A Stillness at Appomattox (165 page)

So
the
conference
ended,
and
in
the
North
the
radicals
reacted
to
it
with
bitter
suspicion,
shouting
their
fear
that
Lincoln
was
trying
to
revive
"the
old
policy
of
tenderness
toward
the
rebels."
Congressman
George
W.
Julian
of
Indiana, to
whom,
long
ago,
Burnside
had
confided
that
the
real
trouble
with
the
Union
soldiers
was
that
they
did
not
hate
the
ir enemies
sufficiently,
took
the
floor
to
warn
that
the
sole
purpose
of
the
war
now
was
subjugation,
crying:
"Both
the
people
and
our
armies,
under
this
new
dispensation,
have
been learning
how
to
hate
Rebels
as
Christian
patriots
ought
to have
done
from
the
beginning."

Lincoln
meanwhile
called
a
cabinet
meeting
and
coolly proposed
that
the
Federal
government
offer
to
the
Southern states
four
hundred
million
dollars
in
six
per
cent
government
bonds,
as
compensation
for
the
property
values
which would
be
destroyed
by
emancipation,
on
condition
that
the Southern
states
return
to
the
Union
within
two
months.
The Cabinet
was
stunned
and
slightly
indignant.
In
vain
Lincoln pointed
out
that
if
the
war
lasted
only
another
hundred
days it
would
cost
all
of
the
money
he
was
now
proposing
to spend.
No
one
would
agree
that
this
was
the
way
to
get peace
and
reunion,
and
at
last
Lincoln
put
away
the
draft
of his
proposal,
saying:
"You
are
all
opposed
to
me."

In
Richmond,
Davis
addressed
a
patriotic
rally,
inviting
all Southerners
to
"unite
our
hands
and
hearts"
in
the
fond
belief
that
before
midsummer
it
would
be
the
Yankees
who would
be
crossing
the
lines
to
ask
for
terms.
Stephens
con
ceded
that
Davis
made
a
brilliant
speech,
although
he
considered
it
"not
much
short
of
dementation,"
and
when
Davis asked
what
he
proposed
to
do
next
the
little
Vice-President was
blunt:
"Go
home
and
stay
there."
²⁵

No
peace,
then,
except
by
the
sword,
and
the
eerie
light that
had
so
briefly
touched
the
winter
sky
faded
out.
It
had been
building
up
to
this
for
four
years,
and
here
it
was,
visible
and
final:
the
war
would
end
only
when
one
side
or
the other
had
been
pounded
into
helplessness,
for
men
had passed
beyond
the
point
where
they
could
negotiate
or
compromise.
It
was
up
to
the
soldiers,
after
all.

The
soldiers
were
hopeful,
but
sober,
for
the
war
had worked
on
them.
In
the
Petersburg
trenches
and
camps,
no one
was
ever
heard
to
sing
"Tenting
Tonight,"
once
the
favorite
campfire
song:
"That
song
is
especially
dedicated
to the
brave
and
stalwart
homestayers."
There
was
little
horseplay,
little
joviality,
few
campfire
jokes
and
pleasant
yarns— not,
as
one
man
wrote,
because
men
had
grown
discouraged, but
simply
because
the
wide
range
of
a
regiment's
personal characteristic
now
"is
narrowed
to
almost
the
definiteness
of one
special
class:
the
steady
and
sober
men."
Yet
there
was little
complaining,
and
very
little
self-pity:
"The
army
laughs far
more
than
it
weeps."
²⁶

A
Massachusetts
gunner
sat
down
and
figured
that
in
another
200
days
his
battery
would
reach
the
end
of
its
enlistment
and
could
go
home,
and
he
tried
to
write
down
what the
rest
of
his
term
of
service
would
amount
to:

".
.
.
only
200
more
days
of
service,
of
which
33
are guard
duty
and
the
same
of
regular
fatigue;
three
times
mustered
for
pay-marching,
fighting,
perhaps;
2,000
hard
tack, 75
pounds
of
pork,
125
pounds
of
beef
to
eat,
72
gallons
of coffee
to
drink,
part
of
it
every
day,
and
it
will
be
done."
²⁷

2
Great Light in the Sk
y

Fort
Stedman
was
a
square
box
of
a
place,
with
solid
walls enclosing
a
space
for
the
guns.
Inside
the
enclosure
were sodded
mounds
over
the
dugouts
in
which
the
soldiers
slept and
kept
their
stores.
In
front
and
on
each
side
were
the spiky
entanglements
of
the
abatis,
and
to
right
and
left
were the
trenches
which
tied
Fort
Stedman
into
the
main
line
of Federal
works
facing
Petersburg.

The
fort
had
stood
here
for
nine
months,
and
there
was nothing
in
particular
to
distinguish
it
from
several
dozen other
forts
in
the
Federal
lines
except
that
it
was
in
bad
repair.
It
was
less
than
200
yards
from
the
Confederate
works, and
that
was
easy
range
even
for
average
marksmen,
and
so when
the
fort's
walls
settled
that
winter
the
authorities
did not
order
them
rebuilt
because
the
men
who
worked
on
them would
probably
be
shot.
Behind
the
fort
there
was
higher ground
from
which
one
could
look
into
the
fort,
and
there was
no
abatis
in
the
rear,
and
all
in
all
Stedman
was
one
of the
weakest
spots
in
the
whole
Federal
line.
That
did
not matter
much,
however,
for
it
seemed
very
improbable
that the
Rebels
would
ever
make
an
attack.
The
New
York
heavy artillery
regiment
which
held
this
part
of
the
line
kept
pickets out
in
front—they
were
almost
within
handshaking
distance of
the
Rebel
pickets,
the
lines
here
were
so
close—but
as
long as
these
men
stayed
awake
and
the
works
behind
them
were adequately
manned
the
weakness
of
Fort
Stedman
seemed nothing
to
worry
about.
¹