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| Sherman's March through the Carolinas. |
March 19-20. |
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and doing good execution on the enemy's ranks, especially with our artillery, the enemy having little or none.”
1
With the coming of darkness ended the conflict known as the battle of Bentonsville,2 which, in brilliancy of personal achievements, and in lasting advantage to the cause of the Republic, must ever be ranked among the most memorable and important contests of the war. Indeed, it seems
proper to consider it the key-battle of the Civil War. Had Johnston won there, the sad consequences would probably have been the loss of the whole of Sherman's army, and the quick and fatal dispersion or capture of Grant's army before Petersburg and Richmond, by the combined forces of Lee and Johnston, attacking him in overwhelming numbers, in front and rear.
In this view the solid importance of the victory of Bentonsville can not be over-estimated.
In that, his last battle, as in all others during the war, General Jefferson C. Davis Exhibited in full relief those qualities which always distinguished him as a cool, discreet, and vigorous fighting commander.
During the night after the battle
Slocum's wagon-train and its guard of two divisions of the Twentieth Corps, also Hazen's
1 General Sherman's Report, April 4, 1865.
2 The aggregate loss of the National army near Bentonsville was reported by Sherman at 1,648, of which nearly 1,200 were from the divisions of Carlin aid Morgan, of the Fourteenth Corps. which numbered between 10,000 and 12,000 men. The loss of the confederates was never report ted. It must have been heavy. The Nationals captured 1,625 of their men, and buried 267 of their dead. Johnston's force numbered between 30,000 and 40,000. men.
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