A Stillness at Appomattox (186 page)

If
the
VI
Corps
found
a
few
hours
to
relax,
Humphreys kept
the
II
Corps
moving,
and
it
got
to
one
of
the
river
crossings
just
as
a
Rebel
rear
guard
was
firing
the
last
bridge.
Barlow
had
the
advance,
and
he
sent
his
men
down
to
the
bridge a-running,
fighting
Confederate
skirmishers
and
beating
out the
flames
at
the
same
time.
In
the
end
they
saved
the
bridge and
drove
off
the
Confederate
guards,
and
the
whole
army corps
went
pouring
over
to
the
north
side
of
the
river
and pushed
on
to
harry
the
rear
of
the
Army
of
Northern
Virginia
and
make
any
breathing
spell
impossible.

Two
Confederate
armies
Grant
had
captured
entire,
in
this war,
and
now
the
third
and
greatest
of
them
was
stricken, limping
pathetically
in
its
effort
to
get
away
from
him.
The increasing
signs
that
the
army
was
ready
for
destruction simply
made
Grant
drive
his
own
troops
all
the
harder.
Sheridan's
cavalry
ranged
west,
untiring,
and
Griffin's
and
Ord's troops
followed
as
if
the
mounted
men
were
pulling
them
on. North
of
the
Appomattox,
the
II
Corps
continued
to
press the
Confederate
rear.
Since
this
corps
was
miles
away
from the
rest
of
the
Union
army,
there
was
danger
that
Lee
might turn
suddenly
and
destroy
it,
and
so
Grant
ordered
the
VI Corps
to
cross
the
river
and
march
with
Humphreys's
men.

It
was
April
7
now,
and
Grant
was
in
the
little
town
of Farmville
by
the
Appomattox.
Evening
had
come,
and
the troops
in
Farmville
had
lighted
bonfires
all
along
the
main street,
and
Grant
was
sitting
on
the
veranda
of
the
homely country
hotel
there
when
the
head
of
the
VI
Corps
came marching
through
on
its
way
to
the
north
side
of
the
river.
As they
marched
between
the
fires
the
men
saw
the
unassuming little
general
on
the
porch,
and
they
suddenly
realized
that this
man
was
at
last
leading
them
to
the
victory
they
had dreamed
of
so
long.
They
broke
ranks
briefly,
seized
brands from
the
bonfires
and
made
torches,
and
then
paraded
past Grant,
waving
the
burning
torches
and
yelling
hysterically. Brigade
bands
materialized,
and
the
VI
Corps
marched
by
to music.
Men
who
had
no
torches
waved
their
caps,
and
the corps
went
on
out
of
the
firelight
into
the
darkness,
crossing the
Appomattox.
After
they
had
passed,
Grant
went
inside the
hotel
and
wrote
a
formal
note
to
be
delivered
to
Robert E.
Lee
under
a
flag
of
truce,
inviting
Lee
to
surrender.
¹⁴

Of
this
note
the
soldiers
knew
nothing.
They
knew
only that
in
all
its
existence
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
had
never been
driven
as
hard
as
it
was
being
driven
now.
Wagon
trains were
left
far
behind,
whole
brigades
and
divisions
marched without
food,
and
every
rod
of
the
way
the
army
dribbled stragglers.
These
stragglers
found
the
foraging
in
this
part
of Virginia
very
good,
since
marching
armies
had
not
previously
been
here,
but
the
land's
plenty
was
of
little
help
to
the men
who
remained
in
the
ranks.
The
army
was
moving
too fast
to
bother
with
foraging
details.

A
soldier
in
the
20th
Maine
said
that
"we
never
endured such
marching
before,"
and
another
man
in
the
V
Corps
remembered
making
a
forty-two-mile
march
that
went
clear through
from
one
sunrise
to
another.
Whenever
the
column stopped
for
a
five-minute
rest,
he
said,
men
would
drop
in their
tracks
and
go
instantly
to
sleep,
and
when
the
column moved
on
many
of
the
men
who
stumbled
to
their
feet, shouldered
their
muskets,
and
went
lurching
down
the
road would
still
be
sound
asleep.
The
very
utmost
men
could
do was
demanded
of
them
now,
and
the
only
reality
was
the road
itself.
¹⁵

It
was
a
bad
road
to
march
on,
like
all
the
roads
of
war-deeply
rutted,
fouled
by
the
march
of
the
cavalry
up
ahead, by
turns
heavy
with
mud
or
deep
with
the
dust
that
would make
marching
a
gray
choking
agony.
Yet
this
was
the
road the
army
had
been
marching
toward
from
the
very
beginning, and
many
thousands
of
men
had
died
in
order
that
this
road might
at
last
be
marched
on;
for
this
was
the
road
to
the
end of
the
war,
and
on
over
the
horizon
to
the
unimaginable
beginnings
and
endings
that
would
he
beyond
that.
Also,
and more
intimately,
it
was
the
beginning
of
the
long
road
home.