After deploying, I ordered General Howard to proceed with due caution, using skirmishers alone, till he had made junction with General Slocum, on his left.  These deployments occupied all day, during which two divisions of the Seventeenth Corps also got up.  At that time General Johnston’s army occupied the form of a V, the angle reaching the road leading from Averysboro’ to Goldsboro’, and the flanks resting on Mill Creek, his lines embracing the village of Bentonsville.

General Slocum’s wing faced one of these lines and General Howard’s the other; and, in the uncertainty of General Johnston’s strength, I did not feel disposed to invite a general battle, for we had been out from Savannah since the latter part of January, and our wagon-trains contained but little food.  I had also received messages during the day from General Schofield, at Kinston, and General Terry, at Faison’s Depot, approaching Goldsboro’, both expecting to reach it by March 21st.  During the 20th we simply held our ground and started our trains back to Kinston for provisions, which would be needed in the event of being forced to fight a general battle at Bentonsville.  The next day (21st) it began to rain again, and we remained quiet till about noon, when General Mower, ever rash, broke through the rebel line on his extreme left flank, and was pushing straight for Bentonsville and the bridge across Mill Creek.  I ordered him back to connect with his own corps; and, lest the enemy should concentrate on him, ordered the whole rebel line to be engaged with a strong skirmish-fire.

I think I made a mistake there, and should rapidly have followed Mower’s lead with the whole of the right wing, which would have brought on a general battle, and it could not have resulted otherwise than successfully to us, by reason of our vastly superior numbers; but at the moment, for the reasons given, I preferred to make junction with Generals Terry and Schofield, before engaging Johnston’s army, the strength of which was utterly unknown.  The next day he was gone, and had retreated on Smithfield; and, the roads all being clear, our army moved to Goldsboro’.  The heaviest fighting at Bentonsville was on the first day, viz., the 19th, when Johnston’s army struck the head of Slocum’s columns, knocking back Carlin’s division; but, as soon as General Slocum had brought up the rest of the Fourteenth Corps into line, and afterward the Twentieth on its left, he received and repulsed all attacks, and held his ground as ordered, to await the coming back of the right wing.  His loss, as reported, was nine officers and one hundred and forty-five men killed, eight hundred and sixteen wounded, and two hundred and twenty-six missing.  He reported having buried of the rebel dead one hundred and sixty-seven, and captured three hundred and thirty-eight prisoners.

The loss of the right wing was two officers and thirty-five men killed, twelve officers and two hundred and eighty-nine men wounded, and seventy missing.  General Howard reported that he had buried one hundred of the rebel dead, and had captured twelve hundred and eighty-seven prisoners.