The battle of Bentonville was the Confederacy's last desperate attempt to stop the devastating march of William Tecumseh Sherman's army north through the Carolinas.

Nathaniel Hughes offers a comprehensive tactical study of this important battle, which involved an unusually high percentage of senior officers. In careful detail, he lays out the movement of Confederate and Union troops from South Carolina across the state line to Fayetteville and on to Goldsboro. Placing the battle within the larger military framework of the last months of the war, Hughes analyzes why initial success turned to failure for Johnston's offensive.

Based on letters, diaries, and official documents, the book explores the experience of this final battle for the soldiers and officers fighting it. Hughes also assesses the performances of Union and Confederate commanders and includes biographical vignettes of several of them, including Braxton Bragg, William J. Hardee, D. H. Hill, Oliver O. Howard, and Henry W. Slocum.