Bennett Place - Sherman & Johnston Meet after Lee's Surrender
On the way home from Richmond coming down I-85, the
Triangle Area is passed (i.e. Raleigh, Durham, & Chapel Hill); just off the highway is the
Bennett Place, a North Carolina historic site (see map below) - after
Robert E. Lee surrendered to
U.S. Grant at Appomattox Court House; Generals
William T. Sherman & Joseph E. Johnston met at a farm in Durham Station (story below - web source) on April 17 - this was also after Lincoln's assassination and the terms were somewhat confusing.
Johnston chased Sherman from Atlanta to Savannah, then to South Carolina (Charleston & Columbia), and finally into North Carolina - there were only several large scale battles in the Old North State (which contributed the most soldiers to the Confederacy), i.e. Fort Fischer leading to the capture of Wilmington and the
Battle of Bentonville which pitted these armies against each other in southeastern North Carolina (fascinating place to visit - the plantation house was used as a hospital and the tour discusses mainly Civil War medicine) in March 1865 (second quote).
Durham has many other attractions - the home of
Duke University (the Chapel is beautiful and the campus was modeled after Princeton but larger - another story!) and also the
Duke Homestead (see third quote below) - Washington Duke wanted to buy Princeton University (an Ivy League school in New Jersey) only if it would be renamed to Duke University - not a deal, so he endowed his own university in Durham, now one of the great American schools and a major contender in regional sports, especially basketball. So just another bonus post on our return - Dave
P.S. Sherman died in early 1891 in New York City; Johnston died shortly after attending his funeral - "before dying of pneumonia in 1891, which was contracted at Sherman’s funeral for which he was a pallbearer" - in Johnston's chase of Sherman at the end of the war he was amazed at the organization of the Union Army - probably one of the best ever to exist in the 19th century according to many accounts.
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