Union Line — Battle of Bentonville, March Twenty

The trenches still visible in the woods behind this marker mark the far right flank of the Union line during the Battle of Bentonville on March twentieth, eighteen sixty-five. That sector was held by the Seventeenth Corps, commanded by Major General Francis Preston Blair Jr. Bentonville was the last major Confederate offensive of the Carolinas campaign, a desperate attempt by General Joseph Johnston to stop General William Sherman's army as it swept northward through the Carolinas after the March to the Sea.

Johnston's Army of Tennessee struck the left wing of Sherman's force on March nineteenth, achieving brief tactical success before Federal reinforcements arrived. By the twentieth, Sherman's full army was consolidated and the Confederate position became untenable. Johnston withdrew on March twenty-first.

The Battle of Bentonville was the largest Civil War engagement fought on North Carolina soil.