Waynesville Engagement, Among the Last to Die - Waynesville, NC
Posted by: TaoZero
N 35° 29.323 W 083° 00.163
17S E 318329 N 3929085
Part of the North Carolina Civil War Discovery Trail, some of the last fighting of the war occurred here after Union soldiers occupied Waynesville in early May 1865.
Waymark Code: WMC9FQ
Location: North Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 08/12/2011
Views: 13
Members of Thomas’s Legion attacked May 6 routing about 200 Federals near here. The Union troops retired to Waynesville and were surrounded. At a meeting the next day, the Confederates learned that the Civil War was over and surrendered.
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The "Battle" of Waynesville
Waynesville was the scene of the last and perhaps most unusual skirmish in the eastern theater of the American Civil War. On May 6, 1865, Union Colonel William C. Bartlett's 2nd North Carolina (Federal) Mounted Infantry were raiding, pillaging, burning homes and engaging in other activities to undermine the economic base of the area and were attacked at White Sulphur Springs (east of Waynesville) by a detachment of rebels from the Thomas Legion of Highlanders, who had been summoned for help by locals. East of the Mississippi, Thomas' Legion fired "The Last Shot" of the Civil War in White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina. The Legion consisted of soldiers who had served under Jubal A. Early during the Shenandoah Valley Campaigns of 1864, but had been sent back to their native North Carolina mountains to engage in guerrilla warfare against the remaining Union forces. The disoriented Union soldiers retreated into Waynesville, and on the evening of May 6 remaining elements of the Thomas Legion surrounded the town. The soldiers lit numerous bonfires on the ridges above the town and engaged in war chants in an effort to intimidate the Federals. The following day the Confederate commanders Gen. James Green Martin and Col. William Holland Thomas (for whom the Legion was named) negotiated a surrender. These commanders had been made aware that Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston had already capitulated, and that continued hostilities would prove pointless.
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