The Carolinas Campaign began on February 1, 1865, when Union Gen. William T. Sherman led his army north from Savannah, Georgia, after the March to the Sea, aiming to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia and help crush Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Scattered Confederate forces consolidated in North Carolina, the Confederacy's logistical lifeline, and after Sherman defeated Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's last-ditch attack at Bentonville and was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War. Hoping to deflect Sherman from Goldsboro, Johnston attacked Sherman's Left Wing on March 19, 1865, after finding it separated from the Right Wing several miles southeast, but as the fighting intensified Sherman brought the Right Wing up in support, and Johnston's outnumbered forces withdrew to Smithfield on March 21 while Sherman's army marched to Goldsboro. On the evening of March 21, members of Gen. Hiram B. Granbury's Texas Brigade bivouacked and entrenched on the north side of Hannah's Creek after becoming the first Confederate troops to withdraw from the Bentonville battlefield during the night, and while they slept the rest of Johnston's army marched past. The Texans did not awaken until a squadron of Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry came thundering up from the south toward the bridge, crossed it, and set it afire as elements of the 26th Illinois Infantry followed close behind. Skirmishing erupted, and the Federals, led by color bearer Sgt. James Smith and the regimental color company, stormed the burning bridge. A Confederate battery on the opposite bank fired canister, killing Smith and wounding several others, and Lt. Col. Ira J. Bloomfield had his horse killed beneath him. When the regimental colors fell into the creek, Lt. Arthur Webster and Co. E braved small arms and artillery fire to save them and then doused the flames on the bridge. Granbury's men fled into the nearby swamp to the north, and soon afterward the Federals were ordered to return to Bentonville and Mill Creek Bridge, having hastened the Confederate retreat.