During the Carolinas Campaign, which began on February 1, 1865, when Union Gen. William T. Sherman marched north from Savannah, Georgia, after the March to the Sea, Sherman aimed to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia and help crush Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Confederate forces gathered in North Carolina, the Confederacy's logistical lifeline, and after Sherman was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered at Bennett Place near Durham on April 26, ending the Civil War in the East. As Sherman moved north from Fayetteville, Johnston placed his army near Smithfield, unsure whether Sherman was heading for Raleigh or Goldsboro. On March 15, 1865, the head of Sherman's Left Wing met Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee's skirmishers guarding the road south of Averasboro, and fighting began when Hardee counterattacked. The first Confederate line was held by Col. Alfred M. Rhett's brigade, with skirmishers forward against Union Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick's advancing cavalry division. The 9th Michigan Cavalry drove the skirmishers back, but Confederate reinforcements slowed the Union advance, and by nightfall the Confederates still held their ground there although Rhett had been captured. At dawn on March 16, about 16,000 Federals under Sherman's direction attacked 2,800 Confederates on their first and second defensive lines. Under heavy artillery fire and frontal and flank assaults, the Confederates withdrew to their third line, and after several bloody attacks and counterattacks Hardee pulled back during the night as Sherman turned toward Goldsboro. John C. Smith's home, Oak Grove, stood in the path of Union brigades during the fighting; bullets and at least two cannonballs struck the house, which later served as a Union hospital for wounded soldiers from both sides.