Bert Dunkerley a fellow park ranger currently and in Richmond also I have Mark Bradley's book last stand in the Carolinas the Battle of Bentonville on this is a big thick book don't let the title fool you this is not just a Bentonville book this covers a blow-by-blow of everything leading up to Bentonville and the aftermath as well from Sherman entering the state to the conclusion of the Battle of Bentonville he wrote a follow-up book Mark Bradley this astounding closed the road to Bennett place this covers where he left off in the previous book from Bentonville to the end of the war in April of 1865 so again those three books I really recommend you can talk to me more about the books of course after the lecture if you so please before we dive into the meat of this program I want to begin with a little bit of background information if you guys were here for Bert Barnett's talk back in January he talked about Sherman moving through South Carolina for you guys that were here this is going to be a little bit of review but I want to make sure everybody ends up on the same page so let's go back to South Carolina and talk about what has taken place this guy here Pierre Gustav - Tom Beauregard has been put in charge of the defense of South Carolina and he is facing a very challenging situation throughout his time in South Carolina Sherman is constantly fainting first to the west and then to the east and back and forth and Beauregard is not sure what he's supposed to defend is he's supposed to defend more of the western part of the state here in Augusta fearing that Sherman will head in that direction or is he's supposed to defend the Charleston area over here what he manages to do is he attempts to defend the entire state he only has less than 20,000 men to do so and as a result of trying to defend everything he will lose everything and this really culminates with the fall of the South Carolina capital of Columbia on February 17th 1865 with this the majority the state of South Carolina is going to be lost to the Confederacy in the aftermath of the fall of Columbia Beauregard is going to wire Davis with this message he says should the enemy advance into North Carolina toward Charlotte and Salisbury as is now almost certain I earnestly urge a concentration in time of at least 35,000 infantry and artillery at latter point if possible to give him battle there and crush him then to concentrate forces against grant and then the marshal in Washington to dictate a piece Hardy and myself can collect about 15,000 exclusive cheetahmen Stewart not likely to reach in time if Lee and Bragg can furnish 20,000 more the fate of the Confederacy would be secure not only is Beauregard counting on the concentration of an extremely large force in North Carolina given the situation he is going to go ahead and assume victory in North Carolina then victory against grant and victory for the Confederacy as you guys have already seen this is somewhat of a ludicrous idea given the situation in South Carolina and North Carolina the note will be handed from Davis to Lee and Lee we'll famously respond with something to the effect of he means well but the resources are obviously lacking shortly after this note is pinned people are going to begin to call for Bo regards replacements specifically they're going to begin to call on Joseph Eggleston Johnston to retake command of the Western theater of the Confederacy this call is going to come not only from people in the military but the civilian population as well and even some in the Confederate government but as you know Johnson and Davis don't have a great relationship throughout most of the war so who is this guy Joseph Johnston he's born in 1807 who else was born in 1807 Lee he graduates from West Point class of 1829 who else graduates class of 1829 Lee that's exactly right so he's going to graduate with Lee if not slightly behind him of course in class rank the Lee and Johnston family though are not new to one another when Lee and Johnston are at West Point together through the same time their families to Johnston and the leaves actually date back in relationship to the American Revolution many of you probably know that Lee's father Light Horse Harry Lee commanded a Cavalry Regiment especially in the southern campaign in the American Revolution well as it turns out there was a man named Peter Johnston in that regiment and that happens to be Joseph Johnston's father so these two people have actually had connections long before their arrival at West Point they're of course going to fight together at Guilford Courthouse where I'm coming to you guys from so it's a neat little connection between the two parks today shortly after his graduation from West Point is going to enter the United States Army when the civil war begins he's going to side with the Confederacy and he will be commanding the Confederate forces at the Battle of first Manassas where he is of course victorious he's going to continue to command troops in Virginia all the way up to and through the Peninsular campaign before his wounded in June of 1862 where he is replaced by his old classmate robert e lee he is then going to be bounced around the Western theater holding various commands at different times he's ultimately going to be removed from command of the army of Tennessee just outside of Atlanta on July 7th 1864 after his removal from command he will virtually retire to Columbia South Carolina not holding any military command at all of course when that city Falls he will retreat to the north and land in Lincolnton North Carolina which is a small town just west of my hometown of Charlotte I want to get into some of the situation that Johnston is about to encounter when he is ordered to take command of all military forces of south he has specifically taken a command on February 22nd 1865 under direct orders of robert e lee and he is going to reluctantly take that command he was seen on a street side talking to a civilian there in Lincolnton the lady was congratulating him on his new command and Johnston apparently turned to the lady and said that he was afraid he had just been given commanded an army just to be the general to surrender it he knows that the situation is not very good that he's stepping into so what is that situation we're going to be talking for just a moment about the troops that he's going to inherit and where they are located throughout the