A Stillness at Appomattox (166 page)

This
was
sensible
enough,
as
good
sense
goes
in
wartime. But
the
old
balances
were
falling,
and
suddenly
now
the
war was
going
to
go
with
a
rush
and
a
roar
toward
the
final smash
-
up,
all
of
the
tensions
built
up
in
nine
months
of strained
equilibrium
letting
go
in
one
comprehensive
explosion.
Fort
Stedman
had
been
built
across
the
path
of
Fate,
and
its
imperfect
walls
enclosed
the
spot
from
which
a
man who
looked
sharply
might
see
the
beginning
of
the
end.

It
was
four
in
the
morning
of
March
25,
1865,
black
and still
as
polar
midnight,
with
never
a
sound
from
the
picket lines.
Half
a
mile
north
of
Stedman
was
another
Union
strong point,
Fort
McGilvery,
and
a
sergeant
in
this
fort
peered
off to
the
south,
listened
intently,
and
then
went
to
rouse
his commanding
officer:
"Captain,
there
is
some
disturbance
on our
left
in
the
direction
of
Fort
Stedman,
but
I
can't
make out
what
it
is."
The
captain
went
to
have
a
look,
and
the
men could
see
a
few
pin-pricks
of
flame,
and
then
they
could
hear scattered
musket
fire.
Then
they
saw
one
of
Stedman's
cannon
fired—not
in
front,
toward
the
Rebel
army,
but
off
toward the
rear.
²

Several
hundred
yards
south
of
Fort
Stedman
a
Catholic chaplain
had
been
saying
predawn
mass
for
sixty-odd
communicants
in
Union
Fort
Haskell.
He
heard
rifle
firing,
and the
boom
of
cannon,
and
he
got
through
the
service
as
soon as
he
decently
could,
after
which
the
worshipers
took
their weapons
and
ran
to
the
parapets.
And
then
there
was
a rising
swell
of
firing,
and
the
sound
of
men
shouting,
and there
was
a
flashing
of
heavy
guns
in
the
Confederate
lines —and
Rebel
infantry
was
past
Fort
Stedman,
running
out
to seize
Union
trenches
and
batteries
to
right
and
left,
and
an assaulting
column
was
swinging
around
to
attack
Fort
Haskell while
other
troops
were
forming
for
a
drive
straight
through to
the
Union
rear.
³

This
part
of
the
line
belonged
to
the
IX
Corps.
Burnside had
gone
home
long
since,
the
attack
on
the
crater
having been
his
final
contribution,
and
the
co
rps
was
in
command of
his
former
chief
of
staff,
a
pleasant-faced,
competent
general
named
John
G.
Parke.
Parke
was
asleep
at
corps
headquarters,
well
to
the
rear,
when
the
fighting
began.
When
he was
roused
and
learned
that
he
had
a
fight
on
his
hands he
also
was
told
that
Meade
was
temporarily
absent
and that,
by
seniority,
he
himself
was
in
command
of
the
Army
of the
Potomac.
He
notified
the
other
commands
that
the
Rebels were
attacking,
and
got
troops
moving
toward
the
danger area.
Also,
he
brought
up
his
own
third
division
which
had been
in
reserve
and
sent
it
in
to
mend
the
break.

This
division
was
made
up
of
six
new
Pennsylvania
regiments,
which
had
enlisted
just
before
Christmas
and
were still
under
training.
They
seem
to
have
contained
good
men —not
all
of
the
recruits
were
worthless
bounty-jumpers
and substitutes—and
they
were
commanded
by
a
first-rate
soldier, General
John
Hartranft,
who
as
a
colonel
had
led
the
successful
attack
on
Burnside's
bridge
at
Antietam
Creek
in
one
of the
battles
of
the
long
ago.
Hartranft
took
his
men
forward, and
Federal
artillery
began
to
open
a
heavy
bombardment as
soon
as
dawn
brought
enough
light
to
make
targets visible.

The
200th
Pennsylvania
charged
in
against
the
Confederate
advance,
wrecking
itself
but
blunting
the
spearhead
of the
Southern
charge
and
forcing
it
to
a
halt.
The
garrison
of Fort
Haskell
beat
off
the
column
that
was
attacking
there, and
in
Fort
McGilvery
men
hoisted
cannon
over
the
embankments
by
hand
so
that
they
could
fire
on
the
high ground
behind
Stedman.
Hartranft
got
a
solid
battle
line strung
out
across
the
open
country
to
the
rear—and
before long
it
was
clear
that
the
crisis
was
over.
The
Confederates had
punched
a
clean
hole
in
the
Union
line
but
they
could not
widen
the
hole
enough
to
mount
a
new
attack
that
would break
the
secondary
defenses,
and
by
eight
o'clock
Lee sounded
the
recall.
⁴

Many
of
the
Confederates
never
returned
to
their
own lines.
Yankee
artillery
was
laying
a
heavy
fire
on
the
ground they
had
charged
across
and
to
retreat
was
as
dangerous
as to
advance,
and
when
Parke
finally
sent
the
Pennsylvanians smashing
forward
to
recover
Fort
Stedman
and
the
lost trenches
and
batteries
hundreds
of
Confederates
surrendered. In
the
end
the
attack
cost
Lee's
army
4,000
men—twice
the total
of
Union
casualties—and
the
lines
were
as
they
had
been before.