CIvil War Trust Five Battlefields

From the Raleigh News & Observer

Two Civil War battlefields in North Carolina will add more than 50 acres with the help of federal grants announced this week.

Averasboro Battlefield — spelled Averasborough when Confederate and Union forces met there near the end of the Civil War —will gain two tracts of land totaling nearly 49 acres. Bentonville Battlefield will gain one tract of 2.8 acres.
“We have been trying for years to add property to both of these battlefields as it becomes available,” said Michele Walker, spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Averasboro Battlefield straddles Cumberland and Harnett counties.; Bentonville Battlefield is 25 miles away in Johnston County. They were the sites of significant back-to-back battles in March 1865.

According to Averasboro’s website, on March 15-16, the troops of Confederate Gen. William Hardee met the left wing of Gen. William Sherman’s troops at the 8,000-acre Smithville Plantation along the Cape Fear River. The site says that though they were outnumbered and outgunned, the Confederates were able to delay the Union forces on their way north from Fayetteville.

They were the sites of significant back-to-back battles in March 1865. The delay allowed Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston to gather more men to meet the Union troops at Bentonville on March 19. The battle there, the largest fought in North Carolina with 81,000 opposing troops, lasted three days. Johnston’s troops were outnumbered nearly four to one and suffered heavy casualties.*
Regards
David
*https://www.newsobserver.com/
 
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