south first of all we have a small command under William Hardy he's known as old reliable Hardy is a pretty famous guy in the Civil War he was the one who actually designs Hardy's tactics which both the Confederate the Union Army are using as their battalion drill and the manual of arms for both the Union and Confederate sides by 1865 he's got about 12,000 men under his command he is a fairly able commander on the battlefield though he like many Confederates gets caught up in a political squabble and so he's going to be detached and he's going to be in the Charleston area at the time of Johnson assumption of command next we have another familiar face Daniel Harvey he'll maybe you probably know him from his fighting here in the Eastern theater he's going to be with Lee all the way up into just before Gettysburg when he has a tremendous falling out with Robert Ely and he's going to shuffle it off to the western theater when Johnson takes him and D H Hill is in Augusta Georgia with about 5,000 men under his command now his men are not going to get involved in a lot of fighting that we talked about but mr. Hill himself will so he's going to be there in Augusta Georgia next we have Braxton Bragg one of more infamous commanders for the Confederate side of the entire Civil War he commands somewhat of a motley crew of individuals he has Robert F hoaxes Army of Northern Virginia division who are going to be some of the best fighting men that we're going to see throughout this campaign that's a full division of a and V veterans but then he also has a column of naval forces that will be converting to infantry and marching on foot with him everywhere he goes and then finally he's got the reserves of the state of North Carolina specifically the North Carolina junior reserve and I think this is a good time to take pause and think about what this war has become by February of 1865 the junior reserves of North Carolina were organized in July of 1864 it's going to be comprised of 16 and 17 year old boys the state is trying to come up with a way to farm in new recruits before they turn 18 and are shipped off to the front so he's going to command a full brigade of these junior reserves of 16 and 17 year old enlisted and boys with a and V and Western theater veterans as their field officers this entire force is going to be on the outskirts of Wilmington North Carolina the bragg has just lost fort fisher in January of 1865 and he is now falling back westward out of the Wilmington defenses headed towards the interior of the state we also have a cavalry column under Wade Hampton Wade Hampton a famous Gettysburg veteran he's got somewhere around 6,000 troopers he has been with Hardy here in South Carolina trying to put together some type of defense of his home state finally where in the world is the actual army of Tennessee the army of Tennessee is really only an army in name at this point the only number about 4th thousand five hundred men all total they're organized into three Corps commanded by Alexander Stewart Stephen D Lee and Benjamin Cheatham they have recently been defeated in the Battle of Nashville and they have fallen back out of the Nashville area headed south and they are actually wintering in Tupelo Mississippi throughout 1864 and in 1865 when Johnston takes command the army of Tennessee is actually already in route headed east and they're going to go through one of the most circuitous train rides of their lives as they're weaving their way across the Lower South headed towards North Carolina again about four thousand five hundred men this is the situation that Johnston inherits when he takes command on February 22nd he's got troops numbering he thinks about 25,000 defectives but they are spread out all across the south and some of them are ill-equipped in fact some of the returns I was looking at have as many as 1300 men in this force not having weapons of any kind some of the cavalry at this point in the war actually riding in wagons and having to deploy and fight on foot only being transported from place to place on this wagons many of them of course also mounted on mules at this point in the war who is his opposition well of course we have William Tecumseh Sherman following up on his victorious for a through the state of South Carolina Sherman has about 60,000 men under his direct control and they're organized into two armies and they have departed the Savannah area just after Christmas moved towards Columbia successfully taken that city and now are eyeing up North Carolina and they will be headed off to the east the first army that he has there is the army of the Tennessee Oliver Otis Howard of course the Gettysburg 11th Corps commander he has under his command two infantry Corps the 15th Corps under John Logan he's known among his men as Black Jack with his dark hair and his charcoal eyes he is a veteran commander he actually has a very interesting early war history John Logan does believe in art he was one of the civilians at the First Battle of Manassas watching the combat unfold after Manassas he will return to Illinois and raised the 31st Illinois history Infantry Regiment which is nicknamed the dirty first that tells you anything about some of the men that he must have under his command there he will rise through the ranks and be commanding the 15th Corps throughout this campaign finally we have within the army the Tennessee the 17th Corps commanded by Francis Blair Blair was known to have a sort of a wry sense of humor at one point while they're on the march through South Carolina he is riding on horseback when a southern woman comes up to him and she exclaims to him about how his men were digging up her ground peas he apparently stroked his beard a few times rock back in the saddle and then judiciously declared well madam I don't think the peanuts will hurt my boys and then rode off leaving her there on the roadside the other army under Sherman's command is the army of Georgia commanded by another Gettysburg familiar face Henry Slocombe the 12th Corps commander here at Gettysburg the army of Georgia is going to be made up of the 20th Corps commanded by Alphaeus Williams Williams of course was a division commander here in Gettysburg and in fact the 20th Corps is actually the eleventh and twelfth Corps combined and sent into the Western theater so this is a corps of almost all Gettysburg veterans by this point additionally we have