War came to North Carolina and their fortunes change. One son, Lorenzo and his business partner join the Hillsborough Orange Guards> Daughter Eliza's husband, Robert Duke, joins the 46th North Carolina and they leave the family.
None of them return. Lorenzo and his business partner die of disease and are buried in Virginia. Robert Duke dies in a Virginia hospital. Son Alphonso also dies from sickness in the spring of 1863.
On a beautiful spring day, April 17, 1865, the remaining Bennetts (daughter Eliza had moved back in with her mother and father) hear hoofbeats coming up the road. A party of riders are approaching with a white flag of truce.
The war has taken her sons, her daughter's husband and wrecked the small degree of prosperity they had enjoyed, and now Union General Sherman and Confederate General Johnston want to use their home to draw up surrender terms.
General Johnston then surrenders the last major Confederate Army in the east to Sherman, and the war for all practical aspects,is over.
Today, their home is a NC State Historical Site.
The War's Effect On Regular Folk. --Old B-Runner
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