By March 1865, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s strategy of attacking the Confederacy on all fronts was beginning to succeed. The 9th New Jersey had landed on the coast of North Carolina, as it had done earlier in the war. But this time they were fighting inland to lock up with the forces of Gen. William T. Sherman, who had completed his “March to the Sea” and turned north to take vengeance on South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union.