A Stillness at Appomattox (136 page)

There
was
a
smoky
moonlit
madness
on
the
land
in
this fourth
year
of
war.
The
country
was
striking
blindly
at phantoms,
putting
scars
on
its
own
body.
People
can
stand only
about
so
much,
and
they
had
been
pushed
beyond
the limit,
so
that
what
was
monstrous
could
look
as
if
it
made sense.
Ordinarily
decent,
kindly
citizens
could
seriously
propose
that
some
thousands
of
helpless
prisoners
be
condemned to
slow
death
by
hunger
and
disease,
and
the
fact
that
the authorities
rejected
this
mad
scheme
did
not
help
very
much because
the
reprisal
was
in
fact
already
being
inflicted.

That
was
what
the
climate
of
the
war
was
like
now.
It was
a
climate
apt
to
produce
hard
deeds
by
hard
men,
and some
characters
well
fitted
to
operate
in
such
a
climate
were beginning
to
come
forward;
among
them,
Major
General Philip
Sheridan,
commanding
the
newly
formed
Army
of
the Shenandoah.

When
he
first
got
it,
it
was
hardly
an
army.
It
was
simply a
collection
of
three
infantry
corps
and
three
divisions
of cavalry,
totaling
perhaps
36,000
men,
of
whom
30,000
or thereabouts
could
be
classed
as
combat
troops.
⁹
Its
different units
stood
for
widely
varying
traditions,
and
both
time
and leadership
would
be
needed
to
turn
them
into
an
army.

At
the
bottom
of
the
heap
was
the
remnant
of
the
army that
had
been
led
by
Hunter.
Now
denominated
the
VIII Army
Corps,
it
was
led
by
George
Crook,
who
was
a
very good
man,
and
it
needed
new
equipment,
a
good
rest,
much drill
and
discipline,
and
a
thorough
shot
in
the
arm.
An observer
saw
Crook's
men
as
"ragged,
famished,
discouraged, sulky
and
half
of
them
in
ambulances."
They
had
been
over-marched
and
underfed
and
they
had
been
ruinously
beaten by
the
Rebels.
¹⁰
Someone
would
have
to
work
on
them
before
they
would
amount
to
much
as
fighting
troops.

Much
better
were
the
two
slim
divisions
of
Emory's
XIX Corps,
just
up
from
Louisiana.
They
were
veterans
of
hard campaigning
in
the
Deep
South,
and
they
had
one
asset, very
uncommon
among
Union
troops
in
the
Virginia
theater: they
were
used
to
victory
rather
than
to
defeat,
and
it
never occurred
to
them
to
expect
anything
except
more
victories,, It
was
only
the
army
of
Northern
Virginia
which
bred
an
inferiority
complex
among
Yankee
troops,
and
that
army
the XIX
Corps
had
never
met.

Solid
nucleus
of
Sheridan's
new
army
was
Wright's
VI Corps.
This
was
probably
the
best
fighting
corps
the
Army of
the
Potomac
had,
but
at
the
moment
it
was
a
little
worn and
morose.
It
did
not
look
the
part
of
a
crack
corps.
When
it bivouacked,
its
regiments
and
brigades
pitched
their
pup tents
as
the
spirit
of
the
individual
dictated,
instead
of
ranging
them
in
formal
rows
with
proper
company
and
regimental streets.
The
men
no
longer
kept
their
muskets
brightly polished,
preferring
to
steal
clean
ones
from
their
neighbors. (An
ordnance
sergeant
at
this
time
confessed
that
as
far
as clean
muskets
were
concerned,
"we
hain't
had
one
in
our brigade
since
Cold
Harbor.")
There
were
regimental
officers who
freely
admitted
that
although
they
had
not
exactly
lost confidence
in
General
Grant
they
did
have
a
good
deal
more confidence
in
General
Lee,
and
even
the
famous
Vermont Brigade
was
showing
deficiencies
in
discipline,
its
historian confessing:
"The
regiments
were
organized
somewhat
on the
town
meeting
plan,
and
the
men
were
rather
deferred
to on
occasion
by
the
officers.
.
.
.
There
was
hardly
the
least rigidity,
and
camp
life
on
the
whole
was
of
the
easiest
possible
description."
¹¹

The
VI
Corps,
in
short,
had
had
it,
and
how
it
would
per
form
now
might
depend
a
good
deal
on
Sheridan
himself. The
men
were
not
very
happy
to
see
him.
They
did
not
know much
about
him
except
that
he
was
supposed
to
be
a
hard and
remorseless
fighting
man,
and
while
they
were
willing
to admire
that
quality
from
a
distance
they
suspected
that
his assignment
to
command
in
the
Valley
meant
that
some
very rough
work
lay
ahead,
and
they
had
had
about
all
of
the rough
work
they
wanted.
When
a
general
won
a
reputation
as a
fighter,
these
veterans
understood
perfectl
y
well
who
it
was that
paid
for
that
reputation.