A Stillness at Appomattox (145 page)

"I
hate
to
see
that
old
cuss
around,"
said
the
sergeant
at last.
"When
that
old
cuss
is
around
there's
sure
to
be
a
big fight
on
hand."
⁷

The
sergeant
was
quite
right.
The
old
cuss
had
been growing
impatient
and
he
wanted
action.
Sheridan
had
a
big advantage
over
Early
in
numbers,
and
Grant
believed
that he
ought
to
be
able
to
move
to
the
Valley
Pike
somewhere below
Winchester,
get
south
of
the
Rebel
army,
and
at
last do
what
Grant
had
demanded
two
months
earlier—follow
it to
the
death.
Early
had
his
army
in
position
behind
Opequon Creek,
covering
Winchester,
and
Sheridan
felt
that
it
was going
to
be
hard
to
get
at
him.
Still,
he
had
held
this
command
for
six
weeks
now,
the
shakedown
period
was
about over,
and
it
was
time
for
action.

So
Grant
and
Sheridan
finished
their
talk
and
Grant
went back
to
City
Point,
and
at
two
o'clock
on
the
morning
of September
19
Wilson's
cavalry
trotted
down
to
one
of
the fords
of
the
Opequon,
went
spattering
across
the
shallows, drove
in
the
Rebel
outposts,
and
rode
on
to
feel
the
main Southern
defensive
line,
horse
artillery
banging
away
hard, dismounted
troopers
laying
down
a
sharp
fire
from
repeating carbines.

The
Opequon
fords
lay
perhaps
six
miles
east
of
Winchester
and
the
VI
Corps
came
over
the
water
at
dawn,
the sun
coming
up
behind
their
backs,
dirty
smoke
piling
up
in the
gray
sky
to
the
west.
The
veterans
looked
and
listened, and
one
of
them
wrote
that
they
"heard
that
sound
which
I believe
strikes
a
chill
through
the
bravest
man
that
lives,
and causes
him
to
feel
that
his
heart
is
sinking
down,
down
till it
seems
to
drop
into
his
boots.
I
mean
the
dull
rustling
of air
which
is
hardly
more
than
a
vibration,
but
which
to
the experienced
listener
betokens
artillery
firing
at
a
distance. When
one
expects
soon
to
join
in
the
exercise,
that
signal
is not
inspiriting."
⁸

According
to
Sheridan's
battle
orders
the
VI
Corps
was to
come
up
on
the
heels
of
Wilson's
cavalry,
with
Emory's and
Crook's
men
close
behind
and
the
rest
of
the
cavalry swinging
in
a
half
circle
to
come
down
on
Winchester
from the
north.
Speedy
movement
was
essential.
Early
had
scattered
his
forces,
and
most
of
his
men
were
spread
out
somewhere
between
Winchester
and
Martinsburg.
Perhaps
a third
of
his
infantry,
supported
by
artillery
and
cavalry, was
posted
in
the
lines
east
of
Winchester
covering
the
road from
the
Opequon.
If
that
infantry
force
could
be
smashed quickly,
Early's
troops
north
of
town
could
be
cut
off
and his
army
could
be
destroyed
piecemeal.
So
the
VI
Corps pressed
along
and
the
offensive
was
under
way
at
last.

Unfortunately,
it
was
not
under
way
very
fast.
Orders
had gone
awry
somehow
and
there
was
an
infernal
traffic
tie-up, and
the
army
moved
at
a
crawl.
The
road
led
up
the
length of
a
narrow
valley,
and
in
some
way
the
whole
baggage
and supply
train
of
the
VI
Corps,
which
was
supposed
to
be
sidetracked
east
of
the
creek,
inserted
itself
into
the
line
of march
right
behind
the
leading
infantry
divisions,
with
corps artillery
behind
it
and
all
the
rest
of
the
army
to
follow.
The infantry
column
thus
was
cut
in
half
by
miles
of
slow-moving wagons,
ambulances,
caissons,
battery
forges,
and
other lumbering
vehicles,
and
the
cumbersome
procession
could neither
be
parked
by
the
roadside
nor
turned
around
and sent
back,
because
road
and
valley
were
too
narrow.

The
foot
soldiers
left
the
road
and
tried
to
pass
this
tangle, but
they
found
themselves
scrambling
along
steep
hillsides, through
trees
and
underbrush,
creeping
up
toward
the
fight
at a
rate
not
much
better
than
a
mile
an
hour.
The
slopes
were clogged,
as
a
man
in
the
XIX
Corps
remembered,
with
"the hundreds
of
men
who
belong
to
an
army
but
never
fight— the
cooks,
the
officers'
servants,
the
hospital
gangs,
the quartermaster's
people,
the
"present
sick'
and
the
habitual skulkers'—not
to
mention
various
regiments
of
cavalry
which had
been
told
to
wait
by
the
road
and
let
the
infantry advance.
⁰