Harper House






Reprinted with the permission of the Smithfield Herald
Manuscript of Late C.S. Powell Handed Down
In To Committee on Bentonville Memorial
June 12, 1925

 In order to stimulate interest in securing an accurate account of the battle
of Bentonville, fought during the Civil War in this county, Mrs. W.M. 
Sanders, who is the chairman of the State Committee in charge of a 
Bentonville Memorial, offered recently five dollars for the best account of 
the battle. Mrs. Sanders, just before leaving for a trip to Europe, sends us
the following account written by the late C.S. Powell. His neice, Mrs. W.T.
Woodard, of Selma, read this story of the battle before the Henry L. Wyatt 
Chapter of the U.D.C. of Selma, at one of their meetings. The story is a 
correct account as Mr. Powell saw the conflict. Mr. Powell was an officer 
through the entire Civil War and was in a number of important battles.

 His account of the Battle of Bentonville is as follows:

 "This battle was fought between the Yankee army under Gen. W.T. Sherman, 
consisting of 8,000 seasoned, well drilled, trained and equipped soldiers, 
and Confederates under Gen. Joseph Johnston, with about 1,800 Confederates 
that were mere remnants of the shattered, defeated Western Campaign regiments
and a few Junior and Senior Reserves, poorly equipped and organized, about 
two miles south of the obscure village of Bentonville, hence the name. 

 It was a strange and peculiar battle in its beginning and still more so in 
its termination. It may not be germane to the actual description of this 
battle, but for a better understanding it may be instructive to go back to 
the beginning of Sherman's March through Georgia to the sea, across the 
Carolinas to Bentonville. I belonged to, and was Adjutant of, the 10th N.C. 
Battallion, and was with the command from the time we were taken from the 
Forts below Wilmington in November 1864, to the Surrender near Greensboro in 
April 1865.

 By making a long skip from the 45th mile post up the Savannah River in 
Georgia via Savannah to Averasboro, N.C., over which we marched in retreat 
in front of Sherman's army, I can better describe the battle of Bentonville.
At Averasboro a considerable skirmish was fought between Sherman's advance 
guard and Sherman's rear guard, which resulted in defeat of the Confederates
who took the Raleigh road, as they supposed. Raleigh was Sherman's objective
(as they had sacked and burned Columbia, the Capitol of South Carolina.)

 Instead of being followed, Sherman took the Goldsboro road. Johnston 
discovering this, shifted his army to the Smithfield road which paralled the
Goldsboro road some miles apart. When Johnston reached Elevation in Johnston
County by a forced march across the country to Bentonville, interrupted one 
corps (Slocumb's) of Sherman's army, which was a complete surprise, as the 
main body of Sherman's army was some miles further south on another parallel
road. (That was by Grantham's store.) 

 This was on a Sunday evening, and after much skirmishing, and the Yankee's 
battle line located, the charge was ordered, and the skirmishes being 
withdrawn, the battle commenced in earnest and until dark they were driven 
back further and further until their reserve line was encountered just 
beyond and skirting a string of huckleberry ponds knee deep in water. They 
hastily erected temporary breastworks of old fallen logs and dirt dug with 
bayonets. This was all in the thick woods, and an incessant fire of musketry
and cannon at every step. 

 We charged steadily on and when within twenty steps of their line, they 
fired a blinding volley from their reserves which was answered by a volley 
from us along with the Rebel Yell: 'Hell broke loose in Georgia.' They broke
and ran worse than a herd of stampeded cattle. Such a rattle of canteens and
accoutrements and cursing of fleeing officers and men, I hope never to hear 
again. They ceased firing entirely, cannons and all, and where they went to,
the Lord only knows. They left their dead and wounded behind, and they lay 
there all night.

 My battallion lost 37 men killed and wounded, the most of which fell at the 
last volley, and I think some of the wounded drowned in the ponds. We 
reassembled on the road at the Willis Cole house, and were then marched 
about two miles to the East, facing the Goldsboro and Fayetteville road, 
where we threw up breastworks which are yet easily traced.

 The next day Sherman's army came nosing around for us until we were located,
and they then entrenched themselves about three hundred yards to our front, 
in a line some two miles long. Pretty sharp skirmising took place all along 
the line, and we thought they were going to do business on our chdsen ground,
but when fully satisfied that we were not there for fun, they located 
themselves. Why they did not give battle we did not know. 

 Johnston, of course, knew their strength and dared not pit his raw and 
ill-organized little army against those 8,000 seasoned, trained and 
entrenched troops. On the third night we quietly and unmolested (except for 
a continual bombardment from a battery in our front) withdrew from the 
battlefield, and sunrise found us four miles away behind breastworks on the 
Smithfield and Bentonville road. 

 We were not pursued or molested, and finally we marched through Smithfield 
to Mitchner's depot, near where the army was reorganized. Sherman's army 
moved on to Goldsboro, where they were met by other Yankee troops from 
Wilminqton and New Bern. Resting there for two weeks they set out for Raleigh,
via Smithfield along the route of which many of us remember the devilment 
they indulged in."

 C.S. Powell

 October 8th, 1917





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