Location: NC 8/89 (Main Street) in Danbury
County: Stokes
Original Date Cast: 1940
In late March 1865, Union cavalry under Major General George Stoneman, commander of the Union army “District of East Tennessee,” marched throughout western North Carolina during one of the longest cavalry raids in history. About 5,000 men under Stoneman’s command entered North Carolina with a mission “to destroy and not to fight battles” in order to expedite the close of the Civil War. Stoneman’s raid coincided with the raids of General William T. Sherman in the eastern sections of the state, stretching local home guard and militia units thinly across the state and forcing Confederate commanders to make hard choices as to where their men were needed most.
Stoneman divided his men and sent detachments throughout the region, securing the destruction of the region’s factories, bridges, and railroad lines. The army relied heavily on local citizens for food and supplies, often emptying storehouses. Stoneman’s raids in North Carolina lasted from late March until May when they assisted in the search for Confederate President Jefferson Davis as he fled the collapsed Confederacy. The men had marched more than 1,000 miles during the raid and historians credit their march with assuring the death of the Confederacy as they captured artillery pieces and took thousands of prisoners while destroying Confederate army supplies and blocking a line of possible retreat for both Lee and Johnston’s armies.
Stoneman’s men accomplished one of their objectives during their trip into southwestern Virginia – they destroyed valuable miles of railroad track used to support Lee’s army. The disruption in supplies has often been pointed to as one of the many factors that contributed to Lee’s surrender. After the brief but strategic trip through southwestern Virginia, Stoneman and his men turned southward to North Carolina again and reunited with his detachments in North Carolina near Danbury on the day that Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, April 9. Stoneman’s trip into Virginia lulled North Carolina’s forces into believing the raid was over and they relaxed their patrols.
References:
Mark A. Snell, ed., North Carolina: The Final Battles (1998)
John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (1963)
Cornelia Phillips Spencer, The Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina (1866)
Ina Van Noppen, Stoneman’s Last Raid (1961)
Vernon H. Crow, Storm in the Mountains (1982)