Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[675] Schofield moving up both sides of the river. Wilmington was occupied without resistance; and the command of Gen. Bragg, which had remained idle there for more than a month (despite the earnest protest of Gen. Beauregard, who in vain had represented to President Davis that with the fall of Fort Fisher Wilmington became useless, and that the command there should be used at the earliest possible moment in the field against Sherman), was at last moved to what had now become the dominant theatre of hostilities in the Carolinas.

The new base which the enemy had now opened, was well defined by Gen. Grant as auxiliary to Sherman. The State of North Carolina, was constituted into a new military department, and Gen. Schofield, whose corps had been transferred here from the Tennessee lines, was assigned to command. The following instructions were given him by Gen. Grant:

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The campaign in North Carolina.

When Sherman left behind him the smoking ruins of Columbia, it was thought by the Confederates that he would move towards Charlotte, where all the rolling stock of the railroads destroyed had been run, and from which it could not be removed, on account of the railroad beyond that being of a different gauge. On the 21st February, Sherman passed through Winnsboro on the road to Charlotte; but on the 23d, his army suddenly swung on a grand right wheel, and moved rapidly off towards Fayetteville. On the 12th March, it reached Fayetteville. Meanwhile preparations had been made by the enemy on the coast, for a movement on Goldsboro in two columns-one from Wilmington, and the other from Newbern-and to repair the railroad leading there from each place, as well as to supply Sherman by Cape Fear River toward Fayetteville, if it became necessary. The column from Newber was attacked on the 8th March, near Kinston,