A Stillness at Appomattox (19 page)

This
was
mean
country
for
a
moving
line
of
battle.
One hundred
feet
from
the
Turnpike
a
man
lost
sight
of
the road
entirely,
and
there
seemed
to
be
no
other
landmarks whatever.
No
regiment
could
see
the
troops
on
its
right
or left
unless
an
almost
literal
elbow-to-elbow
contact
was
maintained,
and
no
general
could
see
more
than
a
small
fraction of
his
troops,
or
control
them
except
by
sending
aides
and couriers
stumbling
off
through
the
woods—amid
which,
in most
stretches,
it
was
quite
impossible
to
ride
a
horse.
The going
was
tough,
with
scrubby
thickets
and
clumps
of
saplings
breaking
the
lines
apart
and
all
manner
of
tangled
dry stuff
underfoot,
but
the
men
struggled
along
and
by
and
by they
heard
scattering
shots
from
the
skirmishers
in
the
woods ahead.

They
overtook
their
skirmish
line,
at
last,
and
there
seemed to
be
a
substantial
number
of
Confederates
in
front
of
them. The
firing
grew
heavier,
and
it
turned
into
regular
volley firing,
and
a
rank
fog
came
in
as
the
battle
smoke
was
trapped under
the
low
branches.
To
right
and
left
and
in
front
the dark
woodland
began
to
glow
fitfully
with
savage,
pulsating spurts
of
reddish
light.

Keeping
their
formation
as
well
as
they
could,
the
men stumbled
on.
They
could
see
nothing
of
what
lay
in
front
of them,
but
the
firing
grew
heavier
every
minute.
The
Rebels obviously
meant
to
make
a
regular
fight
of
it;
the
firing
line was
a
mile
wide,
and
everyone
was
shooting
desperately into
a
gloom
where
moving
figures
were
glimpsed
only
at rare
intervals.
Griffin
wheeled
his
two
guns
a
little
farther along
the
road—there
was
no
way
to
get
them
off
into
the woods
because
nothing
on
wheels
could
possibly
leave
the highway—and
they
fired
straight
down
the
Turnpike,
and what
had
begun
as
an
affair
of
the
skirmishers
developed into
a
full-dress
battle.

Griffin
sent
men
back
with
the
news.
It
was
very
hard for
him
to
tell
what
was
going
on
more
than
a
few
rods
from where
he
stood,
but
it
seemed
obvious
that
he
had
had
a head-on
collision
with
a
Rebel
assaulting
column
fully
as big
as
his
own,
and
the
high
command
had
better
know about
it
right
away.
Meade
got
the
word
in
his
headquarters
m
a
field
near
Wilderness
Tavern,
and
it
seemed
to
him
that Lee
must
have
left
a
rear
guard
here
to
hold
the
road
while he
took
his
main
army
farther
south.
He
prepared
to
get other
troops
up
to
help
Griffin
push
the
rear
guard
out
of
the

way,
and
he
sent
an
officer
spurring
back
toward
Germanna Ford
to
tell
Grant
about
it.
¹¹

In
a
few
minutes
Grant
came
up.
He
talked
with
Meade and
Warren,
and
listened
to
the
firing,
which
kept
getting heavier
and
heavier,
and
word
was
sent
out
to
stop
the movement
south:
if
Lee
really
wanted
to
fight
here
the
whole Army
of
the
Potomac
would
accommodate
him.
Sedgwick had
better
bring
his
men
up
as
fast
as
he
could
and
Hancock
must
start
back
from
his
thrust
below
the
Plank
Road.

Grant's
people
pitched
his
headquarters
tents
in
a
little meadow
in
the
southwest
angle
of
the
crossroads
and
Grant liimself
rode
up
on
a
knoll
just
south
of
this
meadow.
He dismounted,
sat
on
a
stump,
lighted
a
cigar,
drew
out
a pocketknife,
picked
up
a
twig,
and
began
to
whittle.
A
staff officer
remembered
that
Grant
was
all
dressed
up
this
morning,
wearing
his
best
uniform
with
the
frock
coat
unbuttoned, a
sash
about
his
waist,
sword
at
his
side;
he
was
wearing tan
cotton-thread
gloves
which
he
forgot
to
remove,
and
his work
with
the
twigs
and
the
pocketknife
began
to
snag
the fingertips
of
these
gloves
and
before
long
they
were
ruined.
¹²
Grant
was
sitting
here
quietly,
wlnttling
like
a
Yankee,
and as
he
smoked
without
ceasing
he
issued
the
orders
that
would feed
more
and
more
troops
into
this
fight.

The
fight
kept
growing
bigger.
Griffin's
men
were
advancing
but
it
was
very
slow
going,
and
as
the
rising
wind whipped
wisps
and
streamers
of
powder
smoke
through
the treetops
the
advance
came
to
a
halt.
The
Confederates
were being
reinforced,
although
hardly
any
of
the
Federals
had seen
any
of
them.
They
knew
of
their
presence
only
as
the firing
grew
stronger,
and
as
bursts
of
rifle
fire
came
from farther
and
farther
to
the
right
and
left.