Regulators' field: a lesson for the defeated: Carolinas campaign

THE REGULATORS’ FIELD ★ ★ ★ A Lesson for the Defeated CAROLINAS CAMPAIGN The farofinas Campari began ai February 1, 1865, nhoi Union Gen. Wlian I Siuman led Ik an* noth tan Satan A, Georgia, afta the Madi to the Sea. Sherman’s objectrre ns to ion Got. (lyssa S Grant in Vipnia to aush Gen. Robert L Lee’s Arm) of Northern Virginia. Scattered Confederate forca consolidated in Nath Carofina, the Confederacy's logistical Heine, «here Sherman defeated Gen. Josedi E. Jo hater's la st-dtdi attack at Bentontie. Afta Shaman як reinfaced at Goktooro late n Maeii Jdinston san the feitifety of further resistance and airrendered at Bennett Place nea Durham a Apr! 26, aiefrgtheCnflWarinthe Eat. Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee led Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s southern column of the Army of Tennessee through Alamance County on April 15, 1865, marching west away from Union Gen. William Army marching in the rain Courtesy Library of Congress Uijeitatei tofllo poject was preaM by the Nm* Coohu Otputote Ы buipwnion thee 9b fcf ' T. Sherman’s army. After a wet march and the loss of several soldiers drowned at river crossings, the lead elements of Hardee’s column bivouacked here in the mud. Adding to the misery was the confirmation of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. Rumors of catastrophe in Virginia had spread while the column bivouacked the previous night in Chapel Hill on the grounds of the University of North Carolina. Here, however, the offi¬ cers and men got irrefutable proof that the rumors were true: parolees from the Army of Northern Virginia going home from Appomattox. Mtadea ЕаЬмсмма! Pioqqbi Ы в* Ге4*а11гмаря1ама Effecteecy Act let fcf 21a Onto г* Capt. William E. Stoney, assistant adjutant general of Hagood’s South Carolina Brigade, recorded in the brigade diary, “Thnight, Colonel I Charles H. | Olmstead, of the First Georgia Regiment, tells me posi¬ tively that General Lee has surren¬ dered. Great God! Can it be true? I have never for a moment doubted the ultimate success of our cause. I cannot believe it.” This ground, where Hardee’s men received the historic news, was a renowned local landmark. In April four years earlier, local Union¬ ists planned a flag rally at the old On May 16, 1771, Gov. William TVyon led 1,200 militi¬ amen here and defeated the frontier rebels called the Regulators, who protested high taxes and lack of legal recourse. The North Carolina troops who bivouacked here in April 1865 would have known the story of the governor's treatment of the rebels after the battle — six local men "stretched hemp" in Hillsborough for their "treason." Gen. William J. Hardee Courtesy Library of Congress Regulator Battlefield at Alamance Creek, but the firing on Fort Sumter and President Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops derailed its symbolic purpose. Few attended.