060 - Desperate Times, Desperate Battle: The Battle Of Bentonville

About this episode:

It was March of 1865 and the men under William Tecumseh Sherman had punched their way into North Carolina. In this, the Carolinas Campaign, over 60,000 battle-hardened veterans marched, as they had since they left Atlanta, in two columns. To confront the blue surge, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston boldly planned to throw some 21,000 men upon one of the isolated Federal wings. And so would be fought, on low-lying, marshy ground near a small hamlet in southeastern North Carolina, the largest land battle in the history of the Old North State. It would be the last major display of Confederate resistance in the American Civil War. This is the story of that desperate effort. This is the story of the Battle of Bentonville.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

John M. Schofield

Zebulon B. Vance

Braxton Bragg

Hugh Judson Kilpatrick

John A. "Blackjack" Logan

Alpheus S. Williams

For Further Reading:

The Battle Of Bentonville: Last Stand In The Carolinas by Mark L. Bradley

Bentonville: The Final Battle of Sherman and Johnston by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr.

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving