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, seeking to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia and crush Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In North Carolina, scattered Confederate forces consolidated in the Confederacy's logistical lifeline, where Sherman defeated Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's last-ditch attack at Bentonville. Hoping to deflect Sherman from Goldsboro, Johnston attacked Sherman's Left Wing here on March 19, 1865, after finding it separated from the Right Wing several miles southeast, and as the fighting intensified, Sherman brought the Right Wing here in support. Vastly outnumbered, Johnston's forces withdrew to Smithfield on March 21, and Sherman's army marched to Goldsboro. The Bentonville-Smithfield Road was the main corridor Johnston's army used as it deployed south to Bentonville to strike Sherman's Left Wing on March 19, and Confederate reinforcements from Cheatham's Corps in Smithfield also used the road to march to Bentonville on March 21. During the Confederate retreat to Smithfield on March 22, Gen. William J. Hardee reported a tedious march on the wretched road, with wagons unable to be turned back, and Johnston's army, exhausted from the three-day Battle of Bentonville, rested along the road that evening 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.