In the forests and fields around the North Carolina village of Bentonville, the armies of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Union Gen. William T. Sherman fought their last major engagement of the Civil War on March 19-21, 1865, as Sherman marched toward Goldsboro to meet Union armies coming inland from New Bern and Wilmington to re-supply his force and Johnston tried to stop him with one last blow. Before Bentonville, their two armies had fought at Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Atlanta. With nearly 80,000 men, including 60,000 Federals and 20,000 Confederates, on some 6,000 acres, the Battle of Bentonville was the largest battle fought in North Carolina and the last major Confederate offensive of the war. The battle resulted in four Congressional Medals of Honor for heroism but at a terrible price, with approximate combined casualties of 4,200 soldiers killed, wounded, missing, or captured. After the battle, news of Sherman's fight with Johnston spread across the country and appeared in lengthy front-page newspaper stories, but the collapse of the Confederacy and the final surrenders of Johnston and Lee within a month overshadowed Bentonville. Although veterans later said the fighting there was as intense, fierce, and devastating as the battles at Gettysburg or around Atlanta, Bentonville fell out of public awareness, and the remote community remained in quiet obscurity while the battlefield stayed in private ownership for most of a century.