During the Carolinas Campaign, which began on February 1, 1865, when Union Gen. William T. Sherman marched north from Savannah after the March to the Sea, Confederate forces in North Carolina tried to block his advance as he moved to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia. As Sherman marched north from Fayetteville, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston placed his army near Smithfield, uncertain whether Sherman was heading for Raleigh or Goldsboro. On March 15, 1865, the head of Sherman's Left Wing struck Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee's skirmishers south of Averasboro, and after several bloody attacks and counterattacks Hardee withdrew during the night of March 16 as Sherman turned toward Goldsboro. Along this road, the lead element of Sherman's Left Wing advanced north on March 14, and for the next two days the wing's 30,000 officers and men, with their supplies and equipment, passed in the face of sporadic and increasing Confederate resistance that culminated in the Battle of Averasboro on March 15-16 and the Battle of Bentonville on March 19-21. Early on March 15, half a mile north along the Fayetteville-Raleigh Stage Road, Confederate cavalrymen skirmished with the Union vanguard at Silver Run Creek and Mill Pond, where Sherman later established temporary headquarters. Rain that week made the road nearly impassable and left the soldiers miserable. Despite the weather, at nightfall on March 15 Union Col. William Hawley's brigade prepared for a hot meal and a night's rest here after spending the day corduroying the road, but at 7:30 p.m. it was called forward to assist the Union cavalry as the Battle of Averasboro began. One soldier recalled the seven-mile trek to the battlefield through mud that sucked off shoes, caused men to stumble and lose their guns, and left them grateful not to be trampled and buried alive by the moving column. Scottish immigrants formed the first congregation here in 1758, a century later the church building was constructed, and it remained in use until 1908. The present-day Bluff Presbyterian Church congregation in nearby Wade maintains the old church. Jane "Janie" Smith, born in 1846 and buried here in the family plot, was the daughter of Farquhard Smith of Lebanon Plantation, which served as a hospital during the Battle of Averasboro, and as a teenager she wrote a detailed and graphic description of the battle and her family's involvement.