A Stillness at Appomattox (28 page)

Confederate
artillery
was
massed
in
the
open
ground,
and the
guns
fired
before
the
last
fugitive
Rebels
had
time
to
get out
of
the
way,
and
for
a
moment
the
pursuing
Federals
were knocked
back
into
the
woods.
Then
west
of
the
clearing
there rose
the
high,
quavering
scream
of
the
Rebel
yell,
and
Long-street's
men—here
at
last!—came
running
in,
gripping
their rifles
in
their
tanned
fists.
Lee
was
in
their
midst,
swinging his
hat
and
trying
to
lead
them
until
they
made
him
go
back (for
they
knew
that
the
Confederacy
could
live
no
longer
than that
man
lived)
and
there
was
a
staggering
shock
as
the Northern
and
Southern
assault
waves
dashed
together.
Above and
below
the
Plank
Road,
far
off
into
the
dark
murky
wood, the
fighting
swelled
and
rolled
as
more
and
more
of
Lee's
last-minute
reserves
came
ru
nning
into
action,
and
the
counterattack
broke
the
force
of
the
Federal
charge.
⁴

But
the
charge
was
still
on.
Back
by
the
Brock
Road
Hancock
was
still
driving
reinforcements
forward.
Almost
half
of the
army
was
under
his
command
this
morning,
and
he
proposed
to
use
every
man
who
had
been
given
him.
Wads-worth's
men
struggled
out
of
the
jungle
at
last
and
the
Plank Road
lay
across
their
way,
and
they
surged
forward
in
a
great crowd,
yelling
mightily.
They
got
into
the
path
of
Getty's
division,
which
was
driving
west
along
the
road,
and
there
was a
heavy
traffic
jam,
two
divisions
all
intermingled,
men
swearing,
officers
thwacking
about
with
swords,
and
the
disordered mob
sagged
off
toward
the
south;
and
Lee's
guns
in
the
Tapp farm
clearing
caught
the
right
flank
of
Wadsworth's
uneven line
and
blasted
it
with
fearful
effect.
Wadsworth
was
galloping
desperately
up
and
down
the
Plank
Road,
his
old Revolutionary
War
saber
in
his
hand,
trying
once
again
to
get his
line
wheeled
around
so
that
it
could
face
the
firing
instead of
getting
it
all
in
the
flank.
Back
to
the
right
and
rear
the leading
division
of
Burnside's
corps
was
at
last
creeping
down through
the
woods,
and
far
to
the
north
by
the
Orange
Turnpike
Warren's
and
Sedgwick's
soldiers
opened
a
hot
fire
on Ewell's
men,
to
keep
the
Confederates
from
sending
help
from their
left
to
their
right.

The
focus
of
it
all
was
the
narrow
Plank
Road
and
the deadly
woods
on
both
sides
of
it.
Never
before
had
the
Army of
the
Potomac
thrown
so
many
men
into
one
assault
as
were thrown
in
here.
Twenty-five
thousand
soldiers
were
moving up
in
one
stupendous
charge,
and
most
of
them
were
battle-trained
veterans.
Yet
what
they
had
learned
in
other
battles seemed
to
be
of
little
use
here,
and
in
the
Wilderness
numbers
did
not
seem
to
count.
They
were
fighting
a
strange, desperate
fight,
without
color
and
without
drama.
The
whole thing
was
invisible.
It
was
smothered
down
out
of
sight
in five
miles
of
smoking
wilderness,
and
even
men
who
were
in the
storm
center
of
it
saw
no
more
than
fragmentary
pictures-little
groups
of
men
moving
in
and
out
of
a
spooky,
reddish luminous
haze,
with
rifles
flashing
indistinctly
in
the
gloom, the
everlasting
trees
and
brush
always
in
the
way,
the
weight of
the
smoke
tamping
down
everything
except
the
evil
flames that
sprang
up
wherever
men
fought.

In
other
battles
these
soldiers
had
known
the
fearful
pageantry
of
war.
There
was
none
of
that
here,
for
this
was
the battle
no
man
saw.
There
was
only
the
clanging
twilight
and the
heavy
second
growth
and
the
enemies
who
could
rarely be
seen
but
who
were
always
firing.
There
was
no
more
war in
the
grand
style,
with
things
in
it
to
hearten
a
man
even
as they
killed
him.
This
was
all
cramped
and
close
and
ugly,
like a
duel
fought
with
knives
in
a
cellar
far
underground.

Up
from
the
forest
came
a
tumult
such
as
none
of
the army's
battles
had
made
before.
It
had
a
higher
pitch,
because so
little
artillery
was
used,
but
more
rifles
were
being
fired than
ever
before
and
they
were
being
fired
more
rapidly
and continuously,
and
the
noise
was
unbroken,
maddening,
beyond
all
description.
A
man
in
the
VI
Corps
called
it
"the most
terrific
musketry
firing
ever
heard
on
the
American
continent,"
and
a
New
Yorker
said
that
from
the
rear
it
sounded like
"the
wailing
of
a
tempest
or
the
roaring
of
the
ocean
in
a storm."
Groping
for
the
right
superlative,
another
soldier wrote
that
"the
loudest
and
longest
peals
of
thunder
were
no more
to
be
compared
to
it
in
depth
or
volume
than
the
rippling
of
a
trout
brook
to
the
roaring
of
Niagara."
Far
back
by Wilderness
Tavern
Meade's
chief
of
staff
tilted
a
professional ear
and
commented
that
the
uproar
"approached
the
sublime."
⁵