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Preface

Once before in my life the accomplishment of hopes long and anxiously dwelt on, ever present, and which entered into all my thoughts, left me without even the power to express or give utterance to the joy & thankfulness which filled my heart. Something similar is the effect upon me of this astounding close of the most terrible contest of modern times. At last, Peace, blessed God-given Peace, is so near that we can hear her gracious voice and her gentle foot-fall over fields too long drenched with fraternal blood. . . . God be praised! God help us all, "loyal" and "rebel" alike, to take to heart the terrible lessons of the last five years, and alike to shun the errors, the follies and the crimes, which brought upon us all such discipline.
--Maj. Henry Hitchcock to his wife, Mary, April 16, 1865

When I began this project ten years ago, I knew the road would lead to Bennett Place, but I assumed little else. I intended to tell the story of Sherman's campaigns in North Carolina, bearing in mind that as the year 1865 opened, Northern victory and Southern defeat appeared imminent, but none of the participants could predict when and how the end would come, or how much death and destruction would occur in the meantime. My first objective was to convey that sense of foreboding and uncertainty in describing the final month of the war in North Carolina.

During my research, I discovered that only part of the Bennett Place story has been told. Most previous studies have treated the end of the Civil War in North Carolina as a brief episode within a larger narrative framework, thereby omitting many important details of the military operations in central North Carolina, the effect of those operations on the Bennett Place conferences, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's role in those negotiations, and the final days of Johnston's Army of Tennessee. A few unpublished studies investigate the morale of the Confederate forces facing Sherman's army during the last year of the war, but they do not provide a detailed profile of Johnston's army during its final weeks. The closing chapter in the tragic saga of the Army of Tennessee deserves to be told.

I have discovered that in April 1865 the Army of Tennessee was larger, better equipped, and better supplied than has generally been thought and that morale remained surprisingly good. Confederate muster rolls indicate that the fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House caused some desertions but did not break the army's spirit. Only when rumors of its own surrender began to spread on the afternoon of April 16 did the Army of Tennessee collapse.

Johnston also deserves more credit for his accomplishments in April 1865. By keeping his army intact and as much as eighty miles from Sherman's, the Confederate commander was able to negotiate from a position of strength. Sherman knew that Johnston could have led his army on a march into the Deep South and prolonged the war indefinitely, and this knowledge contributed to his decision to offer his adversary generous terms. When Sherman's original surrender agreement was disapproved in Washington, a persistent Johnston still managed to obtain better terms for his troops than Lee's soldiers had received at Appomattox.

Sherman's role is less crucial than is generally thought. It was Lee's surrender, not the half-hearted pursuit of Sherman's forces, that induced Johnston to negotiate with his Federal counterpart. Though Sherman's role as peacemaker should not be dismissed, it was Johnston who initiated the negotiations and dictated the first proposed terms, which no doubt influenced Sherman's own first agreement.

I perceive this book as a necessary sequel to my study on the Battle of Bentonville, which told only the first half of the story. My keenest regret in completing this project is that I am taking leave of some compelling characters. William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston remain embroiled in controversy to this day. Few characters in our history inspire such extremes of hatred and admiration as "Uncle Billy." "Old Joe" has also come under fire from historians in recent years, but his star now appears to be in the ascendant. For all the vicissitudes their reputations have undergone, however, Sherman and Johnston formed a lifelong bond during the Bennett Place negotiations.

In striking contrast, the mutual enmity of Confederate cavalry commander Wade Hampton and his Union counterpart, Judson Kilpatrick, resulted in a heated confrontation outside the Bennett farmhouse. Other memorable characters include Governor Zebulon B. Vance, the remarkable "War Governor" of North Carolina; Union general John A. "Black Jack" Logan, who prevented a mob of his soldiers from burning Raleigh, North Carolina; Lieutenant Walsh of the 11th Texas Cavalry, whose rashness jeopardized the Tar Heel capital and cost him his life; Federal secretary of war Edwin M. Stanton, whose machinations so infuriated Sherman; and railroad conductor Dallas Ward, who participated in the Vance peace mission to Sherman and witnessed both the Confederate evacuation and the Federal occupation of the state capital. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis also make several brief but crucial appearances in the story.

The epigraph is from a letter written by Sherman staff officer Maj. Henry Hitchcock in response to news that Johnston had agreed to meet Sherman to discuss surrender terms. Johnston's reply arrived at Sherman's headquarters on April 16, two days after Lincoln's assassination, but one day before the news reached Raleigh. Hitchcock hoped that God would enable "loyal" and "rebel" alike to profit from the terrible lessons of the war; the quotation marks imply that there were no longer Yankees and Rebels, but only Americans. As Lincoln had noted in his second inaugural address, both regions shared guilt for the war and atoned for it with their blood. Both Lincoln and Hitchcock described the outcome of the war as "astounding"--a word that connotes neither triumph nor defeat, but rather awe and astonishment.