I
I
The Trenches
of Bentonville
. . . The ConfiHlprae.v's Iasi inircka-
soniii^ hop** was llial Johnsloii coultl
somehow slop Sherman. . .
«1/
Alti: I). JOKES, JR.
when Ins daddy, old Ml Jack Griggs,
was made Postniusicr. someone named
Griggs out in the midwest had already
hail a post office named after himself
I hey (the Post Office Dept.) couldn't
have two offices with the same name,
so oiii Mi Griggs was out of luck and
our Post Office was without a name."
1 1 seems, as the story goes." con¬
tinued Snowden, “during the Civil War
about 1X64 a Yankee Prison Ship.
I' he Maple I eaf, was on it' way north
with a load of Confederate Prisoners.
Just off the coast, near the old Curri¬
tuck Inlet, the prisoners overpowered
their captors and took control of the
ship and its crew. In gentlemanly fash
ion a bargain between north anil south
was struck I he Northern Naval Offi¬
cers agreed not to report the escape,
thereby giving the Confederate Soldiers
an opportunity to reach safe territory.
In exchange for this courtesy, the
southerners agreed to depart from I he
staple Leaf without inflicting further
harm to any member of her company.
As often happens in wartime, how¬
ever. bargains fairly made are seldom
kept, and soon Currituck was swarm¬
ing with Federal troops looking for the
escaped prisoners. In all of the con¬
tusion. some of the fleeing prisoners
found their way into this community
and were hidden by local residents. As
a result of that event, the area in¬
cluding the Post Office became known
as Maple I eaf. then finally just Maple.
"\V helhcr that is the real story I can't
say." Guy Snowden admits. "I took it
as the truth, and I passed it on to that
little girl in Rochester. New York as
the truth."
Whether the prison ship story is
factual to the last detail is less impor¬
tant to the history of Maple than the
story of Guy Snowden himself. When
he runs down the flag outside the Post
Office for the last time, an era will
have ended, liras for the most part lend
to end rather quietly, with few noticing
their conclusion until long afterward.
Perhaps, not until half a lifetime, when
a then fully matured woman in a north¬
ern city has cause to examine some
long forgotten memorabilia of a distant
childhood. She may come across a
faded letter, written to a little girl
struggling with an linglish Report. In¬
side will be the story of a Civil War
Prison Ship, an armed uprising at sea,
escaping soldiers, and a place in North
Carolina called Maple. At the bottom
of the hand written adventure story is
the signature of a man who. long ago.
had time for a little girl he had never
seen. Guy Snowden. Postmaster.
14
All you need is imagination and
walking shoes. The rest is already there
in Bentonvillc's shady woods:
Where the Confederates made their
last assault on Sherman's marchers.
Where the surprised Yanks dug in to
repulse the attack.
The flat fields, the dense pine
thickets, the sluggish, black stream.
But most of all. well back from the
paved road and the state park museum.
>r
there are the trenches themselves,
winding through the woods. Tall trees
grow from them. The leaves and the
ferns bank up on the side.
But the sear is still raw.
Atop the trench lines, the grass does
not grow. On the sides, the sandy, yel¬
low-white soil is bare, like an ancient
scar.
Here, in March, 1X65. less than a
month before Appomattox. Joseph E.
Johnston with the remnants of his old
Army of Tennessee, garrisons of aban¬
doned ports like Charleston and Wil¬
mington. state troops, reserves, veterans
and old men and boys, barred the path
of William T. Sherman.
That path, marked by the smoke of
burning barns and foreshadowed by the
sad procession of the refugees, pointed
toward the rear of Robert E. Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia. The Con¬
federacy's last, unreasoning hope was
that Johnston could somehow stop
Sherman, as he had tried to do a year
before in front of Atlanta.
Now. it would be harder, but John¬
ston with some 15.000 men and more
on the way. would try to hit one of
Scarring Bentomille's woods. 1865 fieldworks troee a still unheoled scar ocross the Johnston County
landscape. Se-erol miles
0»
eorthworks ore on the Benfon.illc Battleground Slate Historic Site and
odiocent private property.
THE STATE. October 1974