The Carolinas Campaign began on February 1, 1865, when Union Gen. William T. Sherman led his army north from Savannah, Georgia, after the “March to the Sea,” intending to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia against Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In North Carolina, where scattered Confederate forces had consolidated, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston positioned his army near Smithville as Sherman marched north from Fayetteville, uncertain whether Sherman aimed for Raleigh or Goldsboro. On March 15, 1865, the head of Sherman’s Left Wing struck Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee’s skirmishers guarding the road just south of Averasboro, Hardee counterattacked, and after several bloody attacks and counterattacks Hardee withdrew during the night of March 16 while Sherman turned toward Goldsboro. Sherman’s Left Wing, the U.S. Army’s XIV and XX Corps, marched past this point on March 17, and the determined Confederate resistance at Averasboro had delayed the Union march to Goldsboro, widening the distance between the Left Wing and the Right Wing several miles to the east and south as Confederate cavalry harassed the Federals along the road. At Smithfield, Johnston studied area maps and concluded that Sherman’s two wings were far enough apart that if one were attacked it might be defeated before the other could come to its aid. On March 18, Gen. Wade Hampton notified Johnston that the Left Wing was approaching Bentonville, where Confederate cavalry had taken up positions, and that night Johnston marched most of his army to Hampton’s side, ready by the next morning to spring the trap. After Sherman was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston saw the futility of further resistance and surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War.