During the Carolina Campaign, fighting centered on the Morrisville depot on April 13, 1865, after the capture of Raleigh as Union Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick skirmished with Confederate Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s retreating cavalry. About 2 p.m., Wheeler reached Morrisville with Federal forces close behind, and his men dismounted and threw up barricades around the depot to protect a locomotive struggling to pull cars loaded with supplies and wounded men, including Arkansas Gen. Daniel H. Reynolds, out of town up a long grade. Reynolds, who had lost a leg at Bentonville, had aides who threatened to kill the conductor if the train were captured, prompting him to raise steam quickly. Kilpatrick halted on a hill southeast of town across the creek and deployed Lt. Joseph Kittinger’s section of the 23rd New York Battery, whose guns bombarded Confederates in buildings and behind barricades. Union horsemen charged to within 100 yards of the train before Confederate fire stopped them. Wheeler’s men uncoupled the supply cars so the rest of the train could escape, then followed it west. That evening, while Kilpatrick used a Morrisville house as headquarters, a message arrived for Gen. William T. Sherman from Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston requesting an armistice to discuss surrender terms, and Kilpatrick forwarded it to Sherman in Raleigh. The message signaled the end of the Carolinas Campaign.