A Stillness at Appomattox (51 page)

This
much
the
staff
officers
could
do,
and
at
some
point
or other
in
the
predawn
grayness
they
called
a
halt,
and
they gestured
brightly
toward
the
fog
ahead
and
said
that
the enemy
was
off
there
somewhere,
although
they
confessed freely
that
they
did
not
know
how
the
enemy's
works
were built
or
how
many
enemies
were
in
them
or
what
the
ground in
front
of
the
enemy's
position
might
be
like.
Barlow
had
a mental
picture
of
a
crude
map
which
an
officer
in
the
16th Massachusetts
had
scratched
on
a
kitchen
wall
for
him,
an hour
or
two
earlier,
and
he
tried
to
keep
that
in
mind.
Then the
staff
officers
went
away,
and
Barlow
was
on
his
own,
and he
ordered
his
men
forward
and
the
big
assault
was
on.

Not
all
of
the
men
knew
that
they
were
actually
beginning an
attack.
So
hazy
were
the
arrangements
that
some
of
them supposed
they
were
simply
making
a
routine
change
of
position,
and
at
the
rear
of
the
divisional
column
there
were
officers'
servants,
camp
cooks,
and
so
on,
leading
mules
loaded down
with
spare
tents,
cooking
equipment,
and
provisions. Out
in
front
of
the
blind
column
the
66th
New
York
had
been deployed
in
a
dense
skirmish
line,
and
presently
this
line rolled
over
the
Rebel
pickets,
coming
in
out
of
the
milky
obscurity
so
suddenly
that
the
pickets
had
no
time
to
sound
the alarm.
The
pickets
were
disarmed
and
sent
to
the
rear
and
the division
plodded
on.
¹⁴

It
broke
through
a
thicket
and
approached
a
little
ridge, and
the
men
thought
this
ridge
was
the
Rebel
line
and
they raised
a
sudden
cheer
and
everybody
broke
into
a
run.
As
they ran,
the
troops
lost
all
formation
and
became
a
dense,
crowding
mass.
They
passed
over
the
ridge,
finding
no
Confederates on
it,
and
swept
down
across
a
broad
hollow,
the
dim
light slowly
growing
brighter,
and
in
the
hollow
they
ran
into
the heavy
abatis
their
foes
had
prepared
for
them.
They
sprang on
this
entanglement
and
tore
it
apart
hand
by
hand,
working in
frenzied
haste,
and
the
Confederate
line
was
not
a
hundred yards
beyond.
The
racket
had
roused
the
defenders,
and
the trenches
began
to
spit
flame
as
the
men
who
stood
in
them opened
fire.
¹⁵

As
the
Federals
ran
forward
there
was
a
careening
rush just
behind
the
Confederate
line,
and
the
twenty-two
missing guns
came
back
over
the
muddy
ground
on
a
spattering
gallop.
The
Confederate
command
in
the
salient
had
sniffed trouble
during
the
night
and
had
sent
desperate
appeals
for the
return
of
these
guns,
and
now
they
were
coming
up
to the
rear
of
the
trench
line
just
as
the
Northerners
were
coming
up
to
the
front
of
it.
If
the
guns
had
been
in
position,
the piled-up
division
that
was
coming
up
the
slope
would
have given
them
the
kind
of
target
gunners
dream
about,
and
Barlow's
men
would
have
been
murdered,
but
the
Yankees'
luck was
in
and
the
guns
did
not
quite
make
it.

Two
or
three
guns
did
manage
to
swing
into
the
gun
pits and
fire
a
round
or
two—one
shell
went
sailing
over
the
combat
men
and
smashed
into
one
of
the
misguided
headquarters details
that
were
stupidly
coming
along
in
the
rear,
dismembering
a
pack
mule
and
filling
the
air
with
frying
pans,
sides of
bacon,
and
other
matters—but
it
was
too
late.
The
massed Federals
went
flooding
over
the
trenches
as
if
a
dam
had
been broken,
stabbing
with
their
bayonets
and
cheering
to
split their
throats,
and
the
whole
end
of
the
salient
was
broken
in. Twenty
of
the
guns
and
three
or
four
thousand
Confederate infantrymen
were
captured
en
masse,
and
the
yelling
soldiers went
streaming
on
into
the
foggy
woods
and
ravines
beyond the
trenches.
¹⁶

They
were
on
their
way—somewhere,
no
one
knew
where, impelled
by
a
rush
that
was
both
powerful
and
fragile.
The ground
was
rough
and
the
trees
and
thickets
were
obscure in
the
wet
hazy
light,
and
no
one
knew
a
thing
except
that the
Rebel
line
had
been
smashed
and
that
the
thing
to
do
was probably
to
keep
on
running.
The
different
regiments
and brigades
were
as
thoroughly
scrambled
as
if
the
whole
division
had
been
tossed
in
a
giant's
blanket.
What
ran
down the
open
space
inside
the
Mule
Shoe
was
not
the
hard
spearhead
of
an
army
corps
but
simply
an
excited
mob,
wholly confused
and
without
any
vestige
of
organization
or
control. It
would
be
an
irresistible
flood
tide
up
to
the
moment
when
it ran
into
something
solid.
Then
it
would
turn
into
foam
and the
wave
would
recede.