A Stillness at Appomattox (127 page)

But
down
by
the
Seventh
Street
wharf
fat-sided
steamers were
coming
up
the
river,
tarred
heaving
lines
snaking
ashore to
be
taken
by
waiting
longshoremen,
mates
busy
about
the decks,
whistles
grunting
hoarsely,
ships'
timbers
creaking against
the
pilings.
Then
the
gangplanks
were
slung
to
the wharf,
and
long
lines
of
tanned
men
in
ragged,
dusty,
sun-bleached
uniforms
were
coming
ashore,
forming
up
on
the dock
with
elbow
nudgings
and
right-dress
craning
of
necks. Up
Seventh
Street
they
came,
a
solid
column
of
soldiers
with the
Greek
cross
on
their
caps
and
their
banners,
men
who slouched
along
casually
without
bothering
about
alignment, seeming
to
be
in
no
hurry
at
all
but
somehow
covering
the ground
very
rapidly.

They
were
hard-boiled
and
unemotional,
and
as
they tramped
along
they
looked
cynically
at
the
people
on
the sidewalks,
and
made
mental
note
of
the
locations
of
saloons; and
they
marched
behind
tattered,
faded,
shot-torn
banners,
and
the
people
on
the
sidewalk
looked
at
them
and
set up
a
sudden
cheer,
and
called
out
to
one
another
in
elated relief:
"The
Sixth
Corps!
That's
the
Sixth
Corps!"

From
time
to
time
the
column
would
halt
for
a
breather, and
every
time
it
halted
a
certain
number
of
the
veterans would
slip
away
and
head
for
a
barroom
and
a
glass
of
something
cold,
and
one
of
the
men
who
made
the
march
said
that not
even
"the
military
genius
of
a
Napoleon"
could
have taken
them
out
that
dusty
street
on
a
hot
July
day
without loss.
The
men
who
did
not
fall
out
made
caustic
remarks about
militia
and
quartermaster
clerks
and
well-fed
civilians, and
in
midafternoon
they
got
up
to
Fort
Stevens
and
took charge.
The
amateurs
could
relax
now;
the
professionals
were taking
over.
⁹

General
Wright
had
galloped
on
ahead,
and
General
Mc-Cook
received
him
with
feelings
of
great
relief,
and
as
the head
of
the
corps
came
up
the
men
of
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
filed
right
and
left
into
the
trenches.
One
of
Wright's men
wrote
that
they
found
"a
rattled
lot
of
defenders,
brave enough
but
with
no
coherence
or
organization,"
and
he
mentioned
seeing
a
surplus
of
brigadier
generals
and
a
vast
number
of
home
guards
whose
skins
looked
strangely
white
and untanned.
Out
beyond
the
trenches,
he
said,
he
and
his
mates could
see
Early's
Southerners—"as
fine
a
corps
of
infantry
as ever
marched
to
the
tap
of
a
drum"—but
the
VI
Corps
was here
now
and
the
door
was
locked,
and
at
the
last
minute of
the
last
hour
the
Washington
lines
were
occupied
by
men who
knew
how
to
hold
them.
¹⁰

After
that
it
was
all
over,
except
for
the
incidental
drama and
excitement.

General
McCook
asked
Wright
to
hold
his
corps
in
reserve but
to
relieve
the
picket
line,
and
so
several
hundred
of
the VI
Corps
went
out
beyond
the
trenches
to
exchange
shots with
Early's
skirmishers.
The
fire
seemed
hot
and
heavy
to the
clerks
and
100-day
mili
tia,
but
Wright's
veterans
considered
it
light
and
scattering
and
they
went
out
with
nonchalant
competence.
One
of
them
remembered,
with
an amused
chuckle,
that
the
troops
that
were
being
relieved were
"astounded
at
the
temerity
displayed
by
these
warworn
veterans
in
going
out
beyond
the
breastworks,
and benevolently
volunteered
most
earnest
words
of
caution."
¹¹

Early's
skirmishers
were
600
yards
away,
and
they
were being
supported
by
shellfire,
and
the
veterans
moved
out
and sparred
with
them,
and
after
a
while
darkness
came
and
the opposing
armies
settled
down
for
the
night.
General
Meigs, unused
to
field
work,
went
along
his
line
of
trenches,
saw that
his
men
had
rations
and
blankets,
and
himself
went
a few
hundred
yards
to
the
rear,
tied
his
horse
to
a
tree
in
an apple
orchard,
and
spread
his
poncho
on
the
ground
for
a bed—feeling,
one
gathers,
innocently
thrilled
and
pleased with
himself.
Secretary
Welles,
who
had
come
out
to
see what
was
to
be
seen,
rode
back
to
the
city
in
his
carriage, looking
at
the
campfires
and
knots
of
lounging
soldiers
and groups
of
stragglers
and
musing:
"It
was
exciting
and
wild. Much
of
life,
and
much
of
sadness."
¹²