March 11, 1865---The Fall of Fayetteville, North Carolina

MARCH 11, 1865:     

The Fall of Fayetteville, North Carolina: Despite William Tecumseh Sherman’s Order of March 7^th “to prevent any wanton destruction of property, or any unkind treatment of citizens" in North Carolina, today he issues very different Orders regarding the fate of the staunchly Confederate city of Fayetteville: 

Fayetteville's Market House was built in 1832. Located in the geographic center of the old town, merchants and hawkers used the open first floor to ply their wares on market days (usually Wednesdays), Municipal offices were upstairs.  Although damaged in the Civil War the landmark building was restored.

Special Field Orders No. 28.

HDQRS. Mil. Div. of the Mississippi,

In the Field, Fayetteville, N.C.,

March 11, 1865.

I.   The Right Wing, Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard commanding, will cross Cape Fear River as soon as possible and take roads leading toward Faison’s Station, on the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, but will not depart from the river until further notice.

II.  The Left Wing, Maj. Gen. H. W. Slocum commanding, will hold the town of Fayetteville, and he will lay his pontoons ready to cross the river, but in the meantime will destroy all railroad property, all shops, factories, tanneries, &c., and all mills, save one water-mill of sufficient capacity to grind meal for the people of Fayetteville.

III.  The cavalry is charged with destroying the railroad trestles, depots, mills, and factories as far up as lower Little River, including its bridge, and will be prepared to cross to the east of Cape Fear River during Monday night.

IV.  Bvt. Col. O. M. Poe is charged with the utter demolition of the arsenal building and everything pertaining to it, and Bvt. Lieut. Col. T.G. Baylor, chief ordnance officer, is charged with the destruction of all powder, and ordnance stores, including guns and small-arms, keeping the usual record.  The time allowed will be Sunday and Monday.

V.  All commanding officers having refugee families or negroes in charge will prepare a train with a small guard to proceed to Wilmington,; after crossing South River an officer will be detailed from these headquarters to conduct them to Wilmington.  A guard of 100 men of each will composed of men entitled to discharge or escaped soldiers and officers will be deemed a sufficient guard

VI.  The army will prepare to lean toward the northeast by Tuesday next.

By order of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman:

L.M. Dayton,

Assistant Adjutant- General

Sherman is surprised at the resistance he is finding in supposedly “Unionist” North Carolina. To date, Confederate forces have engaged his more aggressively and effectively than in “Secesh” South Carolina, and despite his initial intentions, Sherman feels it is time to inflict a lesson on the State. As his men march into Fayetteville, the commercial centers of the town and the Fayetteville Arsenal are set alight.

But there are Unionists in Fayetteville, and they are not unhappy about Sherman’s change of plans, The Editor of the underground newspaper Fayetteville Herald of The Union, newly emerging into the light, pens a short piece entitled “Sherman, The Raider”:

It is usual for those who set about the conquest of a country to act upon the miser’s rules. “Get all you can, and keep all you get.” Hence, they endeavor to secure their acquisitions as they go, and to make each the basis of the next. 

Sherman acts upon a different rule. He is simply a great raider. He is conducting a novel military experiment and is testing the problem, whether or not a great country can be conquered by raids.

Results, so far have gained him some reputation for success in making his transits and consequently exhibit the theory on which he is operating under most favorable conditions.

During the Civil War, nearly one-third of Fayetteville’s men of age fought for the Confederacy (and approximately that number fought for the Union or stayed “neutral” as long as they could). It was, during the war, definitely a Confederate city. There was a Unionist presence, but it remained subdued. The town’s resources fed the Southern war machine exclusively --- Fayetteville’s munitions factories (staffed entirely by women) turned out 900,000 bullets for The Army of Northern Virginia in 1864 alone.

And today, as Sherman’s men march in, Wade Hampton C.S.A. daringly does not march out. A skirmish takes place down in the rail yards. About a dozen Billy Yanks are killed before overwhelming numbers force Hampton and his men to flee Fayetteville. 