Jefferson Davis who probably has the most unfortunate name in the entire Union Army Jefferson Davis commands the fourteenth Corps in the army of Georgia he was known as a military tyrant who apparently was pretty liberal with the swear words and you can see how that might mix with other personalities like Oliver Otis Howard the religious general additional forces under Sherman's control is a cavalry column under Judson Kilpatrick Kilpatrick of course is at this point sporting the nickname kill calf for his actions at battles like Gettysburg who ordered the cavalry charge of the Union Army on July 3rd that results in the death of Ilana Farnsworth he also has a nickname little kill because he is fairly young and small in stature when I was doing research for this program and it really all throughout my readings of Judson Kilpatrick often wondered whether or not kill calves and little kill were accurate nicknames to give a man like Judson Kilpatrick and in fact my suspicions were confirmed when I read a quote from Sherman just before he stepped off on the march to the sea he wrote to someone and he said I know that Kilpatrick is a hell of a damn fool but that is just the man I want commanding my cavalry column on this expedition in addition to all these forces we've outlined so far we have another force under John Schofield John Schofield actually commands two infantry Corps of his own they have just taken Fort Fisher but they're separated from Sherman by a couple of hundred miles all total the forces total up to about a hundred thousand men that Sherman has at his disposal to bring to bear against Johnston's twenty-five to thirty thousand again I want to take a step back and get you guys to try to appreciate the challenge that Joseph Johnston faces with his men spread across the south an army of 60,000 cutting through South Carolina and another force of 40,000 at Wilmington ready to make its way inland and Johnson is beginning to wonder what exactly he should do he writes to Richmond and he tells them that he doesn't think that he can really stop Sherman but he hopes that he can possibly delay him to try to by Lee time in Virginia as he is pouring over maps of the state of North Carolina he's specifically going to take a look at some of the railroad maps those are those railroad maps are going to help him determine where he is going to be able to and where he should concentrate his forces at first he's going to think that the City of Charlotte is a good idea because he thought that Sherman was going to head west and then he thinks maybe Greensboro then he moves to Fayetteville and eventually he decides to send his men to a small area a town of Smithfield North Carolina located on the rail line now I know this map isn't great you're not be able to read the names but this is Smithfield Fayetteville is down here and this is the railroad junction at Goldsboro and this is a very important thing that Johnston has in mind he recognized that Sherman is going to be coming into North Carolina from the south and he knows for a fact Schofield is going to come inland and he realizes that Goldsboro is a likely concentration point of the Union forces so he wants to put his men in a position where they can operate against Goldsboro but not be in Goldsboro where they can be converged upon from two different directions meanwhile Sherman is going to do exactly that Sherman is going to instruct Schofield to leave the Wilmington area and immediately make his way to Gould bro it's important to keep in mind that this is going to take Schofield a very long time in the grand scheme of things to make this Trek because as Braxton Bragg is retreating he is tearing up railroad track and as Schofield is advancing his building railroad track so this is actually going to take a long time to move through this part of North Carolina shortly after their arrival truly excuse me shortly after these plans are laid with Johnston and Sherman fighting is going to erupt across the state of North Carolina a series of small battles will take place as these two men work towards their individual goals and aims the first major combat to take place in the state is the Battle of wise forks also known in the state of North Carolina is the Battle of Kinston that's what I grew up knowing and asked this took place from March 7th through 10th 1865 this is Braxton Bragg trying to slow Schofield this takes place just west of the city of Wilmington as Braxton Bragg is falling back he's instructed to try to buy some time for Johnston to concentrate his men and so he will lay trenches across the railroad leading the Goldsboro and allow the Federal Army to attack him and he's actually going to be fairly successful if you consider all the things that are coming at him he's going to delay Scofield advanced by about three days fighting from the 7th to the 10th of 1865 next Oh as wise Forks is wrapping up is the Battle of Monroe's crossroads I look at this as sort of a comical battle in many ways of course there are men that are being hurt and killed in this action but from a strategic and operational level it's kind of comical what happens is Wade Hampton attempts to personally capture Judson Kilpatrick he sees Judson Kilpatrick's headquarters as being a vulnerable spot and he's going to try to capture the cavalry commander himself all of this takes place within the confines of what is today Fort Bragg in Fayetteville North Carolina he comes pretty close to capturing Kilpatrick Kilpatrick apparently had to rush out the door grabbing what he could as he left ran to a bar and mounted a horse with his escort and escaped just in time and in true Confederate and Union form what happens is the Union Army forms a counter-attack just in time to wipe Wade Hampton off of the battlefield so he's going to be stopped in his tracks in trying to a capture Judson Kilpatrick the next major fighting and this is really the big one out of these three more minor battles takes place on March 16 1865 to put you in the mindset of what takes place here Hardy's core has arrived up from South Carolina into the state of North Carolina and they have attempted to lay a defense to slow down Sherman's advancing column and this is going to be the first real outbreak of fighting between the main part of Sherman's marching column and the Confederate forces in North Carolina Hardy attempts to put together an attack followed up by a