North Carolina Historic Sites

Bentonville Battlefield

The Harper House still stands at Bentonville Battlefield. The downstairs rooms are furnished to interpret a functioning Civil War field hospital, while the upstairs rooms have period domestic furnishings. A Confederate mass grave, the Harper family cemetery, and a tour trail leading to a section of Union XX Corps earthworks are also accessible to the public. Reminders of the battle are on exhibit in the visitor center along with an audiovisual program about the battle. Roads in the area are marked with highway historical markers highlighting events of the battle. Once a thriving marketplace for naval stores, the village of Bentonville survives today in name only.

The Harper House: The farm home of John and Amy Harper, built in the late 1850s, played a key role in the Battle of Bentonville, March 19-21, 1865. Occupied by Union troops on the first day of fighting, the house served as a field hospital for Sherman's XIV Army Corps. Over 500 wounded soldiers, including 45 Confederates, were treated at this facility. John, Amy, and seven of their children remained at the home throughout the battle, helping to care for the wounded men. On March 22, 1865, Sherman's army evacuated the Bentonville area and transported all Federal wounded to nearby Goldsboro. Confederate casualties were left behind at Harper's, many of whom lingered in convalescence for weeks.

The monument, to the right, was erected by the Goldsboro Rifles in 1893, and marks a mass grave containing the remains of some 360 Confederates who died at Bentonville. Several of the soldiers buried here died after receiving treatment in the Harper House. Most of the remains were disinterred from various parts of the battlefield in the late nineteenth century and reinterred at this location. The marker was dedicated on March 20, 1895 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Bentonville. On hand for the occasion were Rev. John Harper Jr.--who offered a prayer for the ceremony--and Wade Hampton, who had commanded Confederate cavalry during the battle. A monument to Texas soldiers who fought at Bentonville can be seen in the left background.

Bentonville is slowly coming into its own as a nationally significant historic site. Important developments in the 1990s have propelled it into the national spotlight. Recent books have brought the history of the Carolinas Campaign and its culminating battle into the public eye as never before, and the battlefield's preservation needs have not gone unnoticed in Washington, D.C.

In 1993 the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, appointed by Congress to evaluate the preservation needs of the nation's Civil War sites, visited Bentonville and was favorably impressed with the battlefield and its miles of extant earthworks. The commission's Report on the Nation's Civil War Battlefields (1993) classified Bentonville in:

Priority 1: Battlefields With Critical Need for Coordinated Nationwide Action by the Year 2000. 1.1 Class A, good integrity, moderate threats, less than 20 percent of core area protected. (Class A is defined as "having a decisive influence on a campaign and a direct impact on the course of the war.")

Bentonville was ranked sixth on the list of Priority One, Class A battlefields.

Another major step forward was the battlefield's designation as a National Historic Landmark. The application for NHL status was submitted with the aid of the National Park Service, and approved in June 1996 by the United States Department of the Interior. This important new status will enable Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site to apply for federal grants available for purchasing property and easements to protect historically significant land.

The Bentonville Battlefield Historical Association (BBHA), in conjunction with state officials, has made significant strides in acquiring additional parcels of land critical to a proper interpretation of the battle. Other organizations which have helped in the effort to preserve the battlefield include: Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS), the Conservation Fund's Civil War Battlefield Campaign, and the American Battlefield Protection Program.

The site is currently at work on a comprehensive preservation and resource protection plan for Bentonville. With the aid of the National Park Service, Bentonville historians, Archives and History staff members, local surveyors, and the Jaeger Company of Atlanta, Ga., the site has implemented a sophisticated GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) project to map resources within the study area. These include several miles of remaining earthworks (in various states of preservation), locations of principal wartime dwellings, monuments and highway markers, cemeteries, and certain late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century structures.

For more information visit: North Carolina Historic Sites - Bentonville Battlefield