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, scattered Confederate forces consolidated, and after Sherman defeated Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's attack at Bentonville and was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War. Hoping to deflect Sherman from Goldsboro, Johnston attacked Sherman's separated Left Wing on March 19, 1865, while the Right Wing was several miles southeast, but as fighting intensified Sherman brought the Right Wing in support. Johnston's outnumbered forces withdrew to Smithfield on March 21, and Sherman's army marched to Goldsboro. On the evening of March 21, members of Gen. Hiram B. Granbury's Texas Brigade bivouacked and entrenched on the north side of Hannah’s Creek, then became the first Confederates to withdraw from the Bentonville battlefield during the night while the rest of Johnston's army marched past them. The Texans did not awaken until a squadron of Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry thundered up from the south toward the bridge, crossed it, and set it afire as elements of the 26th Illinois Infantry followed close behind. Skirmishing erupted, and the Federals, led by color bearer Sgt. James Smith and the regimental color company, stormed the burning bridge. A Confederate battery on the opposite bank fired canister, killing Smith and wounding several others, and Lt. Col. Ira J. Bloomfield had his horse killed beneath him. When the regimental colors fell into the creek, Lt. Arthur Webster and Co. E saved them under small arms and artillery fire and then doused the flames on the bridge. Granbury's men fled into the nearby swamp to the north, and soon afterward the Federals were ordered back to Bentonville and Mill Creek Bridge after hastening the Confederate retreat. At Hannah’s Creek on March 22 at 7:25 a.m., Gen. Wade Hampton reported that the new bridge over Mill Creek had not been destroyed by the infantry and would not burn, that Gen. Wheeler had torn up the flooring and done all he could to destroy it, that the infantry had not crossed until sunrise and the enemy had pressed Wheeler up to the Hannah’s Creek bridge, and that he was preparing the bridge for burning.