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the last stage of this march * * * * On Tuesday, the 15th [probably a misprint for Thursday the 16th], General Slocum found Hardee's army from Charleston, which had retreated before us from Cheraw, in position across the narrow swampy neck between Cape Fear and North Rivers where the road branches off to Goldsboro.
There a pretty severe fight occurred, in which General Slocum's troops carried handsomely the advanced line, held by a South Carolina brigade commanded by a Colonel Butler. * * * *
We resumed the march toward Goldsboro.
I was with the left wing until I supposed all danger had passed, but when General Slocum's head of column was within four miles of Bentonville, after skirmishing as usual with cavalry, he became aware that there was infantry at his front.
He deployed a couple of brigades, which, on advancing, sustained a partial repulse, but soon rallied, and he formed a line of the two leading divisions, Morgan's and Carlin's, of Jeff. C. Davis' corps.
The enemy attacked these with violence, but was repulsed.
This was in the forenoon of Sunday, the 19th. General Slocum brought forward the two divisions of the Twentieth Corps, hastily disposed of them for defense, and General Kilpatrick massed his cavalry on the left.
‘General Jos. Johnston had the night before marched his whole army (Bragg, Cheatham, S. D. Lee, Hardee, and all the troops he had drawn from every quarter), determined, as he told his men, to crush one of our corps and then defeat us in detail He attacked General Slocum in position from 3 P. M. on the 19th till dark, but was every where repulsed and lost heavily.
At the time I was with the Fifteenth Corps marching on a road more to the right, but on hearing of General Slocum's danger directed that corps toward Cox's Bridge, in the night brought Blair's corps over, and on the 20th marched rapidly on Johnston's flank and rear.
We struck him about noon and forced him to assume the defensive and to fortify.
Yesterday we pushed him hard and came very near crushing him, the right division of the Seventeenth Corps, however, having broken in to within a hundred yards of where Johnston himself was, at the bridge across Mill Creek.
Last night he retreated, leaving us in possession of the field, dead, and wounded.’ * * * *
The report of
General Hazen, commanding the First Division of the right wing which started to the relief of the left, gives a clear idea of the distance of the left wing from the nearest support.
Writing of his march to the relief of
General Slocum, he says:
On the 15th the march was resumed in the direction of Goldsboro, which was continued at slow stages till midnight of the 19th, when I received orders to turn back to the assistance of General Slocum, and reported to him with the division near Bentonville at daylight, having marched since sunset twenty miles.
