A Stillness at Appomattox (58 page)

Commenting
on
the
Bloody
Angle
fight,
the
same
soldier was
moved
to
a
protest:

"Surely,
we
cannot
see
much
generalship
in
our
campaign so
far,
and
the
soldiers
are
getting
sick
of
such
butchery
in such
a
way.
Half
the
time
the
men
are
fighting
on
their
own responsibility?
and
if
there
is
anything
gained
so
far
it
is
by brute
force
and
not
by
generalship."
⁵

Whatever
the
ins
and
outs
of
it
might
be,
the
soldier
had touched
on
a
basic
point.
The
only
value
that
seemed
to amount
to
anything
any
more
was
the
simple
courage
of
the enlisted
man.
In
different
ways
the
various
units
of
the
army recognized
the
fact
and
reacted
accordingly,
and
the
soldiers found
their
own
direct
and
brutal
ways
to
punish
the
men who
did
not
measure
up.

In
a
Pennsylvania
regiment
which
fought
at
the
Bloody Angle
there
was
one
man
who
ran
from
the
fighting
and found
safety
in
the
rear.
He
was
fished
out
of
his
transient security,
and
next
day
the
colonel
devised
a
horrible
punishment.
He
had
the
man
bucked
and
gagged
and
deposited him,
trussed
up
and
helpless,
in
front
of
regimental
headquarters.
Then
he
had
the
man's
own
company
march
past
him in
single
file,
and
as
they
did
so
the
colonel
ordered
them
to spit
in
the
face
of
the
man
who
had
run
away.
The
men obeyed
without
a
quibble
and
felt
that
the
punishment
was simple
justice.

A
New
York
battery
had
a
different
system.
This
battery was
in
the
IX
Corps
line
during
hard
fighting
to
the
east
of the
Bloody
Angle,
and
a
general
who
came
by
in
the
heat
of the
battle
found
one
wriggling
man
tied
up
between
two
trees near
the
guns,
a
helpless
target
for
all
of
the
Confederate
bullets.
The
general
asked
about
it,
and
was
told
that
the
man was
a
notorious
shirker,
present
for
duty
only
when
it
was time
to
draw
rations;
the
men
had
caught
him
this
time
and had
spread-eagled
him
under
fire,
hoping
that
he
would
be hit.
The
general
laughed
and
told
the
battery
commander
to keep
the
man
tied
up
until
sundown,
and
an
infantry
major who
happened
by
burst
out:
"I'll
bet
he
is
a
big-bounty
man.

Keep
the ****
there
and
get
him
killed,
if
possible,
for
the
good
of
the
service
!
"
In
some
miraculous way
(for
the
Rebel
fire
was
very
heavy)
the
man
escaped
all harm.
He
was
released
at
night
and
he
vanished
in
the
dark and
the
battery
never
saw
him
again.

A
Massachusetts
soldier
wrote
that
a
straggler
in
his
regiment
was
taken
to
the
colonel,
given
a
drumhead
court-martial,
and
immediately
shot
to
death—an
event,
he
said,
which noticeably
discouraged
straggling
in
the
regiment
thereafter.

A
company
of
Regular
sharpshooters
was
paraded
one
evening,
between
fights,
to
see
a
runaway
comrade
drummed
out of
service
in
the
old
manner.
The
man's
head
had
been
shaved and
the
buttons
of
his
uniform
had
been
cut
off,
and
he
was marched
down
between
the
facing
rows
of
his
fellows,
each man
standing
with
lowered
musket
and
fixed
bayonet;
and
a squad
came
along
just
behind
the
man
with
more
bayonets to
prod
him
on
his
way.
As
the
scapegrace
shaven
figure shambled
along,
the
fife
and
drum
corps
piped
the
"Rogue's March":

Poor old soldier

—poor old soldier

-Tarred and feathered

And then drummed out

Because he wouldn't soldier.

At
the
end
of
the
ceremony
the
man
fled
into
the
woods, and
the
men
saw
no
more
of
him.
⁶

Yet,
if
the
soldiers
would
readily
kill
or
humiliate
cowards, they
could
also
laugh
at
them.
A
standard
army
joke
was
the story
of
the
notorious
slacker
who
bragged
that
when
the battle
was
at
its
worst
he
could
always
be
found
where
the bullets
were
thickest—far
to
the
rear,
safely
hidden
under
an ammunition
wagon.
The
army
also
liked
the
story
about
the Irish
private
(a
good
story
was
always
pinned
on
an
Irishman
in
those
days,
if
possible)
who
used
as
his
own
means of
escape
from
action
the
shopworn
excuse
that
he
had
to help
a
wounded
comrade
to
the
rear.
In
one
battle,
according
to
this
story,
the
soldier
undertook
to
help
a
comrade
who cried
that
his
leg
had
been
shot
off.
Bending
down,
he
got
the wounded
man
over
his
shoulder
and
started
out.
As
he
stumbled
along
a
cannon
ball
came
out
of
nowhere
and
took
off the
head
of
the
man
he
was
carrying.
After
a
time
the
Irishman
got
to
a
dressing
station
and
offered
his
burden
to
the doctors,
who
asked
him
what
he
expected
them
to
do
for
a man
who
had
no
head.
Dumfounded,
the
soldier
looked
at the
corpse
and
cried
indignantly:
"The
deceiving
creature-he
told
me
it
was
his
leg!"
⁷