With their term of service ending in February 1865, 205 members of the 56th Illinois Infantry chose to muster out, but before leaving they fought at Bentonville, North Carolina, the regiment's final engagement. Their journey home began March 29th, 1865, aboard the S.S. General Lyon in Wilmington, North Carolina. Two days later, in rough weather off Cape Hatteras, the ship caught fire and sank, costing 500 lives. Two hundred of the 205 veterans from the 56th Illinois died, the greatest one-day loss of life in the Civil War from Gen. John Logan's former ninth ("Egyptian") Congressional district.