Our total loss, therefore, at Bentonsville was:  1,604

General Johnston, in his “Narrative” (p. 392), asserts that his entire force at Bentonsville, omitting Wheeler’s and Butler’s cavalry, only amounted to fourteen thousand one hundred infantry and artillery; and (p. 393) states his losses as:  2,343

Wide discrepancies exist in these figures:  for instance, General Slocum accounts for three hundred and thirty-eight prisoners captured, and General Howard for twelve hundred and eighty-seven, making sixteen hundred and twenty-five in all, to Johnston’s six hundred and fifty three—­a difference of eight hundred and seventy-two.  I have always accorded to General Johnston due credit for boldness in his attack on our exposed flank at Bentonville, but I think he understates his strength, and doubt whether at the time he had accurate returns from his miscellaneous army, collected from Hoke, Bragg, Hardee, Lee, etc.  After the first attack on Carlin’s division, I doubt if the fighting was as desperate as described by him, p. 385, et seq.  I was close up with the Fifteenth Corps, on the 20th and 21st, considered the fighting as mere skirmishing, and know that my orders were to avoid a general battle, till we could be sure of Goldsboro’, and of opening up a new base of supply.  With the knowledge now possessed of his small force, of course I committed an error in not overwhelming Johnston’s army on the 21st of March, 1865.  But I was content then to let him go, and on the 22d of March rode to Cog’s Bridge, where I met General Terry, with his two divisions of the Tenth Corps; and the next day we rode into Goldsboro’, where I found General Schofield with the Twenty-third Corps, thus effecting a perfect junction of all the army at that point, as originally contemplated.  During the 23d and 24th the whole army was assembled at Goldsboro’; General Terry’s two divisions encamped at Faison’s Depot to the south, and General Kilpatrick’s cavalry at Mount Olive Station, near him, and there we all rested, while I directed my special attention to replenishing the army for the next and last stage of the campaign.  Colonel W. W. Wright had been so indefatigable, that the Newbern Railroad was done, and a locomotive arrived in Goldsboro’ on the 25th of March.

Thus was concluded one of the longest and most important marches ever made by an organized army in a civilized country.  The distance from Savannah to Goldsboro’ is four hundred and twenty-five miles, and the route traversed embraced five large navigable rivers, viz., the Edisto, Broad, Catawba, Pedee, and Cape Fear, at either of which a comparatively small force, well-handled, should have made the passage most difficult, if not impossible.  The country generally was in a state of nature, with innumerable swamps, with simply mud roads, nearly every mile of which had to be corduroyed.  In our route we had captured Columbia, Cheraw, and Fayetteville, important cities and depots of supplies,