Eleven battles and seventy-three skirmishes were fought in North Carolina during the Civil War. Although the number of men involved in many of these engagements was comparatively small, the campaigns and battles themselves were crucial in the grand strategy of the conflict and involved some of the most famous generals of the war. John Barrett presents the complete story of military engagements across the state, including the classical pitched battle of Bentonville, the siege of Fort Fisher, the amphibious campaigns on the coast, and cavalry sweeps such as Stoneman's raid. From and through...

In retrospect, General William Tecumseh Sherman considered his march through the Carolinas the greatest of his military feats, greater even than the Georgia campaign. When he set out northward from Savannah with 60,000 veteran soldiers in January 1865, he was more convinced than ever that the bold application of his ideas of total war could speedily end the conflict. John Barrett's story of what happened in the three months that followed is based on printed memoirs and documentary records of those who fought and of the civilians who lived in the path of Sherman's onslaught. The burning of...

This collection of primary source material chronicles the Civil War experiences of North Carolinians from the secession crisis to the Confederate surrender at Bennett Place. In contrast to other works on the Civil War, this book focuses not on military events but on the larger issue of the societal costs of such conflicts. Through selections from diaries, newspapers, letters, official records, and other documentary sources, it offers a sober account of the intense human and economic suffering endured by the state and illustrates the complicated political realities of wartime North Carolina....