General [Thomas L.] Clingman
“After
the battle of Bentonville, General [Joseph E.] Johnston retired his
army to Smithfield, where he remained confronting [the enemy] for three
weeks. While here General Johnston held a review 6 April, at which many
ladies and civilians of Raleigh, including Governor Vance and officers
of the State and Confederate Government were present. The army presented
a fine appearance and the men were in excellent spirits.
There
were in this army remnants of commands who under Albert Sidney Johnston
won the first day’s battle of Shiloh, and nearly annihilated Grant’s
army. Men who under Bragg, had won the battles of Murfreesboro and
Chickamauga, and under Johnston had confronted Sherman from Dalton to
Atlanta; the men who under Hood, had been in the disastrous battle of
Franklin; who had followed [Generals Nathan Bedford] Forrest and [Joe]
Wheeler and [Wade] Hampton and had successfully defended Fort Sumter for
four years against the combined land and sea forces of the United
States, and the brigades of [General Robert F.] Hoke’s Division, who had
won endearing renown in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Here
also were assembled those regiments of Junior Reserves, who under
Colonels Hinsdale, Anderson, Broadfoot and Walter Clark emulated the
heroism of their veteran comrades, and who on the battlefields of
Kinston and Bentonville had shown they were of the same [mettle] as
their sires and deserving of imperishable record in the history of their
country.
It
was a splendid body of American soldiers; survivors of a hundred
battlefields; and as they marched proudly in review before their
General, they were conscious of duty nobly done and nerved for any
future service that might be required of them in defence of their
country.
General [Thomas L.] Clingman visited his brigade while in camp at Smithfield,
and though on crutches, asked of General Johnston the honor of
commanding the rear guard. This was denied him, as he was physically
unable to perform such duty, and he addressed the Southern commander as
follows:
“Sir,
much has been said about dying in the last ditch. You have left with
you here thirty thousand of as brave men as the sun ever shone upon. Let
us take our stand here and fight the two armies of Grant and Sherman to
the end, and thus show to the world how far we can surpass the
Thermopylae of the Greeks.”
(Histories
of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the
Great War 1861-65, Walter Clark, editor, Volume IV, Nash Brothers, 1901,
pp. 498-499) http://www.ncwbts150.com/AtWarBattlegroundsHomefront.php
The North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
“Smithfield Review of Splendid American Soldiers”
