A Stillness at Appomattox (114 page)

The
Army
of
the
Potomac
was
led
to
disaster
many
times, and
there
is
a
rather
horrible
fascination
about
tracing
the steps
by
which,
in
each
case,
it
reached
that
destination. Usually
those
steps
seemed
quite
reasonable
at
the
time,
and they
were
generally
taken
with
the
best
intentions
in
the world,
and
almost
invariably
they
form
a
chain
of
events which
might
have
been
broken
almost
any
where.
So
now.

It
began
with
the
decision
not
to
put
the
colored
division first.
A
little
later
Grant
was
to
admit
that
this
decision
was a
mistake,
but
it
was
made
for
what
seemed
excellent
rea
sons.
The
battle
that
was
coming
up
was
a
gamble
at
best. Nobody
could
be
sure
that
the
mine
would
actually
have
the effect
Pleasants
and
Burnside
believed
it
would
have.
If
it did
not,
the
troops
that
led
in
the
assault
would
be
butchered. If
those
troops
happened
to
be
colored
men
without
combat experience
it
would
immediately
be
argued
that
they
had been
sacrificed
callously
because
no
one
cared
what
happened to
them.
(The
argument
would
be
made,
incidentally,
by some
of
the
most
vocal
and
determined
arguers
that
ever lived,
the
abolitionists
and
the
radical
Republicans.)
Neither Grant
nor
Meade
felt
that
that
was
a
proper
risk
to
take.

But
this
decision
started
all
the
trouble,
because
its
effect was
to
deflate
Burnside
completely.
Until
now,
Burnside
had done
what
a
good
corps
commander
ought
to
do.
He
had seen
merit
in
an
unorthodox
plan
proposed
by
a
subordinate,
he
had
fought
to
get
the
idea
approved,
and
he
had supported
it
when
higher
authority
failed
to
support
it.
But from
this
moment
on
he
was
as
poor
a
general
as
a
grown man
can
be,
and
both
the
army
and
the
Union
cause
as
a whole
would
have
been
much
better
off
if
he
had
taken
to his
bed,
pulled
the
covers
over
his
handsome
face,
and
let someone
else
take
charge.

First
of
all
he
had
to
pick
another
division
to
lead
the
at
tack,
and
he
called
in
the
commanding
officers
of
his
three white
divisions.
These
were
General
Potter,
to
whom
Colonel Pleasants
had
first
suggested
the
mine,
a
capable
man
with a
good
record;
General
Orlando
B.
Willcox,
a
veteran
who had
been
commanding
a
division
ever
since
Antietam;
and Brigadier
General
James
H.
Ledlie,
a
civil
engineer
without military
training
or
experience
when
the
war
began,
who
had come
into
the
army
as
major
in
a
New
York
heavy
artillery regiment
and
who
had
only
recently
risen
to
division
command.

Burnside
seems
to
have
been
pretty
numb
when
he
talked with
these
three
generals.
He
explained
that
plans
had
been changed
and
one
of
their
divisions
would
have
to
lead
the attack.
He
confessed
that
he
could
not
for
the
life
of
him
see any
reason
to
prefer
one
division
or
one
general
over
the other
two.
Therefore,
said
Burnside,
why
should
they
not simply
draw
lots
to
see
which
division
should
go
in
first?
⁶

Down
under
the
fabulous
whiskers
and
the
kindly
dignity, Burnside
was
a
gambler.
In
the
Mexican
War
he
had
almost been
cashiered
because
of
his
weakness
for
risking
everything
on
the
turn
of
a
card.
This
time
he
was
gambling
far beyond
his
means,
and
chance
played
him
false.
The
luck of
the
draw,
when
they
finally
got
down
to
pulling
for
the short
straw,
decreed
that
Ledlie's
division
must
take
the
lead.

Why
Burnside
did
not
immediately
call
for
a
new
deal
is past
understanding.
Of
all
of
his
divisions
Ledlie's
was
the weakest,
and
of
all
of
his
generals
Ledlie
was
the
most
unfit. The
whole
division
had
grown
notoriously
gun-shy
during the
past
month,
and
one
of
its
two
brigades
was
made
up largely
of
heavy
artillery
regiments
and
dismounted
cavalry. Although
the
heavies
had
turned
into
first-rate
soldiers
for the
rest
of
the
army,
they
were
not
highly
regarded
in
the
IX Corps.
A
few
weeks
earlier
Burnside
himself
had
said
of them:
"They
are
worthless.
They
didn't
enlist
to
fight
and it
is
unreasonable
to
expect
it
of
them.
In
the
attack
last night
I
couldn't
find
thirty
of
them."
But
chance
had
put Ledlie's
division
in
the
lead
and
Burnside
let
it
ride;
and chance
further
decreed
that
when
Ledlie
formed
his
men
for the
charge
it
was
the
weak
brigade
that
was
put
in
front.
⁷