tion, and realize that their future is to be determined by themselves, and then there is the opportunity to make of our volunteers, our citizen recruits such soldiers as regulars never exceeded, in bravery, in coolness, in persistence.

There is not before the officers who command for a brief period the strong incentives which they need. There is scarcely a possibility of promotion, and no spur to the study of duties above their immediate position.

That in spite of these considerations, one hundred day troops did so well is matter of State honor. Had they barely succeeded, it had been well, but they did more. When the term of service expired, five of the regiments remained to render needed help. They merited and received the thanks of the Government expressed by the President of the United States.

CHAPTER XXVI.

INTO GOLDSBORO.

FROM SAVANNAH-SCHOFIELD AND TERRY-TO FAYETTEVILLE-CARLIN-SLOCUM'S LEFT -BENTONVILLE THE FIGHTING-CARLIN'S BRIGADES-HAZEN COMES UP-MOVEMENTS-MOWER'S DIVISION-LOSSES-COXE'S BRIDGE-INTO GOLDSBORO-THE COLUMNS CONVERGE-MAJOR NICHOL'S STATEMENT-COLONEL BOWMAN'S SHERMAN'S PLANS-MEETS MR. LINCOLN HIS GENERAL ORDERS-ARMY OF GEORGIA-BLUNDER -ORDERS-STONEMAN AND WILSON.

THE

HE Illinois regiments with Sherman had a few more stages to make, a few more sharp conflicts and the end was reached. From Savannah Sherman had swept South Carolina, had passed the Edistos, captured Orangeburg, entered Columbia, crossed the Catawba, occupied Camden, had met the foe at Cheraw, and fired its aptured guns in honor of Lincoln's second inauguration, and capured vast military stores sent thither from Charleston as a place of safety; had marched into North Carolina, our troops greatly modifying their treatment of the country after leaving South Carolina made the splendid march to Fayetteville, and seized it with its arsenal, works, etc.; had come into communication with Schofield and Terry at Wilmington, and before Averysboro had fought the rebel army on the 16th of March in a strong position, and compelled it to abandon its defences; Schofield had done his preliminary work after true soldierly fashion, and we left the two armies of Sherman and Schofield advancing on Goldsboro. The commander issued his orders to the various departments of his force. Word reached him, on the 18th, while with Howard's corps, that Carlin was fighting a portion of the rebel cavalry, but was managing it without difficulty. Later intelligence soon followed, informing him that Slocum's wing found Johnston's army massed in his path, before Bentonville. John

ston had put his army in light order, without trains and with little artillery, and by rapid flank marching had concentrated upon our left his entire command, expecting to crush Slocum before the other columns could reinforce him. The 17th Corps was at Mount Olive; the 15th was marching between Lee's Store and Coxe's Bridge, while the 14th and 20th were on the Smithfield road, five miles from Bentonville at the crossing of the road to Coxe's Bridge, and at this junction Johnston struck his blow. Sherman sent orders to bring up the divisions guarding the trains and Hazen's division of the old 15th, and stand upon the defensive until the rest of the 15th and Blair's corps could come up.

Slocum's troops drove the rebel cavalry before them, but were astonished to find infantry behind rude works, ready to contest their advance. Carlin's two advance brigades charged the works, and carried a portion of them, but found themselves greatly outnumbered and about to be surrounded, and slowly fell back, losing three guns and caissons. Other troops came up, barricades were hastily prepared. Kilpatrick heard the firing and posted his horsemen on the left. Here our troops six times met the furious charge of the rebel veterans led by Hoke, Hardee and Cheatham, under Johnston in person, and resisted them. Nightfall came, and Johnston had won nothing of moment. He had failed to catch our left and destroy it; it was true that 1,500 killed and wounded were in our lines, but the rebel loss sustained in those fruitless assaults upon the hero of Kenesaw was double.

During the night General Slocum was strengthened by the arrival of Hazen and the divisions from the trains, and his position rendered secure. He quietly awaited the coming of Howard, leaving Johnston free to assail his front if he wished, which he did not, but entrenched himself firmly in a strong triangle, its apex at the front, facing Slocum and Howard. Sherman moved deliberately. He knew this delay would secure Goldsboro to Schofield and leave General Terry free to come up the Neuse to Coxe's Bridge. He was reversing the situation and placing Johnston on the defensive. It was no part of Sherman's tactics to bring on a desperate battle and great loss of life if he could obtain his purpose without.

