Regret That Bennett House, Where Gen. Johnston Surrendered to Gen. Sherman, Has Burned, Oct. 20, 1921

Historic House Burned. . . The Bennett House Near Durham Where Johnston Surrendered to Sherman Is Burned

The Durham Herald is voicing the lament of the State over obliteration by fire of a little log structure which should have been preserved as a relic of great historical value. It was the cabin known as “the Bennett House,” located on the Hillsboro Road. It was in this cabin that Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the last 40,000 Confederates east of the Mississippi to Gen. William T. Sherman, on the morning of April 18, 1865. The incidents of that surrender are familiar to all students of Southern history and the indifference on part of our people to the preservation of the house in which it occurred is now a matter of vain regret. It is the reproachful observation of The Herald that “the one thing that will not soon be forgotten, and cannot soon be forgotten, is the fact that the people of Durham had in their possession a most precious memorial of that reunion and rebirth in the old Bennett House, and the people of Durham let it burn up.” But incidentally it is revealed that through the foresight of Professor Boyd, the table upon which the articles of agreement between Johnston and Sherman were written and signed, “and the old bottle from which victor and vanquished drank their first toast together to the new South,” were removed and given safe repository in the Historical Museum at Trinity College. This indifference to the value of safeguarding institutions had graphic illustration in Charlotte a dozen or more years ago when, in order to get rid of an “eye sore,” the building which was occupied by Cornwallis as Revolutionary headquarters during his stay in Charlotte was sold for a song, moved a mile or two into the country and converted into a barn, where a couple of years later, it went up in smoke. In the first edition of The Sketches of Charlotte there was printed a photograph of the historic structure, and that is all the town has to show for it. We can tell the visitors that Cornwallis once had headquarters in charlotte and in proof can point out the spot the house occupied. Now, at least, Durham can mark the site of the Bennett House with a monument, as Charlotte has marked the site of the Cornwallis’ headquarters with a tablet.

From the Charlotte Observer, as reprinted on the front page of The Alamance Gleaner, Graham, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 20, 1921