The Battle Begins: Confederate Cavalry Blocks The Goldsboro Road

The Battle Begins: Confederate Cavalry Blocks The Goldsboro Road. . "Old Hampton is playing a bluff game and if he don't mind Sherman will call him." , Confederate cavalry private, Early on March 18, 1865, Confederate cavalry commander Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton deployed Col. George Dibrell's two cavalry brigades to block the intersection to your left. Two artillery batteries were placed to your right, with a commanding view of the Federal approach., After the Battle of Averasboro, on March 16, Hampton's orders were to monitor and obstruct the Federal march. He was also tasked with finding a location for Gen. Joseph Johnston's army to make a stand before the Federals reached reinforcements in Goldsboro. Hampton chose Willis Cole's plantation, a half mile behind you. The location offered concealment and road access for Southerners coming from Smithfield., In the meantime, Dibrell's orders were simple: delay the Federals so Johnston's army could assemble at the Cole plantation., Detachments of soldiers looking for food were the first to encounter Dibrell's barricaded troopers. Normally, foragers had little problem dispersing cavalry. This time the Confederates suspiciously resisted., Maj. J.T. Holmes, the foraging detail commander, reported to Brig. Gen. William P. Carlin that Confederate resistance was stiffening and that he expected a fight. Carlin refused to heed Holmes' warnings. Instead, he ordered Holmes to get out of the way so that he could "drive the rebels out of the way with a skirmish line.", Though it took more than a skirmish line, Carlin was able to dislodge the rebel cavalry by 10:00 am on March 19. However, by this point much of Johnston's army had reached the Cole plantation. Carlin's division was headed into a trap., "If some generals...had listened to the facts and opinion which I promptly and carefully delivered to them on the evening of the 18th, Bentonville would have had a different history and many a good soldier would now be living whose bones are dust." - Maj. J.T. Holmes, 52nd Ohio, (captions)
Col. George G. Dibrell, 1861-1865 Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton used Dibrell's Division to block the Goldsboro Road. The American Civil War Museum, Richmond, Va., Maj. J.T. Holmes, 1865 Holmes commanded a Union foraging detail that was repulsed by Confederate cavalry. Julius B. Work, ed., Re-union of Col. Dan McCook's Third Brigade, Second Division, Fourteenth A.C., "Army of the Cumberland": Assault of Col. Dan McCook's Brigade on Kennesaw Mountain, Ga., June 27, 1864 / August 27th and 29th, 1900. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.