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 to crush Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In North Carolina, where scattered Confederate forces had consolidated, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston attacked Sherman's separated Left Wing at Bentonville on March 19 in hopes of deflecting the Union army from Goldsboro, but as the fighting intensified Sherman brought up the Right Wing in support, and Johnston's vastly outnumbered forces withdrew to Smithfield on March 21 while Sherman's army marched to Goldsboro. The tiny village of Bentonville, named for John Benton, gave its name to the largest Civil War battle fought in North Carolina. On March 21, Union Gen. Joseph A. Mower attacked near the village, but Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee's counterattack repulsed him. During the battle, Johnston had his headquarters in John Benton's yard, and a nearby log structure served as the main field hospital. Johnston's army and most of its wounded retreated toward Smithfield during the night of March 21. At sunrise, Gen. Joseph Wheeler's men tried to destroy the Mill Creek bridge by igniting barrels of rosin, and when the bridge failed to burn, they threw the flooring into the creek. After Federal forces occupied Bentonville, they found in several Confederate field hospitals more than 60 seriously wounded men from Johnston's army and about 45 of their own. Gen. Oliver O. Howard's Right Wing spent most of March 22 removing Federal wounded and burying the dead, while Gen. Henry W. Slocum's Left Wing continued toward Goldsboro. Before the Right Wing left Bentonville, an unidentified high-ranking officer ordered his quartermaster to supply the abandoned Confederate wounded with both rations and medicine. On the evening of March 22, the 100th Indiana Infantry built fires on the battlefield along its picket lines so the soldiers could move about without stumbling over graves and dead bodies. After Sherman was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston recognized the futility of further resistance and surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War.