A Stillness at Appomattox (36 page)

Yankee
cavalry
was
moving
about
in
the
night,
too,
and
it was
even
more
of
a
trial
than
the
Confederates.
It
clogged
the roads,
and
at
Todd's
Tavern
it
seemed
to
be
all
bunched
up, overflowing
the
highway
and
making
a
murmur
of
talk
and clumping
hoofs
and
clanking
gear,
and
the
infantry
came
to a
halt
and
waited
for
someone
to
clear
the
way.

Headquarters
had
gone
on
in
front,
as
was
proper,
and headquarters
included
various
detachments
of
enlisted
men who
had
troubles
of
their
own.
Among
the
escort
troops
was the
3rd
Pennsylvania
Cavalry,
a
veteran
regiment
which
despised
all
recruits
and
had
learned
to
look
out
for
itself;
and it
happened
that
in
the
thick
midnight
the
escort
troops
took a
wrong
turn
and
went
off
down
a
lane
which
would
have landed
them
inside
the
Confederate
lines
if
someone
had
not discovered
the
mistake
and
called
a
halt.
The
Pennsylvanians pulled
up
presently
and
began
marching
back
toward
the main
road,
troopers
all
very
irritable.
Nothing
would
have come
of
it
if
the
Pennsylvanians
had
not
been
followed
by
a brand-new
regiment
of
cavalry
which
had
just
come
down from
the
Giesboro
Point
depot
in
Washington,
brave
with unused
equipment
and
neatly
groomed,
unwearied
horses—a regiment
which,
simply
because
it
was
new,
the
Pennsylvanians
held
in
deep
contempt.

In
the
countermarch,
then,
the
Pennsylvanians
had
to
pass the
long
column
of
recruits,
and
as
the
two
regiments
overlapped
it
occurred
to
the
veterans
that
a
cavalryman,
all
in all,
was
no
better
than
his
horse,
that
their
own
horses
were worn
out
and
in
bad
order,
and
that
the
horses
of
the
recruits were
fresh
and
vigorous.
Nobody
said
anything
in
particular, but
just
as
the
two
regiments
were
stretched
out
side
by
side on
a
pitch-dark
road
the
Pennsylvanians
by
a
common
impulse
sprang
to
the
ground,
pushed
the
rookies
off
of
their horses,
sprang
into
the
vacant
saddles,
and
thus
obtained
remounts
in
the
twinkling
of
an
eye.

The
rookies
had
never
been
warned
about
this
sort
of
thing, and
for
the
vital
seconds
that
really
mattered
they
were
too dazed
to
resist.
They
came
to
fast
enough,
once
the
exchange had
been
made,
and
a
tremendous
fist
fight
boiled
up
in
the middle
of
the
forest—men
on
foot
trying
to
grapple
with mounted
men,
nobody
able
to
see
so
much
as
his
clenched fist
in
front
of
his
nose,
the
fight
streaming
out
along
the
byway
and
spilling
over
into
the
main
road
and
turning
into
a complete
unregimented
riot
which
nobody
but
the
3rd
Pennsylvania
understood
and
which
nobody
on
earth
could
quell.

It
went
on
for
an
hour
or
more,
and
the
advance
of
the whole
Army
of
the
Potomac
came
to
a
halt,
infantrymen
falling
asleep
in
the
dust
while
Yankee
cavalry
fought
Yankee cavalry
and
the
noise
of
the
combat
went
up
to
the
unheeding sky.
It
ended
at
last,
with
the
Pennsylvanians
getting
away
on their
new
horses
and
the
rookies
doing
their
grumbling
best on
the
beaten
nags
they
had
inherited.
Next
morning
the
officers
of
the
3rd
Pennsylvania
looked
their
men
over
and
remarked,
sagely:
"The
horses
look
remarkably
well
after
the night's
march,"
and
the
first
sergeants
innocently
said,
"Yes sir,"
and
that
was
all
there
was
to
it.
But
the
army
had
lost
a
couple
of
hours
on
the
road
to
Spotsylvania
Court
House.
²

The
escort
troops
were
got
out
of
the
way
at
last,
and
cav
alry
skirmishers
were
trotting
on
in
front,
and
in
the
gray
of earliest
dawn
the
infantry
saw
puffs
of
smoke
rising
from
fields and
woodlots
up
ahead
where
Confederates
disputed
the
right of
way.
The
column
halted,
while
officers
went
forward
to
see how
the
land
lay,
and
the
12th
Massachusetts
had
the
advance,
followed
by
the
9th
New
York.
As
they
stood
in
the road
a
solitary
horseman
came
back
from
the
skirmish
line and
began
ordering
the
regimental
officers
to
deploy
their men
on
the
left
of
the
road.
The
horseman
was
undersized and
swarthy,
and
he
wore
a
funny
flat
felt
hat
with
a
floppy brim,
and
he
talked
as
one
having
authority,
and
the
infantry colonels
bluntly
asked
him:
Who
are
you,
giving
us
orders like
this?