After Sherman's devastating March to the Sea and his subsequent push north through the Carolinas, the war's end was approaching but not yet settled. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis still wished to fight on. General Johnston, however, recognized the futility. He sent a courier from Greensboro to Union troops encamped at Morrisville Station, proposing a meeting. Johnston rode east along the Hillsborough Road toward Durham Station with an escort of about 60 troopers from the 5th South Carolina Cavalry. Sherman rode west with 200 men from the 9th and 13th Pennsylvania, 8th Indiana, and 2nd Kentucky Cavalry. They needed a private place to talk, and the Bennett farmhouse, sitting along the road between the two forces, offered exactly that.

The first meeting on April 17 was shaped by Lincoln's assassination. The next day, April 18, the two generals signed terms of surrender. But Sherman, honoring what he understood to be Lincoln's wish for a compassionate peace, had agreed to far more than a military surrender. Johnston, joined by General John C. Breckinridge who also served as the Confederate Secretary of War, had pushed for political terms: the reestablishment of state governments, the return of weapons to state arsenals, and guarantees of civil rights after the war. Sherman did not know that on March 3, Lincoln had instructed Grant to discuss only military matters with Lee. When the terms reached Washington, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton persuaded a unanimous Federal cabinet to reject them. Grant himself traveled south to deliver the news: Sherman would have to try again.

When Jefferson Davis learned the original terms had been rejected, he ordered Johnston to disband his infantry and escape south with his mounted troops to continue the fight. Johnston refused. He recognized that more bloodshed would accomplish nothing, and he agreed to meet Sherman again at the Bennett farmhouse on April 26, 1865. This time, with the assistance of General John M. Schofield, they hammered out strictly military terms substantially identical to what Grant had given Lee at Appomattox, supplemented by provisions for rations and safe passage home for paroled soldiers. The agreement disbanded all active Confederate forces across four states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The total came to 89,270 soldiers, the single largest surrender of the entire Civil War. Three smaller surrenders would follow in Citronelle, Alabama; Galveston, Texas; and Doaksville, Oklahoma.

James and Nancy Bennett paid a steep personal price for the conflict that ended in their parlor. Their son Lorenzo served in the 27th North Carolina and was buried in Winchester, Virginia. Their daughter Eliza's husband, Robert Duke, died in a Confederate Army hospital and was interred in Lynchburg, Virginia. A third child, Alfonzo, died during the war years in 1864, though not in combat. The Bennetts never fully recovered. When James died in 1878, the family abandoned the farm and moved to the growing community of Durham. The farmhouse fell into ruin. A fire destroyed what remained in 1921. Two years later, a Unity Monument was dedicated on the site, marking the spot where enemies had chosen peace over continued destruction.

In 1960, local preservationists fully reclaimed the site, reconstructing the farmhouse as a two-story log structure covered by weatherboards with a gable roof and shed addition, along with a log kitchen and smokehouse. The State of North Carolina took ownership and designated it a state historic site. Today Bennett Place sits in the west end of Durham, near Duke University, operated by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. A visitor center, museum, and theater presentation called "Dawn of Peace" tell the story. Living history programs and annual commemorations of the surrender keep the memory alive. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. In 2010, the historic site unveiled a painting by Civil War artist Dan Nance entitled "The First Meeting," and established the William Vatavuk Scholarship for students planning to study history in college.