Bennett Place, scene of the largest Confederate surrender of the Civil War, observes the 147th anniversary of that event this weekend along with its own 50th anniversary as a state historic site.

For the occasion, a population of reenactors moves onto the 30-acre site at Neal and Bennett Memorial roads in western Durham, off U.S. 70 West. Along with Confederate and Union soldiers, there will be civilian refugees, a field hospital, Confederate postmaster, a traveling photographer and the Bennitt (as the name was spelled in the 1860s).

Also, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Union Gen. William T. Sherman, whose negotiations at the Bennitt farmhouse in April 1865 led to the end of hostilities in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida and 80,000 Southern troops laying down their arms and going home in peace.

Conventional wisdom and popular history has long set the Civil War’s end at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

In fact, Lee surrendered only his personal command, the 28,000-man Army of Northern Virginia. Confederate armies remained active in the field from North Carolina to Texas. Of those, the largest was Gen. Johnston’s command, which had been attempting to block Gen. Sherman’s northward advance across the Carolinas toward Virginia.

A week after Appomattox, Sherman and Johnston agreed to discuss terms for a ceasefire. They met on April 17 at the farmhouse of James and Nancy Bennett on the road between Hillsborough and Durham’s Station. for their negotiations.

Nine days later, April 26, Johnston surrendered his command, soothing fears on both sides of a civil conflict that could go on indefinitely.

In 1884, newsman Hiram Paul began writing a history of Durham. Paul heard the story of the Bennett Place surrender but also found that many people in the booming town considered it a fable. To determine the facts, he drove out to the Bennett farm and found the Bennetts’ daughter, Eliza, who signed an affidavit confirming the story, with which Paul began his book.

Some years later, the Bennett house came into the hands of Brodie Duke, eldest son of tobacco tycoon Washington Duke and a relative by marriage to the Bennetts. Duke had ideas of making the house a visitors’ attraction; even of exhibiting it at the Chicago Exposition of 1893. Duke did go as far as building a shed over the house to protect it from the elements, but he never followed through on his larger plans, and sold the land to businessman Samuel Tate Morgan.

Morgan was also interested in preserving Bennett Place as a historic site. He died in 1920, and the farm buildings burned in 1921, but Durham legislators R.O. Everett and Frank Fuller were enthusiastic about the site. With their effort, the state created a Bennett Place commission and committed to maintain the site if Morgan’s heirs donated the property and money for an appropriate memorial.

The memorial, twin columns supporting a lintel with the word “Unity,” was unveiled in November 1923. But the site and its role in history remained, off the beaten track and largely forgotten by history. In 1959, though, with the Civil War centennial approaching, local donors paid to have the site’s fire-damaged buildings restored, using old photos and 1865 Harper’s Magazine illustrations to ensure accuracy.

On April 29, 1962, Bennett Place became part of the state Historic Sites program, providing for its maintenance and eventual development by the state government.

That event was celebrated by an elaborate program of music and speeches – but, due to torrential rain, festivities were moved from the site itself to the Durham Armory downtown. A tradition was already established of commemorating the Johnston surrender each April, and then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the site’s special guest for the 100th anniversary in 1965.