A Stillness at Appomattox (42 page)

The
doctors
did
their
best,
and
some
of
the
stretcher-bearers
finally
turned
out
to
be
fairly
useful,
and
it
might
not
have been
so
bad
if
they
could
once
have
got
the
situation
stabilized.
But
the
army
kept
pumping
new
streams
of
wounded men
in
on
them
faster
than
the
ones
they
already
had
could be
cared
for,
and
although
the
men
who
were
trying
to
cope with
this
in-gathering
of
misery
worked
until
they
were
gray-faced
and
stupid
with
fatigue,
they
kept
falling
farther
and farther
behind.
It
was
as
if
war,
the
great
clumsy
machine
for maiming
people,
had
at
last
been
perfected.
Instead
of
turning
out
its
grist
spasmodically,
with
long
waits
between
each delivery,
it
was
at
last
able
to
produce
every
day,
without
any gaps
at
all.
Since
the
medical
service
had
never
been
up against
anything
like
this
before—had
never
dreamed
of
anything
like
it,
in
its
wildest
hallucinations—there
was
bound
to be
trouble.

One
doctor
wrote
that
for
four
days
in
a
row—including most
of
the
intervening
night
hours—he
did
nothing
whatever but
amputate
arms
and
legs,
until
it
seemed
to
him
that
he could
not
possibly
perform
another
operation.
Yet
hundreds of
cases
were
waiting
for
him,
and
wounded
men
kept
stumbling
in,
begging
almost
tearfully
to
have
a
mangled
arm taken
off
before
gangrene
should
set
in.
"It
is
a
scene
of horror
such
as
I
never
saw,"
he
cried.
"God
forbid
that
I should
ever
see
another."
A
day
or
two
later
he
had
found
no end
to
it:
"Hundreds
of
ambulances
are
coming
into
town now,
and
it
is
almost
midnight.
So
they
come
every
night."
¹⁰

For
the
fighting
at
Spotsylvania
began
before
any
of
the men
who
had
been
wounded
in
the
Wilderness
had
been
got back
to
Fredericksburg.
The
job
of
cleaning
up
after
one
battle
had
barely
been
begun
when
a
brand-new
battle
was opened.
Robinsons
men
had
their
bloody
fight
for
the
approaches
to
the
courthouse
crossroads
while
the
army's
ambulances
were
still
full
of
men
who
had
been
hurt
two
or
three days
earlier,
and
these
ambulances
were
getting
farther
and farther
away
from
the
army
right
when
the
army
was
developing
an
urgent
new
need
for
them.
Some
1,500
men
were wounded
in
Robinson's
fight,
and
they
were
collected
at
dressing
stations
not
far
behind
the
front.
This
collection
was
made easier
by
the
fact
that
the
army
was
having
an
unprecedented amount
of
straggling.
Medical
directors
estimated
that
from two
to
four
able-bodied
men
were
leaving
the
ranks
with
each wounded
soldier,
and
while
that
made
it
almost
impossible
for the
army
to
fight
successfully,
it
did
solve
momentarily
the problem
of
getting
wounded
men
back
out
of
danger.
The trouble
was
that
very
few
of
these
volunteer
helpers
of
the afflicted
went
back
to
their
regiments
afterward.
They
faded away,
following
wagon
trains
north
or
simply
dematerializing in
the
general
confusion,
and
most
of
them
showed
up
sooner or
later
in
Fredericksburg.

And
so
that
tragic
little
city,
already
completely
swamped with
wounded
men,
became
equally
swamped
with
men
who wandered
about
on
foot,
stole
food,
got
in
everybody's
way, and
in
general
succeeded
in
doubling
the
size
and
complexity of
the
problem
which
existed
here
at
the
Rappahannock crossing.
The
stragglers
mingled
with
the
walking
wounded.

A
great
many
of
them
picked
up
bloodstained
bandages
and put
them
on
so
that
they
could
pose
as
wounded
men
and,
if their
luck
held
out,
get
aboard
the
hospital
steamers
and
ride back
to
Washington.
Some
of
them
carried
realism
even
farther,
and
the
harassed
doctors
eventually
discovered
about
a hundred
cases
of
self-inflicted
wounds.

Up
at
the
front,
Meade
was
desperately
trying
to
find
more ambulances.
Most
general
officers
had
commandeered
one
or more
ambulances
for
personal
use.
They
made
comfortable living
quarters,
as
a
matter
of
fact,
and
generals
were
using them
much
the
way
auto-trailers
were
used
in
the
1940s,
and now
Meade
ordered
all
of
these
turned
over
to
the
army's medical
director
at
once.
From
general
headquarters
and
from the
three
army
corps
upwards
of
fifty
ambulances
were
thus acquired,
and
with
these
and
with
empty
ammunition
and forage
wagons
a
regular
shuttle
service
back
to
Fredericksburg
was
established.
¹¹