All day on the 21st skirmishing and fighting went on from extreme

right to left. Our skirmishers approached within rifle-shot of the main rebel entrenchment, and there was a long, deafening rattle of On the left Davis assaults and storms a battery, but

small arms.

cannot hold it.

During this fighting, and in a heavy rain, Mower's division of the 17th Corps was worked around to the right, flanking the enemy, and almost reaching the bridge over Mill Creek. Had it been secured, the only line of rebel retreat would have been closed. He carried two lines of entrenchments, and by desperate fighting captured a breast-work in the advance of Corse and Smith. He lost, perhaps, a hundred and fifty in killed and wounded. There was danger that Johnston would mass his force and crush him, hence the fire was opened along our whole front, and Mower with difficulty regained his connections. He had shown that the enemy's line could be broken. This alarmed Johnston, and that night he retreated on Smithfield, leaving his dead unburied and his pickets to be captured. Major Nichols in the "Story of the Great March " says "Mower's reconnoissance was, perhaps, the immediate cause of Johnston's retreat. We know now how that movement must have carried consternation into the rebel ranks. We have found the bodies of some of Mower's skirmishers within fifty yards of Johnston's head-quarters; they were killed there and near the bridge which was their principal line of retreat, and extending in the rear of the rebel position. When Mower was ordered to move on our right, it was not supposed that he would advance so far; had that movement been intended he would have had the support of the other divisions of the 17th Corps. With 15,000 such veterans as those of the glorious 17th Corps entrenched on Johnston's line of retreat, an attack along the entire line would have insured the total destruction of the rebel army. Many noble men would have been lost who are now rejoicing in the fruits of a less bloody victory; but there would no longer have been the rebel army of the South."

The total loss in the battle at Bentonville was 191 killed, 1,108 wounded, 344 missing; total 1,643. Our men buried 267 rebel dead, and took 1,643 prisoners, many of whom were wounded

Johnston had made a daring move, and one marked by military genius; he had hurled his veterans upon one wing of our army to

crush it, but had failed.

Slocum manifested a signal ability in meet

ing the onset, and prompt reinforcements defeated the purpose of the Slocum's wing deserves the credit of having alone borne and resisted the burst of the rebel assault.

foe.

Leaving his commanders to bury the dead, Sherman went to Coxe's Bridge, met General Terry, and on the 22d rode into Goldsboro, where Schofield and his army received him with enthusiastic greetings.

The left wing went in the same day and the following morning, and the right on the 24th. The veterans who separated at Atlanta were again together. The third grand station on Sherman's march was attained. Atlanta-Savannah-Goldsboro.

Says Major Nichols: "When our columns pushed up from the sea coast, Beauregard's strongest line of defence was the Salkahatchie; but his earliest steps were fatal to his cause, and insured the success of our movement toward our first objective-Columbia— if not the final triumph of our campaign. Beauregard committed the gross error of attempting to defend cities which possessed no strategic value, neglecting, or having been ignorant of the truth, that the surest road to a successful system of defense was the concentration of all his forces upon the line of the Salkahatchie, and the abandonment of Charleston, Augusta and all other garrisoned places. Although it would have been no easy task, we will suppose that Sherman had out-flanked and forced this line. By moving upon converging lines the rebel leader could always have had the choice of a central position, which he could have occupied sooner than our army, obliged as it was, to cross the river encumbered with trains. Such a point was Branchville on our right, another was Augusta on our left. The advantage of either of these positions would have been, that if our objective had been Charleston, with the rebel army at Branchville, even though we had succeeded subsequently in crossing the Edisto, the enemy would have been in our front or flank. Had Augusta been our objective, the enemy could have thrown a dangerous force in our rear. Again if Beauregard had fallen back to Augusta, and our objective had been either that place or Charleston, the same logic would have held good. The rebel army would have been as near Columbia as ours with greater facilities for reaching the capital before us, had we marched in that direction."