A Stillness at Appomattox (169 page)

So
Lincoln
and
Grant
and
Sherman
had
their
talk
and agreed
that
it
must
be
tried,
and
at
one
point
there
was
a faint,
ironic
echo
from
the
days
of
McClellan,
forever
critical of
Washington.
This
came
when
Lincoln
abruptly
asked Sherman:

"Sherman,
do
you
know
why
I
took
a
shine
to
Grant and
you?"

Sherman
confessed
that
he
did
not
know,
and
he
added that
he
had
received
from
the
President
kindness
beyond his
due.

"Well"
said
Lincoln,
"you
never
found
fault
with
me."
⁰
Back
to
North
Carolina
and
his
restless,
destructive
army went
Sherman,
and
as
he
went
out
Sheridan's
cavalry
came in,
Phil
Sheridan
at
its
head,
and
the
Army
of
the
Potomac was
ready
to
begin
its
last
campaign.

Sheridan
and
his
cavalry
had
wintered
near
Winchester, and
as
February
ended
they
moved
up
the
Valley
to
Staunton, two
divisions
of
veteran
mounted
troops,
9,400
officers
and men.
The
weather
was
vile,
rain
on
the
mountains
and
slush on
the
roads,
every
little
stream
over
its
banks,
mud
on
everything,
the
burnt-out
region
looking
more
Godforsaken
than ever.
At
Staunton,
Sheridan
learned
that
Early
and
a
pitiful remnant
of
an
army
were
entrenched
on
a
knoll
near
Waynesboro,
by
the
western
entrance
to
Rockfish
Gap,
and
he
rode over
there
to
get
them.
His
men
came
into
Waynesboro through
a
two-day
rain,
men
and
horses
all
dripping
and plastered
with
mud,
and
Sheridan
sent
Custer's
division
up to
obliterate
the
last
Confederate
force
in
the
Shenandoah Valley.

Custer
dismounted
most
of
his
men
and
attacked
Early's flanks
with
carbines
sputtering,
and
then
he
took
the
8th New
York
and
1st
Connecticut
and
drove
them
straight
in
on the
middle
of
the
line,
charging
in
a
galloping
column
of fours,
bugles
sounding
in
the
raw
March
air.
Straight
over the
breastworks
went
the
mounted
squadrons,
and
the
flankers broke
in
the
ends
of
Early's
line,
and
all
resistance
collapsed, while
the
mounted
men
rode
hard
through
the
town
of Waynesboro,
sabering
fugitives
on
the
streets.
Early
and some
of
his
officers
and
the
merest
handful
of
men
hid
out
in friendly
houses
and
escaped.
When
the
fighting
ended
Sheridan
counted
1,600
prisoners,
11
guns,
200
loaded
wagons, and
nearly
a
score
of
battle
flags.
¹⁰

Prisoners,
guns,
and
wagons
he
sent
back
down
the Valley,
with
a
mounted
brigade
for
escort.
The
battle
flags
he took
with
him,
and
as
he
rode
into
the
Petersburg
lines
his band
of
scouts
came
cantering
at
his
heels
proudly
bearing these
trophies
¹¹
—and
if
the
North
wanted
a
soldier
who knew
how
to
wear
a
conqueror's
pride,
perhaps
Sheridan
was the
man
for
it.
The
Valley
was
dead,
and
Lee's
army
was half
immobilized
because
the
forage
for
cavalry
and
artillery horses
that
used
to
come
from
there
was
no
longer
available. Grant
pulled
the
cavalry
around
to
the
extreme
left
of
the long
Union
line
and
made
ready
to
destroy
the
Army
of Northern
Virginia.

As
always,
that
army
was
dangerous.
Month
after
month
it had
been
perfecting
its
defenses—raising
parapets,
digging deep
ditches,
mounting
new
guns
and
mortars,
building double
and
triple
lines
of
abatis,
tying
everything
together with
a
crisscross
of
support
and
approach
trenches—and when
these
lines
were
properly
manned
it
was
quite
impossible
to
carry
them
by
assault.
But
Lee
had
come
to
the
end of
his
resources,
and
his
lines
were
stretched
to
the
very limit.
His
right
flank
rested
along
the
marshy
banks
of
a
little stream
called
Hatcher's
Run,
eight
or
nine
miles
southwest of
Petersburg
in
an
air
line,
substantially
farther
by
road. Grant's
plan
now
was
to
send
a
strong
force
prowling
around that
flank.
The
chance
was
good
that
this
would
either
induce Lee
to
pull
his
army
out
in
the
open
for
a
finish
fight—which Grant
had
vainly
been
trying
to
bring
about
for
ten
months— or
compel
him
to
stretch
his
thin
line
until
it
snapped.

There
remained
to
the
Confederates
in
Petersburg
one vital
railway
line—the
Southside
Railroad,
which
ran
west from
Petersburg
to
Lynchburg,
crossing
the
Richmond
and Danville
line
at
the
junction
town
of
Burkeville,
fifty
miles west
of
Petersburg.
The
Petersburg
end
of
this
line
ran
only a
few
miles
in
rear
of
Lee's
outposts
at
Hatcher's
Run,
and a
blow
past
the
flank
which
broke
the
Southside
Railroad would
break
Lee's
principal
supply
line
and
force
him
to retreat.