The Confederate Main Charge — Bentonville, March Nineteen

On March nineteenth, eighteen sixty-five, Confederate forces swept across this road in the main assault of the Battle of Bentonville. Johnston's men had already overrun two Union defensive lines on higher ground above. Here, crossing this road, they drove deep into Union positions in the woods below, pressing the Federal left flank into a desperate fighting retreat.

For a few hours, it seemed the Confederates might cut off part of Sherman's army entirely. But Union reinforcements arrived in the afternoon, stiffening the line and halting the Confederate advance. The assault stands as one of the most aggressive offensive actions the Confederate Army of Tennessee mounted in its final weeks of existence.

Johnston surrendered to Sherman about five weeks later at the Bennett Place near Durham, closing the war in the Eastern Theater.