A Stillness at Appomattox (173 page)

The
VI
Corps
Sheridan
could
not
have,
because
it
was
too far
off
and
with
the
roads
as
they
were
it
would
take
two days
to
get
it
to
him.
Warren
and
the
V
Corps
were
available,
however,
no
more
than
half
a
dozen
miles
away,
and late
that
evening
Warren
was
ordered
to
get
his
men
over to
Dinwiddie
at
top
speed.
Sheridan
was
told
that
they
would show
up
at
dawn,
and
they
would
be
coming
in
from
the northeast,
behind
Pickett's
flank.
Warren
had
much
more infantry
than
Pickett
had,
and
Sheridan
had
much
more cavalry.
Between
the
two
of
them
they
might
be
able
to destroy
his
entire
force.
²⁰
Lee
was
so
pinched
for
manpower that
a
loss
of
such
dimensions
would
practically
bankrupt him.

So
Sheridan
put
his
men
into
bivouac
and
waited
impatiently
for
the
morning.
It
was
a
restless
night,
since
every square
foot
of
open
space
behind
the
line
was
jammed
with led
horses
and
their
grouchy
caretakers,
and
it
was
an
all-night
job
to
get
all
of
these
straightened
out
so
that
the squadrons
could
be
mounted
next
day
if
necessary.
Trains
of pack
mules
came
up,
bringing
forage
and
rations,
and
the ambulances
had
got
through—that
work
on
the
roads
had been
effective—and
lanterns
twinkled
in
the
damp
groves
as stretcher
parties
went
through,
gathering
up
the
wounded men
²¹

It
was
the
last
day
of
March
1865,
and
the
Army
of
the Potomac
had
just
nine
more
days
of
campaigning
ahead
of
it.

3, The Soldiers Saw Daylight

Major
General
Gouverneur
Kemble
Warren
and
his
V
Army Corps
had
been
having
a
bad
day.
The
corps
had
been
in position,
wet
and
uncomfortable,
a
little
west
of
Hatcher's Run,
presumably
a
trifle
south
of
the
extreme
right
flank
of Lee's
main
line,
and
during
the
morning—while
Devin's troopers
were
meeting
Rebel
infantry
in
front
of
Five
Forks and
were
beginning
their
difficult
withdrawal
to
Dinwiddie Court
House—Warren
sent
one
division
forward
to
make
a reconnoissance
and
find
out
just
where
the
Rebels
might
be.

By
ill
chance
this
division
began
to
advance
just
when
Lee ordered
a
force
of
his
own
to
move
forward
and
pick
a
fight with
the
Yankees
in
order
to
protect
the
move
which
Pickett was
making
a
few
miles
farther
west.
This
force
caught
the
Federal
infant2y
division
off
guard
and
piled
into
it
with savage
vigor,
and
the
Federals
were
driven
back
in
disorder. In
their
retreat
they
ran
through
the
bivouac
of
the
second of
Warren's
three
infantry
divisions,
and
these
troops
were
all gathered
around
smoky
campfires
trying
to
dry
their
clothing and
their
blankets,
no
one
having
alerted
them
to
the
fact that
there
might
be
action.
So
this
second
division
was
routed, too,
and
Warren
had
to
send
in
his
third
division
and
call
for help
from
the
II
Corps,
over
on
his
right,
in
order
to
restore the
situation.

By
evening
he
had
won
back
the
ground
that
had
been lost,
but
his
men
had
had
a
hard
all-day
fight,
with
painful losses;
and
now,
just
as
they
were
collecting
their
wounded and
trying
to
get
snug
for
the
night,
there
came
these
orders to
make
a
forced
march
over
to
join
Sheridan.
¹

It
was
a
foul
night
to
move
troops.
It
was
so
dark,
as
one soldier
said,
that
it
was
literally
impossible
to
see
a
hand before
one's
face.
The
rain
had
stopped,
but
the
roads
were deep
with
mud,
every
little
creek
had
overflowed,
and
there was
a
completely
unfordable
stream
flowing
straight
across the
principal
highway
that
the
troops
had
to
use.
Warren's engineers
tore
down
a
house
and
used
the
timbers
to
build a
bridge,
but
construction
work
at
midnight
with
everybody exhausted
was
slow
work.

Warren
had
received
confli
cting
orders
about
the
routes
he was
to
take,
so
that
there
was
a
good
deal
of
wearing
countermarching
for
some
units,
and
there
was
much
confusion
about maps
and
place
names.
Also,
at
the
time
he
got
his
marching orders
Warren's
skirmish
line
was
in
contact
with
the
enemy, and
he
felt
that
he
should
use
much
caution
in
getting
his men
away.
Some
regiments
started
on
time,
but
most
of
them did
not,
nothing
that
could
conceivably
go
wrong
went
right, and
by
five
in
the
morning—the
hour
at
which
it
had
been hoped
that
the
whole
corps
would
be
taking
position
at Dinwiddie
Court
House—two
of
his
divisions
were
just
be-ginning
to
move.
²