The lesser-known story of how the Civil War ended in North Carolina http://www.wral.com/the-lesser-known-story-of-how-the-civil-war-ended-in-north-carolina/14531834/ Confederate Gen. Joe Johnston and a small band of trusted officers slogged along a muddy red-clay road toward Gen. William T. Sherman. Not for battle this time, but in hopes of ending the bloodiest war ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. As Johnston loped toward his Union adversary, he faced a decision: Would he end things quickly and cleanly, a surgical stroke to end the Civil War? Or would he follow the wishes of the Confederacy's president, scattering his forces into a festering guerrilla war? Johnston was weary of war. And, as he approached the mud-spattered opponent on the road just west of Durham, he saw a man equally weary. There would be no battle that day, April 17, 1865. It was time for peace. Most people believe the Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee offered his sword to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. But the largest surrender on the American continents - and the one that kept the Civil War from sinking into long-running partisan skirmishes - came nearly two weeks later at a family farmhouse near Durham called Bennett Place. "It's a fact, but the facts don't fit the narrative people were raised on," said John Guss, site director at Bennett Place State Historical Site, which preserves the site of Johnston's surrender to Sherman. "People think that when Lee surrendered, the war was over, right? "But when you realize that a larger Confederate force was still out there, still able to fight - then, no, this war wasn't over." "This army was not surrounded, like Lee's was. They could easily have packed up and headed for the hills. Things could have gotten a whole lot uglier." But it didn't, thanks to two generals tired of mud and thoroughly mistrusted by their respective governments. If Averasboro and Bentonville had proven one thing to Sherman, it was that his foe would still fight. (More at above url - Very interesting and detailed historical story)