defense in depth where he organizes three Confederate battle lines unfortunately for him though the advancing federal column managed to break all three of those battle lines now these were all minor battles as I started out but it's important to keep in mind these are all extremely costly engagements you can see from the casualty numbers the Confederates are really suffering if you consider how much they've brought as a percentage of their army they can't afford to lose fifteen hundred men in one delaying action in the aftermath of this fighting Johnston begins to think about what he can do he realizes that if he continues to fight these small actions he's going to be sapped away bit by bit and eventually he's not going to have an army to do anything with but if he falls back he'll simply lose the state of North Carolina so that's not a good option either Johnston sort of throws off the world by going on the offensive following the Battle of a verse burrow and he's going to decide the best thing for him to do is to attack the Union Army with a larger force he's looking at the maps and he's gathering all types of intelligence and he's thinking that the Federal Army is spread out he's going to see the army of Georgia and the army of the Tennessee are about day's march apart in their tracks north meanwhile his force is now concentrated at Smithfield so he's going to decide that he's going to lay an attack for the advancing Union forces this map is going to show you guys where all that fighting took place this was the area of Weis Forks we have the Monroe's crossroads battlefield avers burrow and now this is going to be the next point where Johnston is going to decide to attack the Union forces it's important to keep in mind the larger picture here and what's going on the Confederacy Johnston is doing the best he can to keep the state North Carolina state capital of Raleigh out of the federal hands but he's also been instructed to protect any rail lines that lead north because all the rail lines that lead north through North Carolina are supplying Lee's army in Virginia so he sort of has a two-fold objective here in protecting the state of North Carolina but also the supply lines that Lee has going into Virginia his plan for the end of march is to fight this battle near Bentonville what he decides to do is take his veteran division under Robert F Hoke and lay them across the northern roads that lead to Goldsboro eventually this is all around the area of Bentonville Moore Carolina so he's going to lay his veteran division in defense across the road and then he is going to take the army of Tennessee which has just arrived from the West and they are going to directly attack the flank of the advancing Union Army this is actually a classic Confederate hammer and anvil attack of holding the Union force in place with a blocking unit and then hitting in their flank with another fighting will erupted on the morning of March 19th they're in Bentonville when a union foraging party stumbles into a clearing and encounters the skirmish line of the Confederate Army those foragers have been told not to expect any concentration of Confederates and in fact if you do encounter any Confederate soldiers you have direct instructions to outflank them sweep them from the road and continue forward they stumble into a clearing and one of the Union soldiers remembers looking left and right and all he could see for as far as the horizon went were spades in the air throwing earth over their head because the Confederates are entrenching here in this clearing there's a moment of confusion there's a brief pause as the two sides look at one another then the Confederates snatch up their rifles and begin to fire at the foraging party that is now advanced into their killing field the forgers are going to begin to slip off to the right and trying to find the flank they've got instructions to outflank the Confederates and push them from the road as they move farther and farther to the right they realize this battle line is pretty long it eventually they call up some support and more and more brigades are eventually fed into this fight as they attempt to sweep them from the side does this sound familiar to you guys at all does July 1st 1863 ring true in this situation Sherman is nowhere near the battlefield he is actually with his right wing trying to get closer to Scofield they're in Wilmington so he's not here to manage this fight and instead brigades are going to be sort of fed in pell-mell as more troops arrive on the battlefield eventually the army of Tennessee is going to make their attack after they have been hell after the Union forces had been held in place there along the Goldsboro Road and one of the junior reservists and in this battle the reservists were held in reserve on march 19th but they had a really good vantage point they were able to watch the veterans there were much older than them going to the fight one of the reservists Walter Clark remembered it looked like a picture at our distance was truly beautiful several officers led the charge on horseback across an open field in full view with colors flying and line of battle in such perfect order as to be able to distinguish the several field officers in proper place and followed by a battery which dashed at full gallop wheeled unlimbered and opened fire it was gallantly done but it was painful to see how close their battle flags work together regiments being scarcely larger than companies and divisions much more not much larger than our regiment should be the army of Tennessee will slam into the flank of the Union soldiers that have managed to get there by the afternoon of March 19th and they're actually going to have a great deal of success they're going to stun the Union soldiers on the battlefield and they're going to do all but cut off an entire division and surround them but you got to keep in mind what walter clark was talking about how close together the battle flags were these regiments some of them don't number more than 50 or 60 men in the army of Tennessee the attack doesn't really have the clout that it should be nevertheless it was a hot fight in fact one of the Union soldiers would later recall I was there at Bentonville with a regiment that it faced Beauregard at Shiloh and Bragg at Stone's River that it participated in nearly every battle of the army of the Cumberland we had taken a hand in