A Stillness at Appomattox (14 page)

The
enlisted
men
knew
their
enemies
better
than
the
officers
did.
Cedar
Mountain
was
just
inside
the
Union
lines, and
there
was
a
signal
station
on
top
of
it,
and
one
day,
with marching
orders
imminent,
two
officers
from
a
Maine
regiment
climbed
this
mountain
to
take
a
glimpse
of
the
Rebel country.
Far
below
them,
in
rolling
broken
fields
and
woods, they
saw
the
storied
land
of
the
Rapidan—"grinning,"
as
one of
them
wrote,
"with
dreadful
ghosts,"
for
many
men
had died
in
the
fighting
along
this
river
during
the
last
three

years.
Today
everything
looked
peaceful,
and
spring
was
on the
land,
and
through
telescopes
they
could
see
a
Confederate
camp.
There
were
men
lounging
about
in
shirt
sleeves, some
of
them
smoking
their
pipes
and
washing
their
clothes, others
playing
ball.
The
two
officers
stared
at
them
for
a long
time,
getting
their
first
look
at
Confederate
soldiers
off duty.
At
last
they
put
down
their
telescopes,
and
one
officer turned
to
the
other.

"My
God,
Adjutant,"
he
said.
"They're
human
beings
just like
us!"
³¹

CHAPTER
II

Roads
Leading
South

1. Where the Dogwood Blossomed

It was
the
fourth
day
of
May,
and
beyond
the
dark
river there
was
a
forest
with
the
shadow
of
death
under
its
low branches,
and
the
dogwood
blossoms
were
floating
in
the air
like
lost
flecks
of
sunlight,
as
if
life
was
as
important
as death;
and
for
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
this
was
the
last bright
morning,
with
youth
and
strength
and
hope
ranked under
starred
flags,
bugle
calls
riding
down
the
wind,
and invisible
doors
swinging
open
on
the
other
shore.
The
regiments
fell
into
line,
and
great
white-topped
wagons
creaked along
the
roads,
and
the
spring
sunlight
glinted
off
the
polished
muskets
and
the
brass
of
the
guns,
and
the
young
men came
down
to
the
valley
while
the
bands
played.
A
German regiment
was
singing
"John
Brown's
Body."

Beside
the
roads
the
violets
were
in
bloom
and
the
bush honeysuckle
was
out,
and
the
day
and
the
year
had
a
fragile light
that
the
endless
columns
would
soon
trample
to
fragments.
The
last
campaign
had
begun,
and
a
staff
officer
sat on
a
bank
overlooking
the
Rapidan
and
had
a
curious thought:
how
odd
it
would
be
if
every
man
who
was
to
die in
the
days
just
ahead
had
to
wear
a
big
badge
today,
so that
a
man
watching
by
the
river
could
identify
all
of
those who
were
never
coming
back!

The
men
of
this
army
left
books
and
letters
behind
them, and
in
these
there
is
a
remarkable
testimony
that
the
men who
marched
away
from
winter
quarters
that
morning
took a
last
look
back
and
saw
a
golden
haze
which,
even
at
the moment
of
looking,
they
knew
they
would
never
see
again. They
tell
how
the
birds
were
singing,
and
how
the
warm scented
air
came
rolling
up
the
river
valley,
and
how
they noticed
things
like
wildflowers
and
the
young
green
leaves, and
they
speak
of
the
moving
pageant
which
they
saw
and of
which
they
themselves
were
part.
"Everything,"
wrote
a
youth
from
Maine,
"was
bright
and
blowing."
It
would
never be
like
this
again,
and
young
men
who
were
to
live
on
to
a
great
age,
drowsing
out
the
lives
of
old
soldiers
in
a
land that
would
honor
them
and
then
tolerate
them
and
finally forget
them,
would
look
back
on
this
one
morning
and
see In
it
something
that
came
from
beyond
the
rim
of
the world.
¹

Cavalry
took
the
lead,
moving
down
through
the
busy camps
to
the
historic
Rapidan
crossings,
Germanna
and Ely's
fords.
Foot
soldiers
watched
them
go,
and
called
out, In
what
they
conceived
to
be
the
idiom
of
their
Southern foes:
"Hey
there!
Where
be
you-all
going?"
Jauntily,
the troopers
called
back
that
they
were
on
their
way
to
Richmond.
But
although
the
army
felt
that
this
campaign
was going
to
be
better
than
previous
ones
it
still
was
skeptical, and
cavalry
needed
to
be
put
in
its
place
anyway,
so
the Infantry
cried
out:
"Bob
Lee
will
drive
you-all
back
just
as he
has
done
before."
²