A Stillness at Appomattox (44 page)

There
was
an
obscure
bit
of
ground
here
called
Laurel Hill,
and
both
sides
wanted
it,
and
a
man
in
the
20th
Maine recalled
how
they
fought
for
it:

"The
air
was
filled
with
a
medley
of
sounds,
shouts,
cheers, commands,
oaths,
the
sharp
reports
of
rifles,
the
hissing
shot, dull
heavy
thuds
of
clubbed
muskets,
the
swish
of
swords
and sabers,
groans
and
prayers.
.
.
.
Many
of
our
men
could
not afford
the
time
necessary
to
load
their
guns
.
.
.
but
they clubbed
their
muskets
and
fought.
Occasionally,
when
too sorely
pressed,
they
would
drop
their
guns
and
clinch
the enemy
in
single
combat,
until
Federal
and
Confederate
would roll
upon
the
ground
in
the
death
struggle."
¹⁵

John
Sedgwick
had
brought
his
corps
up
into
action,
and after
he
got
the
men
to
the
spot
where
Robinsons
luckless men
had
made
their
attack
his
staff
officers
felt
that
the
general
was
gloomy
and
depressed.
One
of
them
recorded
a
general
impression
"of
things
going
wrong,
and
of
the
general exposing
himself
uselessly
and
keeping
us
back,
of
Grant's coming
up
and
taking
a
look,
of
much
bloodshed
and
futility."

Yet
no
mood
of
depression
ever
lasted
very
long
with
Sedgwick.
He
had
had
all
the
war
he
wanted,
to
be
sure,
and
in
his letters
to
his
sister
in
Connecticut
he
was
writing
longingly of
the
day
when
he
could
get
out
of
the
army
and
come
home to
stay—"Can
any
spot
on
earth
be
as
beautiful
as
Cornwall Hollow?"
he
asked
her—but
he
never
let
gloom
get
the
better of
him
for
long.
The
morning
after
he
got
his
corps
to
the front
he
was
up
early,
and
when
he
called
briefly
at
Grant's headquarters,
men
there
remembered
that
he
seemed
especially
cheerful
and
hopeful.
Grant
had
compliments
for
the way
he
had
been
handling
his
troops,
and
Sedgwick
presently returned
to
his
own
tents,
which
were
pitched
on
a
little
hill close
to
the
place
where
Robinson's
men
had
formed
for
their fight
the
day
before.
When
he
got
there
Sedgwick
found
that random
shots
from
Rebel
sharpshooters
were
causing
trouble, so
he
sent
his
young
Major
Hyde
to
advance
the
pickets
a little,
to
end
this
nuisance.

Major
Hyde
came
back,
after
a
while,
and
Sedgwick
was seated
on
a
cracker
box
under
a
tree;
and
Sedgwick
had
the major
sit
down
by
him,
and
pulled
his
ears
for
him,
and
joked with
him
while
Hyde
reported
on
his
mission.
Then
Sedgwick walked
over
to
an
artillery
emplacement
to
give
the
battery commander
some
directions,
and
the
sharpshooters'
bullets were
pinging
around
and
the
gunners
were
ducking,
and Sedgwick
laughed
at
them
and
told
them
not
to
worry—the sharpshooters
were
so
far
away
"they
couldn't
hit
an
elephant at
this
distance."

A
minute
after
this
there
was
a
sharp
cry
from
the
gun
pits —"The
General!"
The
headquarters
people
ran
over
and
there was
Sedgwick
on
the
ground,
a
bullet
hole
under
the
left
eye, killed
by
one
of
the
sharpshooters
whose
aim
he
had
derided. They
put
his
body
in
an
ambulance
and
carried
it
back
to army
headquarters,
where
it
was
laid
in
an
evergreen
bower with
the
Stars
and
Stripes
wrapped
around
it.
When
Grant was
told,
he
seemed
stunned.
Twice
he
asked,
"Is
he
really dead?"
Later
he
told
his
staff
that
to
lose
Sedgwick
was
worse than
to
lose
a
whole
division
of
troops.
¹⁶

Washington
was
many
miles
away,
and
little
was
known there
about
how
the
fighting
was
going,
except
that
the
army was
constantly
calling
for
more
men
and
more
food
and
ammunition.
But
the
real
storm
center
was
the
White
House. Here
was
Lincoln,
sleepless
and
gaunt
and
haggard,
his tough
prairie
strength
tried
now
as
never
before.
He
had
once characterized
another
man,
who
could
see
no
wrong
in
human slavery,
by
musing
that
he
supposed
that
man
did
not
feel the
lash
if
it
were
laid
on
another
man
’
s
back
instead
of
on his
own.
That
kind
of
insensitivity
he
himself
did
not
have, and
the
fact
that
he
lacked
it
was
his
greatest
asset
and
his heaviest
cross.

He
could
feel
what
hit
somebody
else,
and
however
remote
the
quiet
rooms
in
the
White
House
might
be
from
the fearful
jungles
below
the
Rapidan,
all
of
the
lines
led
back here,
because
here
was
held
the
terrible
power
to
still
the tempest
or
make
it
go
on
to
the
very
end.
Lincoln
could pardon
condemned
soldiers
who
fell
asleep
at
their
posts,
or who
broke
and
ran
for
it
in
the
heat
of
action—he
called
these latter
his
"leg
cases,"
saying
that
a
brave
man
might
be cursed
by
cowardly
legs
which
he
could
not
keep
from
bearing
him
back
out
of
danger—and
he
was
the
man
who
with a
word
could
have
stopped
all
of
the
killing,
and
he
had
to will
that
the
killing
go
on.