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, where scattered Confederate forces had consolidated in the Confederacy's logistical lifeline, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston attacked Sherman's Left Wing at Bentonville on March 19, 1865, hoping to deflect the Union army from Goldsboro after finding the Left Wing separated from the Right Wing several miles southeast. As the fighting intensified, Sherman brought the Right Wing up in support. Johnston's army used the Bentonville-Smithfield Road as the main corridor to deploy south from Smithfield to Bentonville for the attack, and Confederate reinforcements from Cheatham's Corps in Smithfield also marched along it to Bentonville on March 21. Vastly outnumbered, Johnston withdrew to Smithfield on March 21, and during the retreat on March 22 Gen. William J. Hardee reported the difficulty of moving wagons along the wretched road. Exhausted from the three-day Battle of Bentonville, Johnston's army rested along the road on the evening of March 22 before arriving in Smithfield. After Sherman was reinforced at Goldsboro late in March, Johnston saw the futility of further resistance and surrendered on April 26, essentially ending the Civil War.