Bentonville Battleground

The website for a historic landmark in North Carolina which contains information about the last full-scale action of the Civil War in which a Confederate army was able to mount a tactical offensive and maps reflecting troop movements.

Preview your trip on the web: Bentonville Battleground

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• The Battle of Bentonville Memoir of a Confederate soldier describing the march to Bentonville and the battle there on March 19, 1865. He describes the desperate state of the Confederate army by the end of the war. Includes historical commentary.

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Related topics

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The Battle of Bentonville, fought March 19-21, 1865, was the last full-scale action of the Civil War in which a Confederate army was able to mount a tactical offensive. This major battle, the largest ever fought in North Carolina, was the only significant attempt to defeat the large Union army of General William T. Sherman during its march through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865.

Information on this website contain the following information about the battle:

• Details about the road to Bentonville
• A battle synopsis
• A brief chronology of the engagement
• A campaign map
• A description of the battlefield of Bentonville

Also included is information about the Union and Confederate troops.

This website is provided by North Carolina Historic Sites and copyrighted by the North Carolina Division of Archives and History.

Students can visit the battlefield at 5466 Harper House Road in Four Oaks. The newly refurbished Visitor’s Center is open. It has a fiber-optic exhibit which provides spatial orientation for visitors to the battlefield. There are "artifacts, portraits of soldiers and commanders from both sides involved in the action, contemporary battle scenes, maps covering the second and third days of the battle, a campaign theater map, complete orders of battle for both sides, and an exhibit on the Harper House which was used as a Union field hospital." Guided tours of the Harper House and outbuildings are available at no charge. Please call to make a reservation at (910) 594-0789 or send an email to bentonville@ncmail.net

Also see The Battle of Bentonville: Caring for Casualties of the Civil War, a lesson plan from the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places.

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