In central North Carolina, the Cape Fear River is formed at the county line between Chatham and Lee Counties from the merging of the Haw and Deep Rivers. It is a blackwater river, deep and slow in its flow southeast, snaking its way 202 miles until it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Fear. Before Lee County was formed in 1907, however, both banks of the Cape Fear River lay entirely within Chatham County, from its source until the Cape Fear reached Harnett County, where the tips of the three counties of Chatham to the north, Harnett to the east and Moore to the south once met.
Other than a few bridges and power lines now spanning across its banks, not much has changed along the river in Chatham County from 140 years ago. At that time, the area was known as “Big Poplar”. Then as now, both sides of the river were densely wooded with towering pine and sprawling deciduous trees. If floating down the river, you couldn’t see farther but a few yards on either side into the thick, dark forest, where any noise made on the water would have been abruptly deadened.
It was near this remote stretch of the Cape Fear River in March of 1865 where General Sherman rested his troops after the Battle of Bentonville NC, while he rode on to Goldsboro to meet up with additional Union forces before their final push north into Virginia. While North Carolina was spared the complete devastation at the hands of Sherman’s Army suffered by Georgia and South Carolina, local farms and businesses were still raided in order for the Union Army to provide itself with food and provisions. One of the farms raided belonged to Henderson Judd.