A Stillness at Appomattox (155 page)

Sheridan
was
on
his
favorite
horse,
a
tireless
black
named Rienzi,
and
it
became
a
fable
and
a
folk
legend
how
Rienzi went
a
full
twenty
miles
at
a
gallop
without
stopping.
The legend
outdid
reality.
There
were
a
number
of
little
halts, when
Sheridan
would
pull
up
to
ask
for
news,
and
at
one
halt he
had
Major
Forsyth
cut
a
little
switch
for
him,
with
which he
birched
Rienzi
into
greater
speed.
Once
he
met
a
panicky man
riding
to
the
rear
on
a
mule,
and
he
asked
the
man
how things
were
at
the
front.
"Oh,
everything
is
lost
and
gone," shouted
the
man,
"but
it
will
be
all
right
when
you
get there"—after
which
the
man
got
the
mule
to
a
gallop
and kept
on
in
the
direction
of
Winchester.
Once
Sheridan stopped
to
look
in
on
a
field
hospital,
and
talked
to
some
of the
wounded.
Counting
everything,
Rienzi
had
a
number
of chances
to
catch
his
breath.

Yet
the
legendary
picture
is
close
enough
to
fact:
black-headed
man
on
a
great
black
horse,
riding
at
furious
speed, his
escort
dim
in
the
dust
behind
him,
waving
his
arm
and swinging
his
absurd
flat
little
hat
and
shouting
continually the
order
to
turn
around
and
get
back
into
the
fighting;
a man
followed
for
many
miles
by
the
cheers
of
men
who
spun on
their
heels
and
returned
to
the
firing
line
because
they
believed
that
if
he
was
going
to
be
there
everything
would
be all
right
again—and
because
the
look
of
him,
and
his
great ringing
voice,
and
the
way
he
moved
and
rode
and
gestured somehow
made
going
back
into
battle
with
him
seem
light and
gay
and
exciting,
even
to
men
who
had
been
in
many battles.

Major
Forsyth
wrote
that
every
time
a
group
of
stragglers saw
Sheridan
the
result
was
the
same—"a
wild
cheer
of
recognition,
an
answering
wave
of
the
cap."
In
no
case,
he
said, did
the
men
fail
to
shoulder
their
arms
and
follow
the
general,
and
for
miles
behind
him
the
turnpike
was
crowded with
men
pressing
forward
to
the
front
which
they
had
run away
from
a
few
hours
earlier.
And
all
along
the
highway, for
mile
on
mile,
and
in
the
fields
beside
the
road,
there
went up
the
great
jubilant
chant:
"Sheridan!
Sheridan!"

As
they
got
closer
to
the
front
Sheridan
became
grimmer. Major
Forsyth
wrote:
"As
he
galloped
on
his
features
gradually
grew
set,
as
though
carved
in
stone,
and
the
same
dull red
glint
I
had
seen
in
his
piercing
black
eyes
when,
on
other occasions,
the
battle
was
going
against
us,
was
there
now."
²¹

They
came
at
last
to
a
ridge
where
there
were
batteries
in action,
dueling
at
long
range;
and
up
ahead,
on
the
right
of the
road,
they
could
see
the
ranks
of
the
VI
Corps,
men standing
in
line
waiting
to
be
used.
Sheridan
came
plowing up
through
the
fainthearts
and
the
skulkers,
and
his
face
was black
as
midnight,
and
now
he
was
shouting:
"Turn
about, you
damned
cowardly
curs,
or
111
cut
you
down!
I
don't
expect
you
to
fight,
but
come
and
see
men
who
like
to!"
And he
swung
his
arm
in
a
great
inclusive
gesture
toward
the
VI Corps
up
ahead.
²²

These
men
had
been
waiting
in
line
for
an
hour
or
more. As
veterans,
they
knew
that
the
army
had
been
beaten
in
detail
and
not
by
head-on
assault,
and
they
were
grumbling about
it,
making
profane
remarks
about
men
who
ran
away —and
then,
far
behind
them,
they
heard
cheering.

"We
were
astounded,"
wrote
a
man
in
the
Vermont
Brigade.
"There
we
stood,
driven
four
miles
already,
quietly waiting
for
what
might
be
further
and
immediate
disaster, and
far
in
the
rear
we
heard
the
stragglers
and
hospital
bummers
and
the
gunless
artillerymen
actually
cheering
as
though a
victory
had
been
won.
We
could
hardly
believe
our
ears."

And
then,
while
the
men
were
still
looking
their
questions at
one
another,
out
in
front
of
the
line
came
Sheridan
himself,
still
riding
at
a
swinging
gallop—and
the
whole
army corps
blew
up
in
the
wildest
cheer
it
had
ever
given
in
all
of its
career,
and
the
roar
went
rocketing
along
the
line
as
Sheridan
rode
on
past
brigade
after
brigade
of
the
toughest
veterans
in
the
Army
of
the
Potomac.
The
Vermont
Brigade's historian
wrote
fondly: