A Stillness at Appomattox (20 page)

The
smoke
intensified
the
forest
gloom
and
made
it
opaque. Splinters
and
tiny
branches
came
down
as
the
bullets
clipped through
the
trees,
and
only
in
the
rare
clearings
could
any man
get
a
glimpse
of
his
enemies.
A
Maine
regiment
came up
to
a
little
field,
and
the
bullets
were
hitting
the
dried
soil and
raising
little
spurts
of
dust
as
if
the
first
big
drops
of
a heavy
rain
were
falling.
¹³
The
dry
underbrush
and
matted duff
underfoot
began
to
take
fire,
here
and
there,
so
that malicious
little
flames
ran
along
the
battleground.

It
was
like
fighting
blindfolded.
Here
they
were,
in
a woodland
so
dense
that
even
in
peacetime
maneuvers
a
division
would
have
been
unable
to
keep
its
alignment;
now there
did
not
seem
to
be
any
alignment
at
all,
and
what
was supposed
to
be
a
battle
line
was
nothing
more
than
a
sprawling,
invisible
series
of
groups
and
individuals,
each
one
firing
into
the
woods
and
the
smoke
as
if
it
was
the
Wilderness itself
that
was
the
enemy
and
not
the
men
in
it.
A
company or
a
regiment
would
crouch
in
the
underbrush
and
fire
manfully,
taking
losses
but
holding
firm;
then
a
sudden
swell
of firing
would
be
heard
off
to
one
side
or
toward
the
rear,
and for
all
anyone
knew
the
rest
of
the
army
had
run
away
and the
Rebels
were
taking
over,
and
men
would
begin
to
retreat,
firing
as
they
went,
looking
for
some
place
where
they could
feel
that
they
were
part
of
an
ordered
line.

The
battalions
of
Regulars
in
Griffin's
division
were
ordered
forward,
and
they
found
the
undergrowth
all
but
literally
impassable.
One
company
commander
reported
afterward
that
in
order
to
get
forward
at
all
he
had
to
hack through
the
vines,
creepers,
and
bushes,
breaking
a
trail
so that
his
company
could
follow
in
single
file.
When
a
more open
space
was
reached
the
men
would
form
company
front, but
in
a
few
moments
they
would
have
to
return
to
single file.
Inevitably,
men
lost
touch
with
their
comrades,
whole regiments
disintegrated,
and
scores
of
men
blundered
into the
Confederate
lines
and
were
made
prisoner.
There
were regiments
which
could
not
even
learn
the
direction
from
which the
musketry
that
was
destroying
them
was
coming.
Nothing whatever
could
be
seen
but
trees
and
brush
and
blinding smoke.
As
one
man
said,
it
was
"a
battle
of
invisibles
with invisibles."
¹⁴

So
the
line
crumbled
and
came
back,
and
the
wild
noise of
battle
was
a
high-pitched,
nerve-racking
tumult,
and
at last
Griffin
found
his
men
back
where
they
had
started
from, Rebels
on
both
flanks
and
things
getting
worse
instead
of better.
Griffin
knew
that
some
of
Sedgwick's
men
had
been ordered
up
on
his
right
and
some
of
Warren's
men
on
his left,
but
they
seemed
to
have
gone
astray
somewhere
and
as far
as
he
could
learn
his
division
was
all
alone.
He
got
his line
stabilized
somehow,
and
put
his
men
to
work
improvising
breastworks,
and
then
he
went
back
to
headquarters,
an angry
man
all
fuming.
He
galloped
up
to
Meade
on
the knoll
where
Grant
was
whittling
and
he
threw
himself
from his
horse
and
bitterly
denounced
the
generals
who
were
supposed
to
be
helping
him
but
whose
troops
were
not
appearing.

GrifBn
swore
and
shouted
and
then
hurried
back
to
his troops.
Grant
had
heard
him,
and
he
was
not
used
to
brigadiers
who
publicly
and
profanely
denounced
their
superiors, and
as
GrifBn
stormed
off
Grant—who
somehow
had
not
quite caught
his
name—went
over
to
Meade
and
asked:
"Who
is this
General
Gregg?
You
ought
to
put
him
under
arrest
'

For
once
in
his
life
Meade
was
calm
and
not
irascible.
He stood
facing
Grant,
towering
head
and
shoulders
over
him, and
he
murmured
gently:
"His
name's
Griffi
n,
not
Gregg,
and that's
only
his
way
of
talking";
and
as
he
spoke
he
leaned forward
and
buttoned
up
Grant's
uniform
coat
for
him,
for all
the
world
like
a
kindly
father
getting
his
son
ready
for school.
¹⁵
Then
Grant
went
back
to
his
stump
and
his
twigs and
his
cigars,
and
couriers
dashed
off
with
orders,
and
in the
trackless
forest
the
support
troops
shouldered
their
muskets
and
tried
to
go
forward
through
the
midday
twilight.