Gen. William T. Sherman arrived in Fayetteville on a dreary day and in a foul mood.
That mood was not improved when reports reached him that the Clarendon Bridge, the only structure across the Cape Fear River for miles, had burned. While a replacement was stretched over the rain-swollen river, Sherman and his army would call Fayetteville home.
For five woeful days in March 1865, Fayetteville became the most populous city between Richmond, Virginia, and New Orleans. It was a week punctuated with violence and explosions and the smells of burning buildings and rotting horses.
This week, Fayetteville remembers the 150th anniversary of the days, and the man, that changed the city.
“Sherman stayed in Fayetteville for only a few days,” North Carolina historian Jim Leutze said. “But the effect lingered for decades.”
Fayetteville in 1865 was North Carolina’s “second city” to Raleigh. It was a business center of about 4,000 people and the most inland port in the state.
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