A Stillness at Appomattox (84 page)

4.
Lie Down, You Damn Fools

Major
General
William
Farrar
Smith
was
a
professional
soldier
who
had
nearly
all
of
the
qualities
needed
for
success except
a
sense
of
the
value
of
time
and
the
ability
to
get
along with
his
superior
officers—to
whom,
as
an
admirer
confessed, he
was
at
times
"a
perfect
Ishmaelite."
His
subordinates
liked him
immensely.
He
was
kindly
and
courteous
without
condescension,
he
"looked
after
his
men,"
in
the
army
phrase, and
his
headquarters
tents
were
a
fabulous
place
to
visit. Champagne
was
commonly
served
at
dinner—it
was
so
even at
Cold
Harbor,
where
Meade
dropped
in
for
lunch
the
day after
the
big
assault
and
found
things
so
pleasant
he
remained
until
dusk—and
an
overnight
guest
could
expect
to
be awakened
in
the
morning
by
a
servant
bearing
a
champagne cocktail.
Yet
with
all
of
this,
and
the
innumerable
card
games that
were
played,
neither
Smith
nor
his
staff
ever
acquired the
rake-hell
reputation
that
clung
about
such
a
general
as Joe
Hooker.

Smith
had
been
"Baldy"
ever
since
his
days
as
a
West
Point cadet,
partly
because
of
a
thinned
spot
on
his
crown,
but mostly,
as
a
friend
explained,
because
there
were
so
many Smiths
in
the
army
that
each
one
had
to
have
an
identifying nickname.
Even
men
who
did
not
like
him—and,
in
the
end, this
included
nearly
all
of
the
generals
under
whom
he
had served—admitted
that
he
was
brilliant.
He
ranked
fourth
in his
class
at
the
Academy
on
his
graduation
in
1845,
he
had gone
into
the
engineers,
and
he
had
served
for
a
number
of years
on
the
West
Point
faculty.
On
a
tour
of
duty
in
Florida in
the
1850s
he
had
contracted
malaria,
from
which
he
still suffered
at
times,
and
when
the
fever
took
him
he
was
gloomy and
morose.
He
had
a
sharp
tongue
and
he
never
bothered
to control
it
when
he
observed
shortcomings
in
a
superior
officer, and
this
had
done
him
much
harm.
¹

In
this
war
he
had
been
up,
and
then
down,
and
finally
up again.
He
had
organized
and
been
first
colonel
of
the
3rd Vermont
Infantry,
serving
at
the
first
battle
of
Bull
Run
and winning
appointment
as
brigadier
general
and
command
of
a division
shortly
thereafter.
He
fought
well
under
McClellan on
the
peninsula,
won
promotion
to
major
general
and
command
of
the
IX
Corps,
which
he
led
at
Fredericksburg,
and then
he
fell
into
trouble
by
giving
vent
to
pointed
public criticism
of
General
Burnside.

Practically
everybody
was
criticizing
Burnside
just
then, but
Burnside
was
backed
by
the
powerful
Committee
on
the Conduct
of
the
War,
which
was
suspicious
of
Smith
anyway because
he
had
been
a
close
friend
of
McClellan.
The
upshot was
that
Smith
lost
both
his
corps
command
and
his
promotion,
with
the
Senate
refusing
to
confirm
his
nomination
as major
general,
and
for
a
time
he
dropped
into
obscurity.
He showed
up
in
Chattanooga
in
the
fall
of
1863
as
chief
engineer
for
the
Army
of
the
Cumberland,
and
in
the
dark
days following
Chickamauga
he
did
a
first-rate
job
of
organizing and
running
the
famous
"cracker
line"
which
saved
the
beaten army
from
starvation.
(He
had
an
extended
row
about
this, later,
with
General
Rosecrans,
his
commanding
officer
at
the time,
with
both
men
claiming
credit
for
the
job.)
When
Grant moved
in
and
put
Thomas
in
Rosecrans's
place
he
was
highly impressed
with
Smith's
capacities,
and
when
Grant
took
command
of
all
the
armies
he
ordered
Smith
east
and
gave
him an
army
corps
under
Ben
Butler.

This
brought
Smith
new
troubles.
It
would
have
brought them
to
anybody,
because
serving
under
Butler
was
hard,
but Smith
was
probably
the
last
man
in
the
army
to
adjust
himself
quietly
to
that
officer's
ruinous
eccentricities.
(To
Grant, about
this
time,
Smith
burst
out
furiously,
asking
how
he could
retain
in
army
command
a
man
who
"is
as
helpless
as
a child
on
the
field
of
battle
and
as
visionary
as
an
opium
eater in
council.")
²
Since
Butler
was
even
more
disputatious
than Smith,
and
in
addition
possessed
immense
political
influence, Smith's
difficulties
had
been
increasing
by
geometrical
progression.