Confederate President Jefferson Davis met his General Joseph E. Johnston in Greensboro, North Carolina, while Sherman had stopped in Raleigh.

Robert E. Lee's beleaguered Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Though Davis wished strongly to continue the war, Johnston sent a courier to the Union troops encamped at Morrisville Station, with a message to General Sherman, offering a meeting between the lines to discuss a truce.

The first day's discussion (April 17) was intensified by the telegram Sherman handed to Johnston, informing of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Sherman, in accordance with Lincoln's stated overall wishes for a compassionate and forgiving end to the war, agreed on terms that included the political issues.

James and Nancy Bennett, owners of the meeting place, were simple yeoman farmers who had suffered tremendously during the four years of war.

The Bennett Place State Historic Site now belongs to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and is located in the west end of Durham, near Duke University.

The site is open to the public, Tuesday-Saturday, 9am-5pm, with a visitor center, museum, theater presentation, "Dawn of Peace", research library, gift shop, and the reconstruction of the Bennett farm.

[1] On April 15, 2010, the Bennett Place Historic Site unveiled a new painting by Civil War artist Dan Nance, entitled "The First Meeting".