Tuesday, March 19, 2013

March 19: Confederate Defeated at Bentonville

On this date in History .... 1865:

The Confederate Army tries and fails to stop Sherman’s March in Bentonville, North Carolina. 

As Sherman swung north out of Savannah, he assume the rebels troops in the Carolinas were too dispersed to be of any real problem, but Confederate General Joseph Johnston rounded up 17,000 troops and surprised the Union Army, driving them back a bit before additional Union troops arrived, giving Sherman a 3-1 edge.  

Both sides had significant losses:  Respectively, the Union/Confederate numbers for those killed were 194/240; for those wounded were 1112/1700.  But the largest difference was in the number of men “missing”.  The Union reported only 221 missing (deserters?) to the Confederates 1500 missing.

No comments:

Post a Comment