A Stillness at Appomattox (17 page)

The
road
wound
and
climbed
slowly
for
several
miles, and
at
last
it
came
out
into
an
open
space
by
a
crossroads. Off
to
the
left
there
was
a
run-down,
abandoned
stage
station,
still
known
as
Wilderness
Tavern,
a
ruinous
place
with its
yard
full
of
weeds,
half
hidden
by
scraggly
trees.
Behind it
was
a
meadow
where,
just
a
year
ago,
the
Confederates had
had
a
field
hospital
during
the
battle
of
Chancellorsville, and
in
that
field
the
doctors
had
amputated
the
arm
of Stonewall
Jackson.

A
general
who
came
down
irons
Germanna
Ford
and stood
here
by
the
deserted
tavern
facing
south
was
practically
in
the
middle
of
the
northern
fringe
of
the
Wilderness. To
get
through
the
Wilderness
he
could
turn
right,
turn
left, or
go
straight
ahead,
and
no
matter
which
way
he
went
he had
about
six
miles
of
Wilderness
to
cross.
Squarely
across his
path
lay
the
region's
principal
east-west
highway,
the Orange
Turnpike,
which
ran
from
Fredericksburg
through Chancellorsville
to
Orange
Court
House.
Two
or
three
miles to
the
south
there
was
a
companion
road
roughly
parallel to
the
Turnpike,
the
Orange
Plank
Road,
a
narrow
track with
a
strip
of
planking
running
beside
a
strip
of
dirt.
(The rule
in
the
old
days
was
that
a
loaded
wagon
was
entitled to
stay
on
the
planking;
unloaded
wagons
had
to
yield
the right
of
way
and
turn
off
into
the
mud.)

The
road
south
from
Germanna
Ford
crossed
the
Turnpike,
slanting
off
toward
the
east
as
it
went
south,
crossed the
Plank
Road,
and
finally
got
to
the
southern
border
of the
Wilderness
and
the
open
country
beyond.
About
halfway between
the
Turnpike
and
Plank
Road
crossings
it
became known
as
the
Brock
Road.
The
names
of
these
three
highways
were
presently
to
be
written
in
red
on
the
annals
of the
Army
of
the
Potomac.

Thus,
of
the
three
main
highways
here,
two
ran
east
and west
and
one
went
north
and
south.
Interlaced
across
them were
various
minor
roads
and
lanes,
mapped
imperfectly
or not
at
all,
giving
the
appearance
of
going
nowhere
and,
often enough,
actually
doing
it.
Only
on
the
three
main
roads
was any
sense
of
direction
to
be
had.
All
of
the
minor
roads
just wandered.

Somewhere
to
the
west
lay
the
Army
of
Northern
Virginia. Presumably
it
was
moving
south,
in
order
to
get
below
the Wilderness
and
head
the
Yankees
off.
If
by
any
chance
it proposed
to
make
trouble
here
in
the
Wilderness,
the
Turnpike
and
the
Plank
Road
were
the
avenues
by
which
trouble would
come.
Hence
before
the
army
halted
for
the
night
it was
important
to
picket
those
roads,
and
late
in
the
afternoon
of
May
4
it
was
so
arranged,
with
cavalry
riding
west
on the
Plank
Road
and
infantry
solidly
planted
on
the
Turnpike.

While
Warren's
and
Sedgwick's
troops
were
making
their bivouac
along
the
Germanna
Road
and
around
the
Wilderness
Tavern,
Hancock
and
the
II
Corps
were
making
camp half
a
dozen
miles
to
the
east.
They
had
crossed
the
Rapidan at
Ely's
Ford,
and
their
route
had
led
them
to
the
historic Chancellorsville
crossroads,
where
the
ruins
of
the
old
Chancellor
house
lay
charred
amid
the
vines
and
the
creepers, and
where
the
bones
of
many
unburied
dead
men
took
on a
pallid
gleam
in
the
dusk.
According
to
the
plan,
Hancock's men
were
to
move
on
in
the
morning,
swinging
south
and west
in
a
wide
arc,
getting
far
down
on
the
lower
edge
of the
Wilderness.
They
could
have
gone
farther
this
day,
and it
might
have
been
well
if
they
had
done
so,
but
the
belief was
that
the
army
had
the
jump
on
its
enemies.
So
Hancock's men
camped
in
a
haunted
gloaming,
where
Hooker's
men had
fought
a
year
earlier,
and
eerie
omens
were
afloat
in the
dusk.

The
army
was
spraddled
out
over
a
wide
expanse
of
country.
Burnside's
IX
Corps
was
coming
down
to
the
Rapidan from
the
north,
the
great
wagon
trains
were
trundling
up behind
Hancock
at
Chancellorsville,
and
scores
of
silent
guns were
parked
by
the
Turnpike.
There
was
something
uncanny and
foreboding
in
the
air,
and
when
night
came
seeping
up out
of
the
blackness
under
the
low
trees
the
camps
were
invaded
by
memories
and
premonitions.