the terrible assaults at Kennesaw Mountain and Jonesboro but for desperate valor on the part of the rebels and for a desperate resistance and a determination to whip them on the part of our men we saw nothing in four years of army life - compared to the 19th of March at Bentonville the fighting on the 19th of Mar Church will die down by midnight as the Confederate attack sputters to a halt as the coordination and organizations fall to pieces and more and more Union soldiers arrive on the field they realize that they don't have what it takes to break the Union Army the following day on March 20th will be a fairly interesting day in terms of the Battle of Bentonville there's not a whole lot of fighting there's a lot of heavy skirmishing throughout the day on March 20th but what Johnston is mainly concerned with is more or less circling the wagons as this illustration presents now I know the colors are a little bit fault blended together here but the Confederates are organizing in sort of a circular fashion right here and they're going to dig in using the terrain the best they can throughout the day on march 20th meanwhile more and more Union soldiers arrive throughout the day in fact arriving on the battlefield will be Oliver Otis Howard he is marching to the support of Henry Slocombe their Gettysburg relationships have reversed whereas here Slocum marched to the support of Howard now at bentonville Howard will march to the support of Slocum and in fact Howard would later remember the irony of this I've been a little impatient with Slocum the first at Gettysburg he thought that general Meade did not want an affair Bronagh at Gettysburg but desired the battle at pipe Clay Creek so but slowly answered my call at Bentonville I thought I would get even with him I received word that Slocum was in trouble so I immediately turned Hazen's division whose rear was pretty near to the right about and hasten to his support and he gives credit for it in his report so easy so as we say in the game of draughts I had my revenge throughout the day on March 20th more and more Union soldiers will arrive on the field and they're going to extend their lines off to the right at the same time Johnson once again will begin to bend his lines back and heavily entrench Johnston is actually hoping that Sherman will commit an error and commit a full frontal assault on his works but Sherman of course will not give that pleasure instead by the night of March 20th Sherman has decided that he will disengage at bentonville Sherman realizes that he has met the enemy on the battlefield Joe Johnston and just in this fight on March 19th he knows that he can easily beat him but at the same time he realizes if I can easily beat him why waste the bloodshed this is one of Sherman's more humanitarian moments at the war he's going to decide to disengage give the Confederates a tactical victory and simply march around them to try to avoid direct conflict and march towards Goldsboro we can concentrate his forces in order to do this he's going to need to find out exactly where that Confederate flank is how can he go around the Confederates without knowing where the end of their line is so he will begin to extend more and more off to the right to try to head north towards Goldsboro and to do this there are going to be several divisions deployed and this is going to bring us to this guy here Joseph Mauer Joseph Mauer was 37 years old at the time of the Battle of Bentonville his first army career actually was from 1846 to 1847 war after the Mexican Wars conclusion he will leave the military only to find that civilian life was not suiting for his personality and re-entered the military in 1855 when the war breaks out he's going to organize in command the 11th Missouri he will raise rise to Brigade command and his brigade will be known as mauers guerrillas he is known to be a daredevil in combat Mauer was really Sherman's kind of guy now or didn't want to be on the main front battle line he wanted to be on the skirmish line where he can be out in front command against men where he can be out there collecting immediate information and organizing any of the attacks there was actually a saying in the Union Army that if you were assigned to mauers staff you had better go write your will because he was constantly dragging his staff into the thick of on that when these men are in South Carolina Maur did not want to again stay in the comforts of a nice headquarters when they're waiting through bodies of water like the Saki Hachi River now we're seen right there with his men waist-deep in the water the next morning as he's breaking icicles off of the tails of his coat he allegedly handed one of his regimental commanders a flask and told him I want to share a drink with a man willing to ride as far into hell as I am he was a real daredevil in combat Sherman for whatever reason is going to turn to this daredevil and tell him to recognize of the Union Army or where as the left of the Confederate if you reverse that malar is going to happily take those orders returned to his division and turn them on their head what malar actually organizes is a two brigade attack on the Confederate line a reconnaissance in force another term we have here at Gettysburg now where happens to slam right into a soft spot in the Confederate line it just so happens that his brigades as they advance forward off of the Confederate right slam into a swamp they charge straight through the swamp and as they emerge on the other side the lead regiment is the 64th Illinois who happens to be armed exclusively with Henry repeating rifles at this point in the war the Henry rifle of course with its 13 shot magazine and it's brass contained cartridge the soldiers could fire quickly as they could work the lever as they advance forward they slam into the Confederate line they disperse the Confederate troops in the area next up they steamroll Joseph Johnston's headquarters Johnson has seen fleeing on foot from the scene with both his staff and its personal escort however this attack it should have been a reconnaissance is uncoordinated of course it's uncoordinated there's no supports there's no division level artillery going to come to their support there's no cavalry watching their wings and these two brigades of infantry eventually Lou is there a momentum and right as they lose their momentum there's going to be a Confederate counter-attack