Calamity in Carolina

The Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville, March 1865

Daniel Davis, Phillip Greenwalt

• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781611212242
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

Robert E. Lee gave Joseph E. Johnston an impossible task.Federal armies under Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman had rampaged through Georgia on their “March to the Sea” and now were cutting a swath of destruction as they marched north from Savannah through the Carolinas. Locked in a desperate defense of Richmond and Petersburg, there was little Lee could do to stem Sherman’s tide—so he turned to Johnston.The one-time hero of Manassas had squabbled for years with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, eventually leading to his removal during the Atlanta Campaign. The disgraced Johnston had fallen far.Yet Lee saw his old friend and professional rival as the only man who could stop Sherman—the only man who could achieve the impossible. “J.E. Johnston is the only officer whom I know who has the confidence of the army, ” Lee told Davis.Back in command, Johnston would have to assemble a makeshift force—including the shattered remnants of the once-vaunted Army of Tennessee—then somehow stop the Federal juggernaut. He would thus set out to achieve something that had ever eluded Lee: deal a devastating blow to an isolated Union force. Success could potentially prolong the most tragic chapter in American history, adding thousands more to a list of casualties that was already unbearable to read.Historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt, co-authors of Bloody Autumn: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 and Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, now turn their considered gaze toward the long-forgotten battles of Averasboro and Bentonville. Written in the accessible style that has become the hallmark of the Emerging Civil War Series, Calamity in Carolina: The Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville includes more than a hundred illustrations, new maps, and thought-provoking analysis to tell the story of the last great battles of the war in the West.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Mark A. Moore
• Prologue
• Chapter One: War is All Hell
• Chapter Two: Uncle Billy and His Armies
• Chapter Three: The Last Rally of the Western Confederates
• Chapter Four: The Battle of Averasboro
• Chapter Five: Marching to Battle
• Chapter Six: Bentonville Opens
• Chapter Seven: Johnston’s Grand Assault
• Chapter Eight: Reinforcements on the Road
• Chapter Nine: Sherman Arrives
• Chapter Ten: The Armies Skirmish
• Chapter Eleven: Reconnaissance in Force
• Chapter Twelve: The Battle Ends
• Appendix A: Sherman’s March: The Impact on Georgia and the Carolinas by Ashley Webb
• Appendix B: Mower’s Attack: Yards Short of Total Victory by Robert M. Dunkerly
• Appendix C: The Swamp Lizard: The Military Career of Joseph Anthony Mower by Daniel T. Davis
• Appendix D: The Road to Bennett Place by Chris Mackowski
• Appendix E: Sherman and Johnston: Foes in War, Friends in Peace by Phillip S. Greenwalt
• Appendix F: Preserving the Bentonville Battlefield by Donny Taylor
• Order of Battle
• Suggested Reading
• About the Authors