At Bentonville, General William T. Sherman's Union Army, advancing from Fayetteville toward Goldsboro, met and fought the Confederate Army of General Joseph E. Johnston. General Robert E. Lee had directed the Confederates to make a stand in North Carolina to prevent Sherman from joining General U.S. Grant in front of Lee's army at Petersburg, Virginia. Johnston had raised nearly 30,000 men from South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and eastern North Carolina, including two full generals besides Johnston, four lieutenant generals, fourteen major generals, and many brigadier generals, and he looked for an opportunity to strike Sherman. Sherman's army of 60,000 men was divided into two wings, with 30,000 men in the Left Wing marching via Averasboro and Bentonville and 30,000 men in the Right Wing marching on a parallel route to the southeast. Sherman's North Carolina objective was Goldsboro, where 40,000 additional troops and fresh supplies would reinforce his weary army. The three-day battle ended in a stalemate. After an initial success on the first day, the Confederates were unable to destroy the united Federal Left and Right Wings, and on the night of March 21-22 they withdrew. The Union Army, anxious to reach Goldsboro, did not pursue. Between 85,000 and 90,000 troops were involved. Confederate casualties were 239 killed, 1,694 wounded, and 673 missing; Union casualties were 304 killed, 1,112 wounded, and 221 missing; total casualties were 543 killed, 2,806 wounded, and 894 missing, for 4,243 killed, wounded, and missing altogether. The battle was important because it was the only major Confederate attempt to stop Sherman after the Battle of Atlanta in August 1864, the last major Confederate offensive in which the Confederates chose the ground and made the initial attack, and the largest battle ever fought on North Carolina soil. During the fighting, the Harper House, where John and Amy Harper raised their eight children, served first as a Union hospital and afterward as a Confederate hospital, and 360 soldiers are buried in the nearby Confederate Cemetery.