During the Civil War, Goldsboro, then spelled Goldsborough, was an important railroad junction and a vital link in the Confederate supply chain, where the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad from Morehead City to Raleigh intersected the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. These railroads were essential to both sides, but especially to the Confederacy, as supplies brought by blockade runners into Wilmington were carried by rail through Goldsboro to the Confederate army in Virginia by way of the Petersburg Railroad from Weldon to Petersburg. Confederate troops were stationed there to guard the city and to be transported where needed by rail, and hospitals were established to treat the wounded. Some of the men who died there are among the 800 Confederate soldiers buried in a mass grave at Willow Dale Cemetery, five blocks to the south. When New Bern fell in March 1862, earthworks were built 18 blocks east along Stoney Creek, and sections of the works can still be found along Claiborne Street. In December 1862, during Union Gen. John G. Foster's raid, his troops temporarily cut the railroad line. In 1865, Goldsboro became Union Gen. William T. Sherman's main objective on his march through the Carolinas, and three Union armies converged there to use the railroads for supply and to prepare for further action after the battles at Bentonville and Wyse Fork in March 1865. Federal hospitals were established there, and for three weeks more than 100,000 Union soldiers occupied the city.