The Road to Averasboro

“Both North and South had been penetrated by other invading armies, but never in this fashion, sweeping through domestic areas without opposition, neither seeking nor expecting to meet enemy forces.”

Burke Davis, Sherman’s March pg 33,34

March to the Sea

During his “March to the Sea” in November and December 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and his troops faced only sporadic resistance. They moved in two columns and feinted in various directions, masking their intended destination. When they arrived at the sea and held Savannah under siege, Confederate commander General William J. Hardee ultimately evacuated his garrison forces and withdrew to Charleston. Sherman and his troops occupied the Georgia coastal city, and in a telegram presented “as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah” to President Lincoln.

Julius Bell and the Beaufort Artillery

As to General Hardee’s troops in Charleston, “With the exception of Conner’s Brigade of South Carolinians from the Army of Northern Virginia, [the] command consisted of garrison and coastal artillery units unaccustomed to campaigning in the field. …In short, Hardee’s command was a patchwork affair of questionable reliability.“¹ Among his artillerymen was Julius B. Bell, a corporal in the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery (BVA). Julius and his unit fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861 to open the war, unsuccessfully defended their homes and families at the Battle of Port Royal in November 1861, and as their parents and friends fled inland, participated in guerrilla operations, protected railroad lines, and engaged in limited open warfare before being assigned to the forts surrounding Charleston.

The Carolinas Campaign

As Sherman had done in Georgia, he split his army into two wings in South Carolina: General Oliver O. Howard‘s wing moving inland and upcountry from Beaufort with General Henry W. Slocum‘s wing “slogging through the swamps on both sides of the Savannah River. …All [the] villages in Slocum’s path through the swamp country… were virtually obliterated.”² Beyond the swamps and swollen rivers and streams, neither wing faced serious opposition.

Race to Unite with Johnston

When it became clear that the state capital of Columbia had fallen, Hardee evacuated Charleston and raced his inexperienced troops due north via marches and rail to get ahead of Sherman and unite his corps with three others under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston. Hardee’s garrison troops and artillerymen were not used to marching, and a great many deserted along the way to return to their families whose homes and livelihoods had been so recently “obliterated.” “By mid-March, Hardee’s Corps numbered just 6,455 officers and men – less than half the force that had evacuated Charleston one month earlier.“¹ Hardee and his remaining men reached Fayetteville, North Carolina just ahead of the Union vanguard. It would be near Averasboro, just north across the Cape Fear River, that Hardee would make his stand.

Adapted from A String of Bells: Stories of a Southern Family © 2020 by Nick J. Guevara, Jr.

¹ Old Reliable’s Finest Hour, The Battle of Averasboro, North Carolina, March 15-16, 1865 by Mark L. Bradley © 2002 Blue and Gray Enterprises. Inc. pg 4, 6

² Sherman’s March by Burke Davis © 1980 Vintage Books pg 142, 146