sentences:  Late in the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman and his army began to push their way toward Robeson County as they headed north.After hearing of the Union Army's burning of Columbia, South Carolina on February 17, 1865, residents of Robeson County worried about the troops' advance.Washington Sandford Chaffin, a Methodist minister in Lumberton speculated in his diary about how the county might be treated by Sherman and his Yankees.