organized and they're eventually going to be pushed back however what both sides don't actually realize Joseph johnstun and Sherman included on the other side is that they've come within a hair's breadth of ruining the Confederate Army once and for all at Bentonville this attack off of the federal right flank is pushed forward and they have come very close to cutting the Mill Creek Bridge which is just off the map here in the top left corner what this map doesn't show you guys is that Mill Creek ran right along behind the entire Confederate position recent rains have swollen this small Creek to be impassable if the Union Army had continued forward maybe just another quarter mile or so they would have cut the Mill Creek bridge and completely pinned Johnston in place it's likely that the war would have ended in North Carolina right there on March 21st 1865 Sherman hears about this attack and he actually calls back now remember Sherman wants to simply march around the Confederate Army so he's going to call now or back and in hindsight he's going to realize how close he was to cutting the bridge and Sherman would write that it was one of the regrets he had of the war not allowing Maur to continue forward or committing more Mendham hours assault to cut the bridge the fighting will wound down wind down there the night of the 21st of March Johnston realizes that he has put his army in a very vulnerable position now or helped him learn that more or less by overrunning his headquarters and nearly cutting the bridge and so the night of 21st into the early morning hours of the 22nd Johnston will withdraw his men over the Mill Creek bridge and back towards Smithfield North Carolina as you can see on this slide it was a very costly battle for both sides not costly in numbers when we compare it to Gettysburg but I want you guys to sit and think about when this takes place March 19th 20th and 21st 1865 is the war virtually over is at a predetermined course at this point some would argue probably yes so for what reason that the men need to die on this slide after the Confederates leave the Bentonville area they're going to fall back to Smithfield where they are going to go through a much-needed reorganization in consolidation he knows that Sherman is going to continue to Goldsboro and Sherman does just that he continues on north to Goldsboro he unites with Schofield and now Sherman has a hundred thousand men United in one force in the state of North Carolina Johnston there in Smithfield like I said is going to consolidate the army and I think these few statistics that I'm pulling from Burt dunkerley's book really illustrate the state of things in the Confederate Army throughout this consolidation and reorganization the army reduced 30 batteries of artillery to ten eleven Arkansas regiments were consolidated into one seven Florida regiments became one eight Texas regiments were merged into one and most astonishingly 39 Tennessee regiments were consolidated into four men that have marched together for nearly four years under one battle flag and marching under that one name those units are going to cease to exist the battle flags will be rolled up never to be waved on the field of battle again this was an extremely demoralizing action taken by Johnston his the men their spirits immediately drop they no longer have any cohesion in their units and morale is really just going to plummet but it's a measure that Johnson has to take he realizes it's very inefficient issue thirty-nine orders to 39 Tennessee regiments when they could be merged into four and it makes moving on the road much easier and moving on the road is exactly what Johnston is thinking about Johnston realizes that he cannot stop Sherman with a hundred thousand men now in the state he only having less than 25 and they're dropping every day from desertion rates and so he is going to begin to move of West just trying to slow down Sherman here and there if he can but now really throwing up any type of opposition they're going to enter Raleigh in early April and the citizens of Raleigh immediately realize that this Confederate Army is not going to stop here and defend the city this Confederate Army is just passing through in their Trek to the western part of the state it was said that the civilians of Raleigh closed their doors shuttered their windows and would not turn in face the Confederates as they pass through in shame of their retreat as they pass through the City of Raleigh the state government realizes that the Army is on the retreat and they're going to hear from Johnston that they're not stopping to defend the city and that's going to compel the state government to pack up and leave and as they exited the western part of Raleigh North Carolina you would have seen the marching demoralized columns of the army of Tennessee followed by the rest of the commands the artillery the cavalry and then the state governments wagons all their archives and paperwork that they're trying to save would be in line they're marching with the Confederate they're eventually going to make their way to the halt river the halt river is a body of water just west of Raleigh and in trying to cross it they realize that they're almost pinned the whole river has been swollen from the rains and I just want to pause here for a moment again it illustrates the state of the army as they're trying to cross the hall river wagons are being swept away and men are beginning to refuse to even enter the waters rather being left behind to the Yankees than to enter the river the junior reserves approach the body of water a couple of them step in and they're swept away the water going up over there 15 16 and 17-year old heads one of the officers of the junior reserves was seen standing out in the middle of the river virtually handing reservists across as they're trying to get away from the advancing Union Army as they're making their way across the western part of the state this man is in line marching over the Confederates is of course is Zebulon Vance the governor of the state of North Carolina he was a part of what was probably one of when the more comical incidences in this retreat to the west as he's passing by the eighth North Carolina the eighth North Carolina soldiers yell at to him governor Vance where are you going and Vance looked down from his horse and responded I'm headed to the western part of the state to prepare