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division, of the Fifteenth Corps, came up and made the position of the left wing almost impregnable.
The right wing moving to the relief of the left, found its approach opposed by a considerable body of Confederate cavalry behind a barricade at the forks of the road near Bentonsville.
Johnston's cavalry were soon dislodged, and
Howard moved forward and joined his left to
Slocum's right.
The Confederates had thrown back their left flank, and had constructed a line of parapet connected with that in front of
Slocum, in the form of a bastion, its salient on the main Goldsboroa road, interposing between
Slocum on the west and
Howard on the east, while the flanks rested on
Mill Creek, covering the road back to
Smithfield.
By four o'clock in the afternoon,
after more or less skirmishing all day, the Nationals had a strong line of battle confronting this position, and putting
Johnston on the defensive.
The skirmish line pressed him steadily, and on the following day this pressure became so vigorous, that it almost amounted to a general engagement.
There was skirmishing and hard fighting all day long.
Meanwhile,
Schofield and
Terry, as we have seen,
1 had been approaching Goldsboroa, and at the very time
when
Sherman was pressing
Johnston at Bentonsville, the former entered that place, and
Terry laid a pontoon bridge over the
Neuse River, ten miles above, at Cox's Bridge.
So the three armies were now in actual connection.
Johnston, informed of this, perceived that all chance of success against
Sherman had vanished; and that night, after having his only line of retreat seriously menaced by a flank movement by
General Mower, covered by an attack along the
Confederate front, he withdrew, and fled toward
Smithfield in such haste that he left his pickets, many dead, and his wounded in hospitals, to fall into
Sherman's hands.
Pursuit was made at dawn,
but continued for only a short distance.
On the 23d of March all the armies, in the aggregate about sixty thousand strong, were disposed in camps around Goldsboroa, there to rest and receive needed clothing.
On the 25th, the railroad between Goldsboroa and New Berne was completed and in perfect order, by which a rapid channel of supply from the sea was opened.
So ended, in complete triumph, and with small loss,
Sherman's second great march through the interior of the enemy's country; and he was then in a desirable position of easy supply, to take an efficient part in the
spring and
summer campaign of 1865, if the war should continue.
Considering it important to have a personal interview with the
General-in-chief,
Sherman placed
Schofield temporarily in chief command of the army, and hastened by railway to
Morehead City, and thence by water to Headquarters at
City Point, where he arrived on the evening of the 27th of March.
There he met
Generals Grant,
Meade,
Ord, and other leading army commanders, and
President Lincoln.
He “learned,” he said, “the general state of the military world,” and then returned to New Berne in a navy steamer, and reached Goldsboroa on the night of the 30th.
After his winter campaign in
Southwestern Virginia, already n<*>ed,
2 General Stoneman returned to
Knoxville, and was ordered
to make a cavalry raid into
South Carolina, in aid of
Sherman's
