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 to crush Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Scattered Confederate forces consolidated in North Carolina, the Confederacy’s logistical lifeline, and after Sherman defeated Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s last-ditch attack at Bentonville and was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston saw the futility of further resistance and surrendered at Bennett Place near Durham on April 26, ending the Civil War in the East. Before that surrender, on the rainy morning of April 15, 1865, the southern column of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee approached the Haw River at Ruffin Mills as it marched west away from Sherman’s army. Col. John W. Hinsdale of the 3rd North Carolina Junior Reserves later recalled that the stream was rising rapidly and that several boys drowned after leaving the ford to reach fish traps below, where the swift current swept them into deep water. Lt. Robert M. Furman of the 2nd North Carolina Junior Reserves recounted that when a smaller boy disappeared under the water, a taller comrade pulled him up more than once, and the shivering boy explained that his gun was down there and he was trying to get it. Musician William J. Worsham of the 19th Tennessee Infantry remembered that the men tried to form a Monkey’s chain by holding each other’s hands, but the current broke their hold, and that they then caught hold of Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham’s horse’s tail as he rode past and landed safely on the other side.