a spout for you all to go up as if he was some type of magician that could create a portal for them to go through and escape the advancing Union Army the Union Army now is in full march they have left Goldsboro after taking several days rest the Union Army when they get to gold for it's the first time they're really able to resupply since the Christmas time era and their departure from Savannah they've been on the road since then so Goldsboro broth and much-needed supplies up the rail lines as well as the Cape Fear River coming in from the coast also on the March johnston is conferring with many of his officers in the state of affairs one of them being thomas Clingman Clingman will talk to johnston about the commitment of the Confederate soldier and the state of the army clean men of course is somewhat detached from reality as you can tell from this quote Kleeman told Johnson sir much has been said about dying in the last ditch you have left with you here 30,000 of his brave men as the Sun ever shone upon let us take our stand here and fight the two armies of Grant and Sherman to the end and thus show to the world how far we can surpass the Thermopylae of the Greeks Johnston turned in the saddle looked at Clingman and said I'm not in the Thermopylae business part of Johnston's mood was spurned on by the receiving of this note can anybody here decode the note this of course an encoded message sent to him from the Richmond area if you knew the code you would know that this is the note that informs Johnston of Lee's surrender this is the way in which he receives that news in the note the Confederate official from Richmond states that it a rumor that Lee has surrendered were waiting on official work because Lee of course has been detached from quite some time on the retreat west following his reception of this note Johnston is also going to receive word to meet Jefferson Davis in Greensboro North Carolina of course Jefferson Davis has left Richmond on April 2nd the capital the Confederacy has been on the road more or less in Danville Virginia for a few days and then eventually they're going to move south again towards Greensboro and this will bring us to the small town of Greensboro North Carolina Greensboro had about 2,000 people living in the town at the time of the civil war it is sort of an agricultural town the ground is pretty good for both corn and tobacco in the area but Greensboro is real importance is a transportation hub another familiar thing we have here in Gettysburg there are a number of roads that come in and out of the city of Greensboro but mainly there are several rail lines that come in and out of this city and in fact Greensboro is home to the only rail line that feeds Lee's army beginning in September of 1864 so it's going to be a very very important town to the Confederacy as a whole the war doesn't really touch the city of Greensboro in any dramatic way until the Battle of Bentonville shortly after the fighting begins on March 19th wounded soldiers will begin to arrive in the city of Greensboro by rail and they will be unloaded and taken to every available public space and eventually the private property as well one of the soldiers his name is Arthur Ford remembers his time in Greensboro after being wounded in bentonville we reach Greensboro at dark making 90 miles run in ten hours very good for the speed of railroad railway trains at the time at Greensboro the courthouse was used as a hospital all the benches desks etc being removed we had no mattresses nor bedding of any kind and about 200 of us were laid often rows on the floor with only our own blankets you can imagine the condition of those blankets haven't been on the March for quite some time at this point after looking over the Kama Dacians I selected the platform inside of the rail where the judges desk used to be from my place and I went out into the street and begged an arm full of hay from a wagon and with two bricks for a pillow made my bed here I lay for about three weeks with fever and at times really very ill three times a day the ladies of the town came and brought us food and were devoted in their attentions not only as Greensboro going to be flooded with wounded soldiers from the combat in the eastern part of the state eventually parolees from Lee's army headed south begin to arrive in the city of Greensboro and eventually the marching columns of Johnston's army converged on the city of Greensboro the people of the city begin to realize that all law and order is breaking down it's very apparent that Lee has surrendered to the civilians of Greensboro it's very apparent that Johnston Army is not going to put up any fight and eventually barrels of whiskey or draw out onto the sidewalk their heads are knocked in and it was said that the streets ran with whiskey tobacco lay around in piles where men could help themselves to it because it's a major railroad hub there are warehouses full of supplies bolts of cloth necessary goods salted pork sugar things that the civilians of Greensboro have been denied now for some time they're going to realize that these stores are not very well guarded and eventually a mob will descend on the streets of Greensboro the scene that you're looking at right now would have been scenes of this chaos this is an image of that courthouse building you won't be able to see this in Greensboro today it's the site of the Jefferson standard building located in downtown Greensboro these are these are some of those warehouse areas that the mob descends on eventually the Confederate officers that are present realize that something must be done and they're going to dispatch a very small motley brigade of Confederates to disperse the crowd men that are still in the rank-and-file army of Tennessee these men specifically are old veterans of lanes brigade here at Gettysburg and courses Brigade which fights much of the Overland campaign and I often think about the experience of these men in the Civil War they fought at places like Fredericksburg Chancellorsville Gettysburg the Overland campaign including the Wilderness Spotsylvania courthouse and Cold Harbor they have seen some of the worst fighting that any American has seen at this point they have been through campaigns that we will later look back on as being some of the most severe of the American Civil War and the last shots that these men fire of all that combat are going to be into