Near this site, one of the last major cavalry engagements in Gen. Sherman's campaign took place in the skirmish at Morrisville. On April 13, 1865, Gen. William Sherman's Union army captured Raleigh, the state capital of North Carolina. Federal cavalry under Gen. Judson Kilpatrick then pursued Gen. Wade Hampton's Confederate horsemen west of Raleigh, and that pursuit culminated in a skirmish at Morrisville. As the Confederates tried to move their remaining supplies and wounded westward, Kilpatrick's cavalry and artillery forced them to abandon their train and retreat toward Durham and the eventual surrender of the largest Confederate force of the war at Bennett Place on April 26, 1865.