Antebellum Sandford House in Fayetteville's Heritage Square is today used for special functions such as conferences and weddings. Battle damage from the Civil War is still visible within the house. During World War II, the house served as a residence for young unmarried women working in Fayetteville's war industries

 

In Raleigh, the Confederate Governor, Zebulon Vance, castigates Sherman for going back on his Orders of March 7^th, advising his constituents that Sherman is dishonorable and that it has never been Sherman’s plan to spare the State. Vance’s criticisms are disingenuous at the least --- can any resisting enemy expect no reaction from their adversary? 

Governor Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina was an ardent States' Rights advocate who worked against the policies of the central government in Richmond. He often refused to let North Carolinian regiments leave the State, tithed all foreign imports to the Confederacy, fought national conscription laws, nullified the suspension of Confederate habeas corpus, and cordially disliked Jefferson Davis on a personal level.

Sherman, for his part, is not swayed by Vance’s remarks.

March 10, 1865---The Battle of Monroe's Crossroads, North Carolina

MARCH 10, 1865:     

The Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads:          

Perhaps General Sherman issued his “No Injury” order firmly believing that North Carolina was really a Unionist stronghold held captive by a Confederate oligarchy. If so, he was learning a different truth quickly. The region through which his men were marching was the staunchly Confederate center third of the State, and since entering North Carolina on the seventh of March, Sherman’s forces had been under constant attack. At this point in time, the Confederate forces are too attenuated to do much more than waste lives for no good purpose.  Sherman is becoming enraged at the pointless killing. When will these people give up?

Not today. Today, cavalry forces led by Wade Hampton raided Judson “Kill Cavalry” Kilpatrick’s camp just before dawn. Kilpatrick himself escaped capture in a nightshirt. The Confederates freed some Southerners taken prisoner, grabbed much needed supplies and food, and were preparing to withdraw when Kilpatrick (who had reorganized his men) led a counterattack wearing nothing but a shirt and a pair of purloined underdrawers.

The Confederates --- men and officers alike --- were taken by surprise and ridden down by Kilpatrick’s men. At that moment of seeming disaster Confederate reserves arrived, and the battle swung to the South’s advantage. But not for long. The sounds of intense firing drew nearby Union reserves, and the enlarged battle raged for hours.  Against all odds, Hampton wrung a victory out of the stones.

 

No one knows how many men were killed at Monroe’s Crossroads. Kilpatrick claimed to have lost 100 men killed, but many of those thought to be dead were probably captured. The Confederates claimed to have taken 500 Union prisoners. No count of Confederate losses was made.

It was a minor Confederate tactical victory, but Hampton did not have the troops to stand against the forces being sent to hunt him down and destroy him. He had no choice but to flee into Fayetteville; at most, he delayed the Union arrival at that city by a day.

The Monroe Crossroads Battlefield now lies (irony of ironies!) in the midst of Fort Bragg, where stands a memorial “To The American Soldier” honoring both the Blue and the Gray. 

March 9, 1865---The Book of Job

MARCH 9, 1865:        

Though the combatants cannot know it, the Civil War enters its last month on this day. The Confederate States of America is beginning its death throes as a nation.

And so it is perhaps fitting that the Richmond Post-Dispatch provides an editorial which draws heavily on the Book of Job to present to its readership. It reads in part:

Without presuming to intrude into the province of the clergy, we may conceive it possible that some of them will, tomorrow, give us a text from the book of Job . . .

  . . . Homo histrio, Deus vero pæta est; 'God is the sovereign poet'; and we cannot refuse the part which he appoints us to bear in the scene . . . 

It is a tradition of the Jews that when Moses was sent by God into Egypt, and beheld the grievous affliction of his people under Pharaoh, he took the pains to trans late the book of Job into their language out of the Syriac, wherein it was first written, to comfort them in their lamentable condition. "Be ye constant, oh children of Israel," said Moses, "do not faint in your minds, but suffer grief, and bear these evils patiently, as did that man whose name was Job; who, though he was a righteous and faithful person, yet suffered the sorest torment . . .  Do not despair of a better condition; you shall be delivered as Job was . . . 

