Federal Junction: Sherman's Wings Reunite

On the afternoon of March twentieth, eighteen sixty-five, two massive columns of the Union army converged at this crossroads in North Carolina. General William Tecumseh Sherman had marched his army north from Georgia in two great wings, the Left Wing and the Right Wing, moving separately across hundreds of miles of Confederate territory. Here, at a spot later called Federal Junction, they closed the gap and joined forces.

The reunited army immediately dug in, throwing up field works across the road and trading skirmish fire with Confederate forces. The junction came in the middle of the Battle of Bentonville, the largest Civil War battle fought in North Carolina. Sherman's march through the Carolinas was nearly over.

The Confederacy had weeks, not months, left to hold.