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.

---

[676] by Gen. Bragg, with his own troops and Hill's division of the Army of Tennessee. The enemy was completely routed, and fifteen hundred prisoners taken. On the 9th March, Gen. Bragg found the enemy several miles in rear strongly entrenched, and, after a faint attack, drew off.

On the 14th, this body of the enemy, under Schofield, crossed the Neuse River, occupied Kinston, and entered Goldsboro on the 21st. The column from Wilmington reached Cox's Bridge on the Neuse River, ten miles above Goldsboro, on the 22d.

It remained now for Sherman to keep the rendezvous and complete the combination. But to do so and make the last stage of his march, it was clear that he would have to do some more important and severe fighting than he had experienced since he and Johnston parted at Atlanta — the latter General having been put in command of the Confederate forces in the Carolinas. It appeared indeed that a formidable army was at last collecting in his pathway. Beauregard at Charlotte, had been reinforced by Cheatham and the garrison at Augusta, and had had ample time to move in the direction of Raleigh. Hardee had evacuated Charleston, in time to keep ahead of Sherman, and was moving to the same point. It was easy for Bragg and Hoke in North Carolina also to effect a junction with these forces, swelling them, it would be supposed, to a formidable army. But this army, which appeared so imposing in the enumeration of its parts, was no match for Sherman. When the enemy's campaign in South Carolina commenced, Hardee had eighteen thousand men. He reached Cheraw with eleven thousand, and Averysboro with about six thousand. Eleven hundred State troops left him between those places by order of Gov. Magrath of South Carolina; but the balance of his great loss was due, almost entirely, to desertions. These figures are from an official source, and show without the aid of commentary how low had fallen the military organization and spirit of the Confederacy.

On the 15th March Sherman put his army in motion from Fayetteville. In the narrow ground between Cape Fear River and Black Creek, which becomes Black River, and empties into the Cape Fear below Fayetteville, Gen. Hardee was posted, his force consisting of two small divisions under Maj.-Gens. McLaws and Taliaferro. He held his ground, without difficulty, on the 16th. But at night, finding that the Federal right had crossed Black River and moved towards Goldsboro, and that the left was crossing the creek as if to turn his position, he abandoned it before daybreak, and reached Elevation, on the road to Smithfield, at noon of the 17th.

On the 17th Gen. Bragg was encamped near Smithfield with Hoke's North Carolina division, four thousand seven hundred and seventy men. Lieut.-Gen. Stewart was in the same neighbourhood with nearly four thousand of the Army of Tennessee, under Maj.-Gens. Loring, D. H. Hill, and Stevenson.