Bennett Place in NC holds 100th birthday party for a monument that focuses on national unity stemming from war's largest surrender

The largest surrender during the Civil War occurred at what is now a North Carolina state park. But a granite monument next to reconstructed farm buildings doesn't focus solely on a stinging Southern defeat. Rather, the message is of national unity.

The site manager of Bennett Place State Historic Site near Durham emphasized that point Saturday at a 100^th birthday party for the park and the Unity Monument, which was decorated in festive ribbons for the occasion. (Photo: BPSHS)

“The monument … is a unique in the Civil War world,” Ryan Reed told the crowd minutes before birthday cake was served on a warm and sunny afternoon. “It is unique because it is a monument to peace and not war. It is a monument to both sides.”

The monument has two Corinthian columns, one representing the Confederacy and the other the Union. The lintel across the top of both has the word “UNITY.”

The Rebel surrender in April 1865 occurred after three days of talks between Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at the James Bennett farm. Days before, Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

The lintel includes two American shields (Photo: BPSHS)

Most Americans have no idea that Bennett Place witnessed the real end to the war, not Appomattox.

Negotiations were not without controversy. Initially, Sherman and Johnston’s agreement included political terms that were generous to the South. Officials in Washington, angered over the recent assassination of Lincoln, turned them down in favor of purely military terms.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis had ordered Johnston to dissolve his army into guerrilla bands to continue the fight, but the general, who knew continuing the fight was useless without Lee’s forces, disobeyed the order and signed the revised agreement. His surrender ended the war for nearly 90,000 Confederates in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Johnston and Sherman at the James Bennett farm (Harper's Weekly)

Reed said unlike the carnage at Gettysburg, Antietam and elsewhere, no blood was shed at Bennett Place. “There is big history in a small house.”

The dedication of the Unity Monument in autumn 1923 followed years of neglect of the property by the state and the donation of a few acres by the Samuel Morgan family. The Bennett house where Sherman and Johnston met burned in 1921 – leaving only a stone chimney.

North Carolinians weren’t keen on remembering the war’s end result. But legislators and others thought a sign of unity would make the project possible. Still, the United Daughters of the Confederacy boycotted the dedication because of the defeat. (Interestingly, a UDC chapter helped with Saturday’s event, which drew about 250 people).

According to a state history, the 1923 dedication did indeed focus on national unity and some more contemporary issues.

A reconstructed farm house was erected at the site in the 1960s. Bennett Place became a state historic site a few years later.

Those who drive by or visit the site are drawn to the Unity Monument. The base and monoliths are from Mount Airy, N.C., while the lintel is from Vermont and the copper used for a marker was mined in Montana.

“Done intentionally, 100 years ago, to incorporate materials from all over our nation,” Reed said.