A Stillness at Appomattox (117 page)

In
Meade's
orders
there
had
been
a
provision
for
leveling the
parapet
so
that
a
line
of
battle
could
swing
up
out
of
the trench
and
go
forward
in
fighting
formation,
but
this
assignmen
t
had
dropped
out
of
sight
somewhere
between
"I
ordered
it
done"
and
"Nobody
told
me
to
do
it."
Nothing
whatever
had
been
done.
The
leading
brigade
was
standing
in the
bottom
of
an
eight-foot
ditch,
and
men
who
were
loaded down
with
muskets
and
cartridge
boxes
and
haversacks
just could
not
scale
the
wall.

One
officer,
aware
that
time
was
a-wasting,
had
a
squad improvise
a
ladder
by
jabbing
bayonets
into
the
log
wall
and holding
the
outer
ends
while
their
comrades
climbed
up
and over.
In
another
place,
men
tore
down
sandbags
and
piled them
into
a
clumsy
sort
of
stairway.
Finally,
with
an
additional
ten
minutes
lost,
a
straggling
line
of
men
got
up
out of
the
trench
and
began
to
run
forward
by
twos
and
threes —a
thin
trickle
of
wholly
disorganized
men,
rather
than
the connected
wave
of
a
line
of
battle.
¹⁵

Stumbling
up
the
slope
through
dust
and
smoke,
these men
got
to
the
place
where
the
Confederate
redoubt
had been
and
found
themselves
peering
down
into
a
great
smoking
crater.

One
hundred
and
seventy
feet
of
the
Confederate
line
had been
blown
up.
In
its
place
there
was
a
huge
chasm,
60 feet
across
and
30
feet
deep.
All
around
this
crater,
balanced on
its
rim
and
tumbled
over
the
ground
on
every
side,
were big
hunks
of
solid
clay,
broken
timbers,
dismounted
guns, and
lesser
wreckage
of
every
kind.
Down
at
the
bottom
there was
more
of
the
same,
including
many
human
bodies.
Some Southerners,
still
living,
had
been
buried
to
their
waists, some
had
only
their
heads
above
the
earth.
Others
had
been buried
head
downward,
their
legs
protruding
into
the
air.
As the
men
of
Ledlie's
leading
brigade
came
up
they
paused, stupefied
by
the
sight;
then
they
slid
and
scrambled
down into
the
crater
and
began
to
uproot
the
buried
Confederates. An
officer
got
one
squad
together
to
dig
out
a
couple
of
half-buried
cannon.

Nothing
could
be
seen
very
clearly,
for
smoke
and
dust still
filled
the
air.
To
the
rear
the
Federal
guns
kept
up
a furious
bombardment,
and
there
was
no
return
fire.
For
200 yards
on
each
side
of
the
crater
the
Confederate
trenches were
empty,
the
men
who
had
inhabited
them
having
taken to
their
heels
when
the
mine
blew
up.
Here
and
there
a
few stout
souls
began
to
fire
their
muskets
into
the
haze
about the
crater,
but
half
an
hour
would
pass
before
their
fire
would have
any
appreciable
effect

Colonel
Pleasants's
little
plan
could
not
possibly
have
been more
successful.
Right
in
the
middle
of
the
impregnable Confederate
chain
of
defenses
it
had
created
a
gap
of
500 yards
wide,
and
all
the
IX
Corps
had
to
do
was
march through
and
take
the
ridge.
It
would
need
to
move
briskly, because
the
gap
was
not
going
to
stay
open
very
long,
but at
five
o'clock
on
this
morning
of
July
30
decisive
victory
was less
than
half
an
undefended
mile
away.

But
the
one
thing
which
Burnside's
corps
could
not
do that
morning
was
to
move
briskly.

While
one
of
Ledlie's
brigades
was
getting
down
into
the crater
and
acting
partly
like
a
rescue
squad,
partly
like
a salvage
party,
and
partly
like
a
group
of
sight-seers,
his
other brigade
came
dribbling
out
of
the
Federal
trenches
to
support
it.
Those
engineer
parties
which
were
to
have
cleared the
way
for
the
attacking
columns
had
not
materialized,
and so
the
only
gap
in
the
abatis
and
chevaux-de-frise
was
right in
front
of
the
crater,
where
the
earth
thrown
out
by
the
explosion
had
buried
the
entanglements.
This
second
brigade thus
came
forward
through
a
funnel
which
led
it
straight toward
the
crater,
and
since
the
men
were
not
coming
up
in regular
formation—getting
over
the
parapet
was
still
a
matter of
every
man
for
himself—and
since
nobody
in
particular
was shooting
at
them,
the
men
trotted
up
to
the
rim
to
have
a look.
While
stray
officers
were
urging
everyone
to
continue the
advance,
most
of
the
men
slid
down
to
the
bottom
of
the crater,
and
presently
almost
all
of
Ledlie's
division
was jammed
in
there,
a
confused
and
aimless
mob
wholly
out
of control.