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, aiming 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, where Sherman defeated Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's last-ditch attack at Bentonville; after reinforcement at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War. Stewartsville was the birthplace of Joseph Roswell Hawley, born here on October 31, 1826, while his father served nearby as a Methodist preacher; the family returned north in 1837. Hawley later supported Abraham Lincoln, became a general in the U.S. Army, and served as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1881 to 1905. After Wilmington fell in 1865, Hawley was responsible for delivering supplies from there to Sherman's troops and afterward commanded in eastern North Carolina during the first year of Military Reconstruction. According to local tradition, when he returned to his birthplace to introduce himself to the current residents, they refused to welcome anyone from the Federal army, though Hawley said it gave him great pleasure to deal kindly with and sometimes grant favors to people from Richmond, present-day Scotland County. On March 8, 1865, Union Gen. Frank P. Blair, Jr., led his corps past here on Barnes Bridge Road while Johnston, following Lee's orders to concentrate all available forces and drive Sherman back, moved Gen. Joseph Wheeler's and William J. Hardee's commands ahead of the Federals. That day, muddy roads, badly stretched wagon trains, and concerns about rising water near the Lumber River bridge hindered the Union advance.