A Stillness at Appomattox (115 page)

The
real
trouble,
however,
was
in
Ledlie
himself.

The
army
contained
a
good
many
poor
generals,
but
it had
very
few
who
were
ever
accused
of
personal
cowardice. Ledlie
was
one
who
was
so
accused.
His
subordinates knew
him
as
a
weakling.
In
the
June
18
attack,
while
his men
fought
to
carry
a
Rebel
entrenchment,
Ledlie
had
taken to
the
bottle,
and
at
a
climactic
moment
of
the
fight,
he
had been
stretched
out
on
the
ground
in
a
safe
place,
the
world forgetting
and
by
the
world
forgot.
His
soldiers
knew
it
and his
junior
officers
knew
it,
but
the
IX
Corps
somehow
was
the kind
of
corps
in
which
a
thing
like
that
could
escape
the notice
of
the
commanding
general,
so
Burnside
did
not
know it.
Burnside
combined
the
great
virtue
of
being
loyal
to
his underlings
with
the
terrible
weakness
of
being
quite
unable to
tell
a
good
operator
from
a
bad
one,
and
now
he
was
entrusting
the
supreme
assault
of
the
army's
career
to
a
soldier who
was
taken
with
palsy
whenever
it
came
time
to
go
out where
enemy
bullets
were
flying.
⁸

For
good
or
for
ill,
the
day
ended
and
there
was
a
stir
all along
the
line.
The
secret
of
the
mine
had
not
been
too
well kept,
and
there
had
been
gossip
about
it
for
days,
but
most Federals
had
at
last
begun
to
treat
it
as
the
Confederates
did —as
a
rumor
which
someone
had
probably
dreamed
up
over a
jug
of
commissary
whisky—and
few
people
had
taken
it very
seriously.
Still,
as
June
29
drew
to
a
close,
there
were omens
for
all
to
see.
Sick
men
in
the
field
hospitals
were sent
back
to
City
Point.
There
was
a
great
riding
to
and
fro of
staff
officers
and
couriers,
and
practically
every
unit
in
the corps
was
being
moved
from
one
place
to
another.
Ferrero's colored
troops
were
brought
forward,
after
dark,
and
lined up
in
the
bottom
of
the
ravine.
They
were
full
of
enthusiasm,
because
in
all
of
the
excitement
no
one
had
thought
to tell
them
that
assignments
had
been
changed,
and
they
still supposed
that
they
were
going
to
lead
in
the
attack.
Indeed, they
were
the
only
division
in
the
corps
which
believed
that it
knew
what
was
going
to
happen.
⁹

During
the
night
Hancock's
men
came
back
from
the
north side
of
the
James,
and
Meade
and
Grant
got
up
early
and went
to
Burnside's
headquarters,
half
a
mile
behind
the front—a
convenient
place,
connected
with
other
commands by
telegraph,
which
Meade
had
designated
as
temporary headquarters
for
the
army.

Burnside,
meanwhile,
went
forward
to
a
fourteen-gun
battery
that
had
been
built
on
a
hill
a
few
hundred
yards
back of
the
entrance
to
the
mine.
The
night
wore
away,
silent
except
for
the
shuffling
of
thousands
of
men
moving
to
their places,
and
a
little
after
three
o'clock
in
the
morning
Pleasants sent
a
man
into
the
mine
and
shaft
to
set
fire
to
the
fuse.

Back
on
the
hills
behind
the
line
the
artillerists
were
ready. They
had
previously
trained
their
pieces
on
their
targets,
and the
guns
and
mortars
were
all
loaded,
and
from
three
o'clock on
the
gunners
were
standing
by,
lanyards
in
hand,
ready
to fire
at
the
word
of
command.
¹⁰
In
the
trenches,
Ledlie's
men were
standing
up,
not
knowing
what
was
coming
except that
they
realized
they
were
about
to
be
pushed
into
a
big fight.
On
the
slope
behind
them,
Potter's
and
Willcox's
divisions
were
waiting,
similarly
tense
and
ignorant.
Back
of
all of
them
were
Ferrero's
colored
men,
massed
at
the
bottom of
the
ravine,
expecting
at
any
moment
to
get
the
word
to
go in
and
capture
Petersburg.
General
Burnside
stood
in
the battery,
serene
in
his
ineffable
rectitude,
conscious
that
his baggage
was
packed
and
that
he
could
take
up
headquarters in
the
Rebel
city
on
a
moment's
notice.

Half-past
three
came,
with
the
high
command
fingering watches
and
staring
off
into
the
dark,
and
nothing
happened. Another
half
hour
went
by,
and
half
an
hour
more
on
top
of that,
and
the
silence
was
unbroken,
except
for
the
occasional discharge
of
some
wakeful
picket's
musket.
Grant
got
impatient,
and
at
least
he
told
Meade
to
have
Burnside
make his
charge
regardless:
something
had
gone
wrong
with
the mine,
and
there
was
no
use
waiting
any
longer.
¹¹
In
the
east the
sky
was
turning
gray—and
five
eighths
of
Lee's
army
was north
of
the
James
River,
with
the
full
strength
of
the
Army of
the
Potomac
massed
to
smash
through
the
fraction
that was
left.