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 in the Confederacy's logistical lifeline, and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston launched a last-ditch attack at Bentonville on March 19, 1865, against Sherman's Left Wing after finding it separated from the Right Wing. 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. Reinforced there late in March, Sherman left Goldsboro on April 10, 1865, with an army divided into Left and Right Wings and including elements of Gen. Alfred H. Terry's X Corps, which passed through Bentonville and bivouacked beyond the village on April 11 after rebuilding Mill Creek Bridge, destroyed on March 22. Soldiers found Bentonville destitute, with many houses still sheltering wounded Confederates. Sherman then commanded 88,948 officers and men, nearly four times the strength of Johnston's army, and as the Union advance neared Smithfield, light skirmishing broke out near Moccasin Creek while advancing Federal troops destroyed several homes and businesses along the route. After Sherman was reinforced at Goldsboro, Johnston recognized further resistance as futile and surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War.