After completing his "March to the Sea" in Georgia, U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman and his 60,000 troops moved north into South Carolina and North Carolina in pursuit of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Following the Confederate defeat at Bentonville, Sherman continued to Raleigh, while General Joseph Johnson, in command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, established his headquarters at Greensboro, North Carolina.
General Johnson conferred with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had fled Richmond, Virginia for Greensboro. With news of the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia and the fall of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Davis gave Johnson permission to discuss terms of surrender.
Johnson and Sherman first met halfway between Greensboro and Raleigh on April 17, 1865 at the farm of James and Nancy Bennitt (Bennitt being the correct spelling of the family name) near Durham Station, North Carolina.
It took three such meetings to finally hammer out a surrender. Johnson formally surrendered 89,270 troops on April 26, 1865 thus ending hostilities in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. This was the largest single troop surrender of the Civil War.
While North Carolinians like to the refer to Bennett Place as "The End of War," it wasn't under May 26, 1865 that the final Confederate troop surrender took place in New Orleans. Still, Bennett Place is an important Civil War site.
James Bennitt, his wife Nancy, and their three children settled on a 325-acre farm in what was then Orange County in 1846. The family grew corn, wheat, oats, and potatoes, and raised hogs. Bennitt was also a tailor, cobbler, and sold horse feed, tobacco plugs, and distilled liquor. Bennitt's sons and son-in-law died during the war years. Age and the loss of available labor prompted Bennitt to enter into a sharecropping agreement with his in-laws. He stopped farming in 1875 and died in 1878. His wife died six years later.
In 1921 a fire destroyed the farmhouse and kitchen. Only the stone chimney survived. A state historic site was later established and the present buildings were carefully reconstructed in the 1960s using Civil War sketches and early photographs as a guide. The simple farm dwelling and log kitchen show what life was like during a tragic period in our nation's history. A modern visitor center with exhibits and an audiovisual program help tell the Bennett Place story.
The posted coordinates are the spot where present-day photo was taken.
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Bennett Place, circa 1875:
Bennett Place Today:
