The war dragged on in the North Carolina mountains for the cavalry division, regardless of the cessation of hostilities by the major armies. Gillem had begun his trek to Asheville, only to find a bridge over the Catawba River, a couple of miles east of Morganton, blocked by Rebels. About 50 men under Maj. Gen. John McCown, not the 300 men that the Federals had estimated, were waiting at the crossing with one artillery piece. As the two Union brigades approached the river, they met with a continuous and effective fire which prevented their efforts to cross. To avoid useless casualties, Gillem sent a small detachment to outflank the Confederates and cross about two miles upriver. A battery of artillery was then dismounted and placed in a strategic position to bombard the Confederate gun.

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Just as the flanking movement began to unnerve the Rebels, the Union battery opened fire. The first shot missed, but the veteran gunners readjusted. The second shot slammed home, breaking the axle on the Confederate gun’s caisson. With their enemy now bereft of artillery cover, the dismounted cavalry troops charged their enemy. It was only a few minutes until the Rebels had been ousted from their rifle pits and the road lay open. Morganton and its supplies of corn and bacon were soon in Federal hands.

As Gillem continued to pound away at them, the Confederates kept trying to scrape together what they could to defend their homes. Brigadier General James G. Martin, a Petersburg veteran, was the commander of the District of Western North Carolina. When he learned that Federal cavalry was headed for Asheville, he moved his command–one brigade and one regiment–to the land around Swannanoa Gap, placing his regiment in the gap itself to defend Asheville.

Gillem reached Swannanoa Gap on April 20 and found it to be effectually blockaded by about 500 men with four pieces of artillery. Once again, Gillem used the tactic that had successfully carried the command through the Confederate homeland. He ordered Miller to remain at the gap and ‘deceive the enemy by feints’ while he took a detachment to outflank the Rebel right. The flanking movement, due to the mountainous terrain, had to be an extremely wide one. The Federals rode hard. On April 21, Gillem reached Rutherford, 40 miles south of Swannanoa Gap. By dusk of April 22, the Federals had fought through only’slight resistance’ to cross the Blue Ridge at Howard’s Gap. Gillem now lay squarely in the Confederate rear.

The veteran General Martin had not been deceived. He ordered his lone brigade to meet the Federals at Howard’s Gap and repulse them. On April 22, however, news of Johnston’s surrender to Sherman finally filtered to the Confederates. On the basis of this news, Martin’s men refused to obey his order to stand and fight. Gillem, therefore, met only slight resistance at Howard’s Gap, when he could have faced a force equal to his own. Fortune was smiling on the Federal cause.

With Swannanoa Gap in Federal hands, Gillem continued his march on Asheville. At daylight on April 23, Gillem’s advance entered Hendersonville. There he received information that some Confederate troops and artillery had been waiting for him in the town the day before, but had retired toward Asheville. Gillem detached the 11th Kentucky Cavalry, with the 11th Michigan in support, to ‘pursue, attack, and capture’ the enemy force ‘at all hazards.’ By noon the Union detachment had found the Confederates, seizing four artillery pieces and 70 men. The Federals had become the masters of the countryside.

Early in the afternoon, the cavalry division left Hendersonville to cover the remaining distance to Asheville. After three hours of riding, the Union troops halted their horses as a few Confederates presented Gillem a flag of truce. Martin had sent word from his headquarters in Asheville that he had received official notification of the truce. As a result, a meeting between Gillem and Martin was arranged for the morning of April 24 to discuss surrender terms.

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