A Stillness at Appomattox (90 page)

This
officer
entered
the
general's
tent
and
found
Grant
sitting
on
the
edge
of
his
cot,
mostly
undressed,
just
ready
to
go to
sleep.
He
made
his
report,
and
Grant
knew
that
Lee
had only
that
afternoon
begun
to
pull
his
troops
out
of
the
works north
of
the
James
to
march
for
Petersburg;
and
he
smiled
a little
and
permitted
himself
a
rare
moment
of
self-congratulation,
remarking:
"I
think
it
is
pretty
well,
to
get
across
a great
river
and
come
up
here
and
attack
Lee
in
the
rear
before
he
is
ready
for
us."
Then
Grant
went
to
bed
and
the
staff officer
returned
to
Meade,
and
everybody
made
ready
for
the next
day.
¹⁷

Next
day
ought
to
do
it.
Most
of
the
army
was
up,
by
now —all
of
the
II
and
V
Corps,
two
divisions
of
Smith's
corps
and one
of
Wright's
and
three
of
Burnside's—in
all,
more
than 80,000
fighting
men.
The
men
were
very
tired,
for
they
had not
yet
had
a
chance
to
recover
from
six
weeks'
unbroken fighting
and
marching,
and
both
Meade
and
Hancock
noted that
attacks
now
were
not
driven
home
as
they
used
to
be.
¹⁸
But
morale
was
high,
for
the
men
sniffed
victory
in
the
air, and
as
June
17
dawned
opportunity
was
bright.

Beauregard's
trenches
were
strong,
but
the
line
was
uneven.
It
ran
south
from
the
Appomattox
for
four
miles,
or thereabouts,
and
it
had
two
principal
strong
points—the
Hare house
hill,
around
which
Hancock's
men
had
gained
a
foothold
the
night
before,
and
a
similar
hill
a
mile
or
two
south and
a
little
east
of
there,
crowned
by
the
house
of
a
man named
Shand.
This
latter
hill
lay
in
front
of
Burnside,
and
it seemed
likely
that
it
could
be
flanked,
and
Meade
considered that
a
hard
joint
attack
by
Hancock
and
Burnside
ought
to knock
out
both
of
these
strong
points
and
break
the
line
wide open.

Farther
south
the
prospects
were
even
better.
The
Confederates
months
ago
had
built
trenches
completely
encircling Petersburg,
but
they
did
not
begin
to
have
men
enough
to occupy
all
of
them.
Because
the
whole
Yankee
army
was massed
east
of
town,
Beauregard
had
massed
all
of
his
troops there
to
meet
the
threat.
On
the
south
he
was
wide
open. There
was
a
country
turnpike
that
dropped
south
from
Petersburg,
bearing
the
pleasing
name
of
the
Jerusalem
Plank
Road, and
it
and
the
country
west
of
it
held
no
Rebel
troops
at
all, except
for
a
thin
cordon
of
cavalry
pickets.
Beauregard
was painfully
aware
that
he
was
defenseless
in
that
quarter,
and he
wrote
later
that
if
Meade
had
put
so
much
as
one
army corps
over
on
the
Jerusalem
Road
and
told
it
to
march
due north,
"I
would
have
been
compelled
to
evacuate
Petersburg without
much
resistance."
¹⁹

The
army
corps
which
might
have
made
such
a
march
was readily
available—Warrens
V
Corps,
which
held
the
extreme left
of
Meade's
line.
It
was
the
freshest
outfit
in
the
army,
for it
had
not
been
involved
in
the
hard
fighting
at
Cold
Harbor and
had
not,
in
fact,
been
heavily
engaged
since
Spotsylvania. On
June
16
Grant
had
wired
Meade
to
get
Warren
over
to the
Jerusalem
Road
as
fast
as
possible,
and
in
a
general
way this
was
supposed
to
be
Warren's
objective
on
June
17.
But Warren
found
Rebel
skirmishers
in
his
front
and
they
were busy
and
seemed
to
be
very
bold
and
cocky,
and
Warren
was cautious
about
pressing
them
too
hard—and,
in
the
end,
nothing
in
particular
was
done
and
the
empty
country
west
of
the Jerusalem
Plank
Road
remained
empty
all
day
long.

On
Warren's
right
there
was
hard
fighting.
Burnside
dutifully
moved
up
to
attack
the
Shand
house
hill,
where
his
men fought
manfully
but
without
intelligent
direction.
There
was a
ravine
in
front
of
the
hill,
and
on
the
Yankee
side
the
ground was
full
of
gullies
and
patches
of
thick
wood,
which
made
it hard
to
form
and
move
a
line
of
battle.
During
the
night Burnside's
leading
division,
Potter's,
struggled
across
this
uneven
ground.
The
going
was
hard,
and
the
men
had
just
made an
all-night
march
after
being
under
arms
for
thirty-six
hours, and
whenever
a
brigade
or
regiment
was
temporarily
halted the
men
would
drop
where
they
were
and
go
to
sleep.
When
it was
time
to
move
on
again
they
could
be
aroused
only
with much
difficulty.