March 16, 1865---The Battle of Averasboro (The Battle of Averasborough)

MARCH 16, 1865:      

The Battle of Averasboro (The Battle of Averasborough):

The relative strength of the Union (blue) and Confederate (red) forces at Averasboro is easy to see on this battle map

 

The history of Averasborough, North Carolina, told in brief, is an interesting glimpse into the history of many such small country towns. The town was founded around 1740 on the banks of the Cape Fear River. At the time of its founding, Averasborough represented the navigable head of the river. As such, it became an important market town for inland farmers to sell their produce. Averasborough grew, becoming the third largest city in the State (after Wilmington and Fayetteville), and competing for the honor of becoming the State capital (an honor it lost by one vote, supposedly because the town’s delegates were given spiked cherry juice to drink at the convention and they were too drunk to cast ballots). 

Throughout its history, Averasborough kept attempting to widen the river and bypass the rapids that limited navigation, but before the invention of dynamite there was no way to do so. Instead, a series of locks and canals were built, allowing riverboats to bypass the rapids. On September 11, 1859, a hurricane caused the Cape Fear River to flood, destroying the lock and canal system. Nevertheless, Averasboro (the spelling varies) thrived during the Civil War as a regional Confederate Recruiting Center, a munitions dump, and a hospital town. 

The Battle of Averasboro in a contemporary rendering. The road and the Oak Grove House are recognizable landmarks

The fighting war reached Averasboro on this day when General William J. Hardee C.S.A. received orders from Joseph E. Johnston to attack William T. Sherman’s left wing (now called the Army of Georgia). This represented the first large scale attempt to disrupt Sherman’s March. 

Averasboro today, looking toward the Union lines

Looking toward the Confederate lines. The Old Town Cemetery is to the left, the museum at center

Hardee’s 6,000 troops attacked the Army of Georgia’s 26,000 troops just outside Averasboro. Catching the Union forces by surprise, the Confederates threw them back in three successive waves, causing 700 Federal casualties; however, when a mass of Union reinforcements entered the field, Hardee’s men were hard put to it. Facing the utter destruction of his force, Hardee finally withdrew. He had delayed Sherman for exactly one afternoon at a price he could not afford. 

Janie Smith, a 17 year old resident of Averasboro, described the scene after the battle thus:

Oak Grove House, the last remaining structure in what was Averasboro

The scene beggars description, the blood lay in puddles in the grove, the groans of the dying and the complaints of those undergoing amputation was horrible, the painful impression has seared my very heart. I can never forget it. 

Battle damage is still evident on the Oak Grove House

Averasboro never forgot it either. Of the almost 1,000 Confederates lost at Averasboro, about half were from Averasboro itself. The loss of so much of its young male population was a disaster for the town. Although Sherman did not burn Averasboro, the town’s importance waned after the battle. 

Averasboro suffered the same postwar stagnation that affected so many other rural areas of the South. Its economic fate was sealed when the Atlantic Coast Railway bypassed the town in the 1870s, instituting a stop in nearby Dunn, about seven miles away. Its social fate was sealed during Reconstruction, when Averasboro became the epicenter of Ku Klux Klan activity in the center of the State. After rounds of Klan violence and several spectacular murders / lynchings, the Federal Government took the extreme step of placing troops in Averasboro. The town’s Klan population scattered, some going as far away as Texas. Eventually, the few remaining people of Averasboro moved on. By the early Twentieth Century only the old town cemetery and the Oak Grove House remained to mark the fact that there had been a town named Averasboro.  

Today, Averasboro is a “Point of Interest.” A Civil War Museum stands not far from the battlefield, which was made an Historic Site in the 1980s. During North Carolina’s 1990s economic boom, the City of Dunn annexed what had been Averasboro.

The Battle Museum