THE FINAL MARCH
After the fall of Savannah, Ga., in December 1864, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman outlined plans to march his army of nearly 60,000 men northward through the Carolinas to Virginia to help Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeat General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg and, hopefully, close out the war. On March 8, 1865, Sherman and his troops crossed into North Carolina from nearby Cheraw, S.C. Soon after, Johnston County, just southeast of Raleigh, would become an epicenter of some of the last major fighting of the war.
Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston determined to strike against
