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, Confederate forces consolidated in North Carolina as Sherman moved to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia against Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Hoping to deflect Sherman from Goldsboro, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston attacked Sherman's separated Left Wing here on March 19, 1865, after finding it apart from the Right Wing several miles southeast, but as the fighting intensified Sherman brought the Right Wing up in support, and Johnston's vastly outnumbered forces withdrew to Smithfield on March 21 while Sherman's army marched to Goldsboro. The William Hastings house, built about 1854, served as headquarters for Johnston and Gen. Braxton Bragg in mid-March 1865 as Johnston concentrated his army at Smithfield, midway between Goldsboro and Raleigh and still served by the North Carolina Railroad, and organized a desperate strike against Sherman's much larger army. Johnston formed the Army of the South from Hardee's Corps, Hoke's Division, the Army of Tennessee contingent, and Hampton's cavalry; by March 17 it numbered 20,000 against Sherman's 60,000, and Hardee's delaying action at Averasboro on March 15-16 bought Johnston time. On March 18 Johnston sent Gen. Robert E. Lee a dispatch in Virginia informing him of his plans against Sherman, then departed for Bentonville. After the Battle of Bentonville, where Sherman defeated Johnston's last-ditch attack, Johnston reestablished his headquarters in Smithfield on March 25, continued sending dispatches to Lee while his army regrouped and rested there, and on April 9, 1865, as Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, ordered his men to march to Raleigh; the next day the beleaguered Confederate army left Smithfield. After Sherman was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston recognized the futility of further resistance and surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War. The Hastings house originally stood behind the Johnston County Courthouse at 2nd and Johnston Streets facing 2nd Street, and it was later moved twice, in 1941 and again in 1965.