a mob of southerners as they arrive on the streets they level their muskets because they're receiving fire from the mob and fire into it the exact numbers of civilians that are killed or wounded as well as the parolees and the deserted men from the army of Tennessee is unclear it was never recorded but reportedly saddles were emptied of some of the paroled cavalry men Johnston arrives in the city of Greensboro and he's instructed to have a meeting Davis has his entire cabinet on hand except for John C Breckinridge the Secretary of War Beauregard is going to be present Beauregard has been sent ahead of Johnston actually to the city and then Joseph Johnson himself will arrive they're going to meet in the house that you see there in the background of this slide and they're going to discuss the state of things Davis apparently at this point has become totally detached from reality this is April 12th 1865 Lee has definitely surrendered the war is all but to an end and Davis was apparently refusing to make eye contact with anybody in the room nervously folding back and forth a sheet of paper and rambling on and on about the concentrations of forces in North Carolina and rallying the troops gathering the deserters forcing men into the ranks and stopping Sherman defeating grant much like Beauregard had been talking about the end of February after the meeting the evening of the 12th Beauregard and Johnston meet in an alleyway and they agree that Davis must be convinced that the war is over that all hope has been lost the next day they're going to meet once again now the Secretary of War has arrived with official word that satisfied Davis that Lee has in fact surrendered Johnston and Beauregard are going to convince Davis that the war is over and that they must sit down and figure out some type of peace terms with Sherman Davis will reluctantly agree and allow Johnston to seek a peace with Sherman of some type these two men are going to meet Johnston and Sherman on three different occasions the first meeting being on April 17th the two men enter the house and to begin the meeting Sherman hands Johnston the telegram informing Sherman that Lee Lincoln has been assassinated what a way to start a meeting they're eventually going to agree on some terms and believe it or not Sherman is fairly lenient on Johnston these this is actually the only time in which two military officials really sit down and discuss what reconstruction is going to look like they agree to peace terms they're on April 17th that have all types of concessions for the Confederate politicians the officers and the generals that have commanded the troops in the field they're going to assign the papers and depart Sherman of course is going to tell Johnson I just have to get approval from Washington on these terms and it's going to send those terms off to Washington as soon as they make their way up there to the Capitol the politicians are going to lose it and they're going to basically argue that those terms have got to be thrown out and we've got to have a more strict terms on the Confederates someone has to be held accountable for what's just happening the American Civil War they're also going to send ulysses s grant to Raleigh they're going to tell grant that you've got to manage this got to look after Sherman and make sure he does what we need him to do Johnston will be informed sometime around April 23rd that those peace terms have been rejected by Washington Johnston will wire Davis and tell Davis that they've been rejected and it looks like it they're going to be hard on the politicians and the generals and this is going to turn into a nasty political situation after the war Davis tells Johnston in a telegram to break off negotiations with Sherman break the army into small pieces and forward them to Texas where they will meet me and we will continue the war Johnston has been a military man his entire life West Point class of 1829 United States military service service throughout the Civil War commanding armies in both theaters of war and his last autonomous act as a military general under his own command he will deliberately disobey the orders of Jefferson Davis he will refuse to break that army up and send them to Texas he is willing to sit down with Sherman and agree to whatever terms Sherman brings before him they're going to meet there in Bennett place on April 26 and sign a final peace agreement that is almost identical to the Lee and grant surrender at Appomattox what's left is to have the men go home and they're going to go home out of this army in more of a piecemeal fashion there's not going to be the pomp and circumstance of parades and ceremonies of stacking of arms and going face-to-face with Union soldiers the Confederate Army of the West is scattered all across the state of North Carolina they're going to lay down their arms in small bands here and there and they're going to begin to make their way home having been given a day's rations and a piece of silver and often think about what this journey home must have been like what is it like to have to walk all the way home after four years of war walking in small groups of 15 to 20 men what are some of the things that you're able to think about what are you expect thing when you get home and as you go down the road a few men peel off here in this town a few men peel off in this town until it's just you walking alone one soldier who made an 1800 mile trip to the interior of Texas that lasted six weeks would later write about this feeling he said men who have stood by each other in times of danger men who have endured the hardships of the Confederate war together men who have marched eaten slept laughed sung cried and in fact soldiered together all through the war are now separating perhaps for life never to see each other again ah but the prospects of seeing all the loved ones at home is uppermost in our minds and we are in a hurry to separate like to thank you all for coming out this afternoon I'll be around here for questions if you don't have any please enjoy the rest of your day you you

Channel: GettysburgNPS

Views: 126,079

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Keywords: army of tennessee, general joseph johnston, braxton bragg, william t sherman, gettysburg national military park, chickamauga

Id: mx6fbD8KWN0

Length: 57min 20sec (3440 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2015