A Stillness at Appomattox (149 page)

4 No More Doubt

Thurlow
Weed,
Republican
boss
of
New
York
State,
told Secretary
Seward
that
"the
conspiracy
against
Mr.
Lincoln has
collapsed,"
and
those
who
had
been
looking
for
a
hard-war
man
decided
to
climb
on
the
band
wagon.
Salmon
P.
Chase,
convinced
at
last
that
destiny
would
not
tap
his shoulder
this
year,
began
to
make
speeches
urging
Lincoln's re-election.
Michigan's
Senator
Zach
Chandler,
bitter-end abolitionist,
moved
to
make
a
little
deal;
after
which
John Charles
Fremont,
petulant
darling
of
the
Republican
radicals' lunatic
fringe,
withdrew
his
third-party
candidacy
for
the presidency.
By
Chandler's
deal
or
by
sheer
coincidence, within
forty-eight
hours
Lincoln
accepted
the
resignation
of Postmaster
General
Blair,
whom
all
of
the
radicals
hated-accepted
it,
in
fact,
before
Blair
had
even
submitted
it.

As
September
came
to
an
end
Lincoln
told
his
old
friend Ward
Lamon
that
although
"Jordan
has
been
a
hard
road
to travel"
he
was
beginning
to
think
that
he
would
wind
up
on the
right
side
of
the
river.
Dour
old
Gideon
Welles
wrote
in his
diary
that
"we
are,
I
think,
approaching
the
latter
days of
the
rebellion."
¹

So
a
new
feeling
was
abroad
in
the
land;
an
exciting, growing
conviction
that
a
mighty
tide
was
flowing
at
last. The
armies
had
created
this
feeling,
and
the
armies
shared
in it.
Sheridan's
troops
were
driving
on
up
the
Valley,
surging all
over
the
landscape
as
they
moved,
a
double
file
of
artillery and
battle
wagons
on
the
roadway,
half
a
dozen
parallel columns
of
infantry
tramping
along
on
either
side.
The
days were
cool
and
sunny
and
the
haunting
mellow
light
of
the war's
last
autumn
lay
on
the
land,
and
the
men
saw
the panorama
which
they
themselves
were
creating
and
rejoiced in
it.
The
war
had
turned
a
corner,
and
for
the
first
time
these soldiers
were
learning
what
it
felt
like
to
be
victors.

Our
march
had
been
a
grand
triumphal
pursuit
of
a
routed enemy,"
wrote
a
man
in
the
VI
Corps.
"Never
had
we marched
with
such
light
hearts;
and
although
each
day
found us
pursuing
rapidly
from
dawn
till
dark,
the
men
seemed
to endure
the
fatigue
with
wonderful
patience."
²

Far
out
on
either
side
of
the
marching
columns
were
the cavalry
flankers,
guarding
against
surprise.
In
front
moved the
line
of
skirmishers,
trotting
lightly
across
fields
which had
long
since
lost
their
fences—"skirmi
shing
only
enough," the
veteran
felt,
"to
maintain
a
pleasant
state
of
excitement."

Through
Mount
Jackson
the
army
marched,
to
Harrisonburg,
and
beyond
that
to
Mount
Crawford,
and
the
cavalry roved
on
ahead
to
Staunton
and
Waynesboro.
As
it
moved, the
army
picked
up
a
number
of
Confederate
stragglers. These
professed
deep
interest
in
the
Northern
election,
and to
a
man
they
hoped
that
McClellan
would
win.
A
Connecticut
soldier
told
about
this
in
a
letter
home,
adding:
"I
would state
that
the
‘h
ero
of
the
seven
days
retreat’
is
fast
becoming unpopular
in
the
army.
Not
that
the
soldiers
dislike
the
man so
much
as
the
company
he
keeps."
Another
man
expressed the
same
view:
"There
are
a
good
many
soldiers
who
would vote
for
McClellan
but
they
cannot
go
Vallandigham
for support."
⁸

Sheridan
now
had
the
Valley
in
his
possession,
and
he believed
that
Early
was
not
capable
of
further
offensive operations.
To
Grant
it
now
seemed
that
Sheridan
could
break out
of
the
Valley
at
its
upper
end,
cutting
across
through Gordonsville
and
Charlottesville
on
the
thrust
Hunter
had tried
to
make
three
months
earlier
and
rejoining
the
Army
of the
Potomac
around
Petersburg.
Sheridan
objected.
The
move would
take
him
far
from
his
base
of
supplies,
and
the
Rebel guerillas
were
being
more
pestiferous
than
ever.
It
would
be better,
he
felt,
to
finish
the
job
of
ruining
the
Valley,
take position
much
nearer
to
the
Potomac,
and
then
send
Wright's corps
back
to
Grant.
Reluctantly,
Grant
deferred
to
his judgment,
and
on
October
6
the
army
faced
about
and
started back
for
the
lower
Valley.
⁴

Morale
was
still
high,
but
the
brief
atmosphere
of
holiday soldiering
was
gone.
Guerilla
warfare
made
men
savage,
and when
the
partisan
rangers
swept
in
for
a
fight
neither
side gave
quarter.
Cavalrymen
said
they
would
rather
go
into battle
than
patrol
the
Valley
roads.
One
of
Sheridan's
aides was
found
in
a
field
with
his
throat
cut,
and
in
hot
fury Sheridan
ordered
every
house,
barn,
and
out-building
within five
miles
burned
to
the
ground.
Farther
down
the
Valley, Mosby's
men
struck
at
a
supply
train
and
its
cavalry
escort. Among
the
killed
was
a
young
Union
officer
who
had
been shot
after
he
surrendered—or
so,
at
any
rate,
the
Federal troopers
believed.
Men
from
the
17th
Pennsylvania
Cavalry and
the
2nd
Regulars
rode
out
for
revenge,
captured
six
of Mosby's
riders,
shot
four
of
them,
and
hanged
the
remaining two.
Under
the
dangling
bodies
they
left
a
sign:
"Such
is
the fate
of
Mosby's
men."
⁵