In North Carolina, Braxton Bragg’s Confederate forces attacked Jacob Cox’s Union troops near Kinston on Wednesday, March 8, 1865. After routing an inexperienced Federal brigade and taking some ground, Bragg’s Confederates could not fully carry the day. Confederate numbers were simply insufficient to totally rout Cox’s Union forces. After skirmishing on the 9th and extensive fighting on the 10th, Bragg retreated toward Goldsborough to rejoin Joseph Johnston’s Confederates. In a letter to Confederate Secretary of War John Breckinridge, General Robert E. Lee candidly admitted that the Confederacy’s military situation was “full of peril and requires prompt action” to avoid a total military collapse; in his letter Lee specifically doubted whether Johnston’s scattered forces in the Carolinas would achieve even partial success in stopping Sherman’s powerful invasion of the Confederacy.
00000174-b11b-ddc3-a1fc-bfdbb1a20000The Schreiner University Department of History is honoring the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a series of short vignettes focusing on events from 1861 through 1865. The Civil War was the most destructive conflict in American history, but it was also one of our most defining moments as a people and as a nation. Let us know what you think about "This Week in the Civil War." E-mail your comments to Dr. John Huddleston at jhuddles@schreiner.edu.Airs: Weekdays at 5:19 a.m., 8:19 a.m., 4:19 p.m. on KTXI and 4:49 a.m., 9:29 p.m. on KSTX.