A Stillness at Appomattox (184 page)

Sheridan
did
not
believe
it
should
be
given
any
leeway. His
whole
instinct
was
to
attack
before
anybody
got
six
hours older,
and
he
seems
to
have
feared
that
Meade
would
be content
to
wait
for
Lee
to
start
the
fight.
At
any
rate,
Sheridan
wanted
the
boss;
so
one
of
his
scouts,
dressed
like
a
Confederate
colonel,
took
a
note
which
Sheridan
scribbled
on tissue
paper,
folded
the
tissue
paper
in
tin
foil,
concealed that
in
a
wad
of
leaf
tobacco,
and
shoved
the
tobacco
in
his mouth—after
which
he
went
trotting
off
cross
country
to
find U.
S.
Grant.

Grant
was
with
Ord
that
day,
a
dozen
miles
away,
and the
scout
reached
him
toward
evening,
narrowly
missing getting
shot
by
Ord's
pickets
as
he
came
cantering
in.
So Grant
got
Sheridan's
message,
which
described
the
situation, suggested
that
Lee's
army
might
be
captured,
and
urged Grant
to
come
and
take
charge
in
person.
With
his
staff
and a
small
mounted
escort
Grant
immediately
set
out,
guided by
the
gray-uniformed
scout,
following
rambling
country roads
in
the
dark—with
his
staff
wondering
uneasily
just
what would
happen
to
the
war
if
the
little
party
should
blunder into
the
Confederate
lines
by
mistake.
It
was
late
at
night when
Grant
reached
Sheridan's
tent,
and
nothing
could
be done
with
the
troops
until
morning.
⁸

If
Sheridan
feared
that
Meade
would
sit
down
and
wait for
the
fight
to
be
brought
to
him,
he
was
mistaken.
Meade wanted
to
fight
and
he
started
the
infantry
toward
Amelia Court
House
at
dawn,
but
Lee
was
no
longer
there.
He
had put
his
tired,
half-starved
troops
on
the
road
for
a
night march,
trying
the
last
chance
that
was
left
to
him,
striking due
west
for
the
town
of
Farmville,
on
the
Southside
Rail
road.
When
the
flight
was
discovered
Meade
ordered
pursuit, but
Grant
modified
the
order:
let
part
of
the
infantry
follow in
Lee's
rear,
pressing
him
and
making
him
stand
and
fight whenever
it
could,
but
let
the
rest
follow
the
cavalry
and
get west
as
fast
as
possible,
keeping
always
south
of
the
Confederates.
The
idea
still
was
to
win
a
race,
and
if
they
could plant
infantry
across
Lee's
path
just
once
more
it
would
all be
over.

So
the
foot
race
was
on
again
and
away
they
went,
infantry
and
cavalry
and
the
lumbering
guns.
It
was
April
6,
and
the
Petersburg
break-through
was
four
days
behind them,
and
some
of
the
infantry
units
were
doing
thirty-five miles
a
day
and
more.
In
some
ways
it
was
like
any
other hard
march—woods
and
swamps
and
wispy
fields,
muddy roads
churned
into
quagmire
by
thousands
of
horses,
a
hard pull
on
the
long
hills
and
everybody
too
winded
to
say
much. Yet
now
it
was
all
different,
because
for
all
anyone
knew
the thing
they
had
been
marching
toward
for
four
years
might lie
just
the
other
side
of
the
next
hill.

On
every
side
there
were
multiplying
signs
of
Confederate defeat,
littering
roads
and
fields
like
driftwood
dropped
by an
ebbing
tide:
broken
wagons
and
ambulances,
guns
with broken
wheels,
discarded
muskets
and
blanket
rolls,
stragglers bedded
down
in
fence
corners
or
stumbling
listlessly
through the
woods—and,
every
so
often,
"dropped
in
the
very
middle of
the
road
from
utter
exhaustion,
old
horses
literally
skin and
bones,
and
so
weak
as
scarcely
to
be
able
to
lift
their heads
when
some
soldier
would
touch
them
with
his
foot
to see
if
they
really
had
life."
Every
regiment
had
its
congenital pessimists,
as
one
soldier
confessed,
men
who
fought
well
but who
always
darkly
prophesied
ultimate
Rebel
victory;
but now,
this
man
said,
"the
utter
collapse
of
the
rebellion
was so
near
that
no
one
could
fail
to
see
it,
and
the
croakers were
compelled
to
cheer
in
spite
of
themselves."
⁹

Humphreys
was
driving
the
II
Corps
in
on
Lee's
rear guard,
and
the
day
was
a
long
succession
of
savage
little
fights wherever
the
Confederates
could
find
a
defensive
vantage point.
On
other
roads
the
other
corps
struggled
to
gain ground,
and
up
ahead
and
along
the
way
there
was
the cavalry—always
the
cavalry,
with
Sheridan
sending
galloping
columns
in
to
skirmish,
wheel,
and
dash
away
again, forcing
weary
Southerners
to
halt,
form
line
of
battle,
and then
go
on
with
their
march.
He
had
three
divisions
doing this,
probing
always
for
a
weak
spot,
slowing
down
the enemy's
march,
relentless
and
seemingly
tireless.
In
mid-afternoon
he
found,
at
last,
the
opening
he
was
looking
for.