A Stillness at Appomattox (132 page)

Technically,
Hunter
commanded
the
military
department in
which
all
of
these
troop
movements
were
going
on,
and
so technically
he
was
responsible
for
everything
that
was
being done.
Grant
had
no
intention
of
letting
Hunter
have
control over
the
attempt
to
destroy
Early's
army
but
he
was
quite willing
to
let
him
down
easy.
Hunter
could
shelve
himself
in a
Baltimore
office
if
he
wished,
retaining
nominal
command of
the
department
while
Sheridan
did
the
actual
work,
and Grant
told
Hunter
this
in
so
many
words.
But
Hunter
had
had enough.
He
was
getting
on
in
years
and
he
was
not
much of
a
soldier,
and
there
was
something
mean
in
him
which
had led
him
to
burn
college
buildings
and
homes
when
he
should have
been
fighting
Confederate
armies,
but
during
the
last fortnight
he
had
been
more
sinned
against
than
sinning.
He told
Grant
frankly
that
he
had
been
pulled
and
tugged
around so
much
by
War
Department
orders
that
at
this
moment
he simply
did
not
know
where
Early
and
Early's
troops
were— and,
in
short,
he
would
prefer
to
be
relieved
outright
and let
Sheridan
carry
the
whole
load.

Grant
wasted
no
further
time.
"Very
well,
then,"
he
said. Hunter
was
relieved,
and
without
even
waiting
for
Sheridan to
arrive
Grant
ordered
all
of
the
Union
troops
in
the
vicinity to
move
at
once
to
Halltown,
a
little
village
at
the
lower end
of
the
Shenandoah
Valley
a
few
miles
away
from
Harper's
Ferry.
No
matter
where
Early
was,
a
concentration
of Federal
soldiers
in
the
Shenandoah
was
something
the
Confederacy
could
not
endure.
Early
would
come
back
quickly enough,
once
blue-uniformed
troops
displayed
themselves
in force
around
Halltown.
²⁴

Sheridan
reached
Monocacy
Junction
the
next
morning, after
most
of
the
troops
had
moved.
Grant
met
him,
outlined the
job
he
wanted
done,
and
took
off
for
City
Point,
with very
few
people
knowing
that
he
had
ever
left
the
place, and
Sheridan
took
a
one-car
special
train
for
Harper's
Ferry and
rode
from
there
to
Halltown
to
take
over
his
new
command.
There
was
a
great
deal
of
work
to
be
done
and
it
was going
to
take
Sheridan
a
month
or
more
to
get
acclimated and
learn
how
to
do
what
he
had
to
do,
but
from
now
on the
road
led
upward.
This
was
the
beginning
of
the
end.

2.
To Peel This Land

There
may
be
lovelier
country
somewhere—in
the
Island Vale
of
Avalon,
at
a
gamble—but
when
the
sunlight
lies
upon it
and
the
wind
puts
white
clouds
racing
their
shadows
the Shenandoah
Valley
is
as
good
as
anything
America
can
show. Many
generations
ago
the
Knights
of
the
Golden
Horseshoe climbed
the
Blue
Ridge
to
look
down
on
it
in
wonder,
and ever
since
then
it
has
been
a
legend
and
the
fulfillment
of
a promise.
There
is
music
in
its
very
name,
and
some
quality
in the
region
touched
the
imaginations
of
men
who
had
never even
seen
it.
The
sailors
on
deep
water
sailing
ships
made one
of
their
finest
chanteys
about
it,
and
sent
topsail
yards creaking
to
the
masthead
in
ports
all
over
the
world
to
the tune
of
"Shenandore":

O
Shenandore,

I
love
to
hear
you

— Away,
you
rolling
river.

During
the
war
it
was
known
simply
as
the
Valley:
an
open corridor
slanting
off
to
the
southwest
from
the
gap
at
Harper's Ferry,
broad
land
lying
between
blue
mountains
with
the bright
mirror
of
a
looped
river
going
among
golden
fields
and dark
woodlands,
pleasant
towns
linked
along
a
broad
undulating
turnpike
and
rich
farms
rolling
away
to
the
rising
hills.

Queerly
enough,
although
it
had
been
a
vital
factor
in
the war,
in
a
way
the
war
had
hardly
touched
it.
Stonewall Jackson
had
made
it
a
theater
of
high
strategy,
and
there
had been
hard
fighting
along
the
historic
turnpike
and
near
quaint villages
like
Front
Royal
and
Port
Republic,
and
most
of the
fence
rails
on
farms
near
the
main
highway
had
long since
vanished
to
build
the
campfires
of
soldiers
in
blue
and gray.
Yet
even
in
the
summer
of
1864
the
land
bore
few scars.
East
of
the
Blue
Ridge
and
the
Bull
Run
mountains the
country
along
the
Orange
and
Alexandria
Railroad
had
been
marched
over
and
fought
over
and
ravaged
mercilessly, and
it
was
a
desolate
waste
picked
clean
of
everything
an army
might
want
or
a
farmer
could
use.
But
the
Valley
had escaped
most
of
this,
and
when
Phil
Sheridan
got
there
it was
much
as
it
had
always
been—rich,
sunny,
peaceful,
a land
of
good
farms
and
big
barns,
yellow
grain
growing
beside
green
pastures,
lazy
herds
of
sheep
and
cattle
feeding
on the
slopes.