The condition of Job in his prosperity was not unlike that of many large planters and farmers of the South in better days. He was rich in land and cattle, and had large numbers of slaves. The most unlimited plenty and hospitality reigned in his dwelling . . .  It was upon such a man as this — devout, generous, genial, illustrious for virtue as for wealth — that the Devil was permitted to turn loose fire, sword, hurricane, disease; to strip him of children, servants, prosperity and health; to make him an object of scorn . . .  and to reduce him . . . low in the regards of men . . .  How many a Southern patriarch, exiled from his home, and bereft of his possessions, can look back with Job, and say: "Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me" . . .  Yet, amidst all his reverses and humiliations, Job did not deny the Providence of God; he bore his disasters with resolution, with resignation, and even with hearty thanksgiving. 

If such a man could be permitted thus to suffer, and could conclude that the best of men are but vile in the sight of God, we of this generation can scarcely present any superior claims to the indulgence of Heaven. The purest and noblest of our people . . . have been reduced from alllorence to poverty, and are mourning over better days . . .

 . . . [H]eed the counsel of St. Basil: "Remember all the past happiness thou hast enjoyed, and oppose better unto worse. No man's life is entirely and thoroughly happy. If thou art grieved at what is present, fetch thy comfort from what thou hast received before. Now thou weepest, but formerly thou didst laugh; now thou art poor, but there was a time when thou wanted nothing. Then thou drankest of the pure fountain of life; be content and drink now more patiently of the troubled waters. Behold the rivers, their streams are not clear in all places; and our life, thou knowest, is like to one of them, which slides away continually, and is ofttimes full of waves, which come rolling one upon another: one part of this river is passed by, and another is running on its course. This part of it is gushing out from the fountain, and the next is ready to follow as soon as it is gone.--And thus we are all making great haste to the common sea; Death, I mean, which swallows up all at last." 

March 8, 1865---The Battle of Wyse Fork, N.C.

MARCH 8, 1865:      

 The Battle of Wyse Fork (The Second Battle of Kinston):

Although it has long been William Tecumseh Sherman’s intention to march across North Carolina into Virginia and act as the second jaw of the vise that will crush the life out of The Army of Northern Virginia, conditions in the Eastern Theatre have changed. In a matter of less than two weeks, Joe Johnston has turned a worrisome pack of armed men in central North Carolina into a threatening army standing athwart Sherman’s route.

Sherman, for his part, is not worried about the seeming coming battle. His men are primed for a brawl and they outnumber Johnston’s forces at better than 3:1. They are well-fed and rested and armed to the teeth, something that cannot be said of Johnston’s men.  They have esprit de corps.  

Sherman is not fooling himself. He has seen Confederate esprit rise like a phoenix from the ashes too many times to be sanguine about his chances with Johnston. There is always a chance of defeat.

Ironically enough, the two men think alike.

Well east of Sherman’s inland route, Braxton Bragg is moving his troops north as he has since the fall of Wilmington. Sherman is concerned that Bragg’s force (which was supposed to have joined with Johnston’s) may just do that. Given that Johnston and Bragg cordially hate one another, a divided Confederate command may be to Sherman’s favor, but he doesn’t like Bragg wandering around in odd corners while he must needs keep his eye on Johnston.

Sherman orders forces out of Wilmington to take on Bragg’s contingent. 12,000 Union men are dispatched to break Bragg’s force of 8,500. The two forces meet at Wyse Fork on Southwest Creek near the town of Kinston, and Sherman’s concerns about Confederate esprit are proven in action.

Bragg is holding the crossroads to Goldsboro, a position which will let him fall on Sherman’s flank once the U.S. Army is in range. Robert F. Hoke, who so valiantly defended Wilmington before being ordered to withdraw, is leading North Carolina regiments, and they fight like furies when confronted by the Union force from Wilmington. An entire Union regiment is destroyed, and then another, and the battle hangs in the balance. But the Confederates have no reserves, while a call to Wilmington brings the entire Union XXIII Corps to the area.

Bragg cannot hope to hold against such numbers and after remaining in the area for several more days to demonstrate and skirmish, he withdraws. The Union loses 1,100 men in the battle. The Confederacy loses 1,500. Bragg is left with only 7,000 troops at the end of the Battle of Wyse Fork.