2017 March | Blue & Gray Magazine

Mar 29

BENTONVILLE BATTLE MAP TITLES

Each Map in Blue & Gray is placed on the page in several layers. During our review of the printer’s online digital proof prior to printing, we noticed the three two-page Battle Maps were marred by stray lines and marks. In the process of correcting the matter, the titles of those Maps were sent to a different layer and, unfortunately, did not print. The titles should have appeared as follows:

Map, Pp. 16-17, “Bentonville Battle Map 7, March 20, 1865”
Map, Pp. 58-59, “Bentonville Battle Map 8, March 21, 1865”
Map, Pp. 60-61, “Bentonville Battle Map 9, March 21, 1865”

Mar 23

1 Comment

The Battle of Bentonville (Volume 32, #6)

The line of blue infantry crested the hill just as the officers gave the order to halt. Men caught their breath and then looked to their weapons in anticipation of resuming the fight. As his men enjoyed a few minutes of rest, Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Mower took stock of the situation. A veteran of Corinth, Vicksburg and the Red River Campaign, Mower had watched as his division shattered the thin Confederate left flank. He was now well beyond the Union position.

Mower stood poised to push even farther and inflict more damage in the enemy’s rear. Through the course of the attack, his brigades had lost cohesion, and he had been forced to break off the advance. The pause was fatal. Suddenly, in the distance, a line of infantry in ragged gray and butternut appeared, bearing down on their foe. Mower’s opportunity had withered away.

Editor’s Letter (Vol. 32, #6)

The End in North Carolina
We featured Bentonville more than 20 years ago when Mark Bradley’s and Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes’ books on the battle were published concurrently in 1996, followed by Mark A. Moore’s excellent maps in his Historical Guide to The Battle of Bentonville (1997). Since then there has been scant new material focused solely on the Bentonville battle and campaign. When one considers that Sherman’s campaign through the Carolinas that led to the Confederate surrender at Bennett Place is the Western Theater equivalent of Grant’s final campaign that led to Appomattox, there is a huge gap in the amount of literature between the two major theaters.