bleeding and dead, a martyred sacrifice indeed, upon the altar of his
Country!




CHAPTER XXX.

COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED CONSPIRACY.

Meantime, Sherman's Armies were pressing along upward, toward Raleigh,
from Columbia, marching through swamps and over quicksands and across
swollen streams--cold, wet, hungry, tired--often up to their armpits in
water, yet keeping their powder dry, and silencing opposing batteries or
driving the Enemy, who doggedly retired before them, through the
drenching rains which poured down unceasingly for days, and even weeks,
at a time. On the 16th of March, 1865, a part of Sherman's Forces met
the Enemy, under General Joe Johnston, at Averysboro, N. C., and forced
him to retire. On the 19th and 20th of March, occurred the series of
engagements, about Mill Creek and the Bentonville and Smithfield
cross-roads, which culminated in the attack upon the Enemy, of the 21st
of March, and his evacuation, that night, of his entire line of works,
and retreat upon Smithfield. This was known as the Battle of
Bentonville, and was the last battle fought between the rival Forces
under Sherman and Johnston. The Armies of Sherman, now swollen by
having formed a junction with the troops under Schofield and Terry,
which had come from Newbern and Wilmington, went into camp at Goldsboro,
North Carolina, to await the rebuilding of the railroads from those two
points on the coast, and the arrival of badly needed clothing,
provision, and other supplies, after which the march would be resumed to