A Stillness at Appomattox (24 page)

There
was
enough
to
keep
them
busy.
The
Confederates here
belonged
to
A.
P.
Hill,
and
he
had
a
way
of
piling
his men
in
fast
and
hard,
and
the
rival
battle
lines
ranged
deeply into
the
woods
and
fired
as
fast
as
they
could
handle
their muskets.
Getty
could
see
that
he
was
outnumbered,
and
he wanted
to
fight
at
long
range
and
wait
for
help.
But
Grant felt
that
the
day
was
made
for
fighting,
and
he
sent
down word
to
wait
for
nothing—pitch
in
and
attack,
and
if
any
reinforcements
show
up
well
send
them
to
you.

So
Getty's
bugles
sounded,
high
and
thin
over
the
noise
of the
firing,
and
the
Federal
battle
line
went
crashing
forward through
the
timber.
It
got
to
close
quarters
at
once,
and
in
the pathless
tangle
on
both
sides
of
the
Plank
Road
there
was
an enormous
shock
and
crash
of
battle,
Federals
and
Confederates
shooting
at
each
other
at
fifty
paces,
artillery
on
both sides
firing
down
the
narrow
road
and
making
it
a
place
where
no
man
could
live.

One
officer
noted
that
this
was
like
no
fight
he
had
ever heard
of.
Usually,
he
said,
when
two
rival
lines
of
infantry
met at
close
range
the
fight
was
quite
brief,
one
line
or
the
other quickly
giving
way.
But
here
there
was
no
giving
way
whatever.
The
men
simply
lay
on
the
ground
or
knelt
behind
logs and
stumps
and
kept
on
firing,
and
the
very
intensity
of
their fire
pinned
both
sides
in
position—the
only
chance
for
safety was
to
crouch
low
or
lie
flat;
if
a
man
stood
up
either
to
advance
or
to
run
away
he
was
almost
certain
to
be
shot.
²²

In
a
way,
the
fact
that
the
men
could
rarely
see
what
they were
shooting
at
made
it
even
worse.
They
simply
pointed their
rifles
into
the
rolling
smoke
and
the
thick
stunted
trees and
blazed
away,
shooting
low
by
instinct,
and
a
sheet
of flame
swept
over
the
desolate
intricate
woodland,
hitting
anything
that
stood
three
feet
off
the
ground.
So
this
fight
went on
for
no
one
knew
how
long—an
hour,
two
hours,
an
eternity —and
the
battle
zone
grew
wider
and
wider
as
Confederates came
groping
blindly
forward
on
the
flanks.
The
woods
took fire,
just
as
they
had
done
farther
north,
and
the
crackle
of flames
mingled
with
the
wild
yelling
and
cursing
of
men
and the
swinging,
whacking
crash
of
rifle
fire,
and
the
dense
forest seemed
to
trap
the
roar
of
battle
and
press
it
close
to
the ground
so
that
the
noise
became
unendurable,
more
terrible than
anything
that
had
ever
been
heard
before.
Getty
had all
of
his
men
in
action
and
there
were
not
enough
of
them, not
by
half,
and
the
Vermont
Brigade
hung
on
with
a
thousand
of
its
men
killed
or
wounded,
and
the
terrible
little
flames came
snaking
forward
through
the
dead
leaves
and
dry
pine thickets.
Wounded
men
were
seen
to
load
and
cap
their muskets
so
that
they
could
shoot
themselves
if
the
fire
reached them.
²³

Somewhere
to
the
north
old
Wadsworth
was
ordered
to swing
his
battered
division
around
and
come
down
to
help. He
was
in
a
good
spot
to
land
on
the
Rebel
flank
and
he
was only
a
mile
away,
but
his
regiments
and
brigades
were
trying to
wheel
around
in
the
densest
part
of
the
Wilderness
and
he was
taking
a
good
deal
of
care
because
he
did
not
want
to drift
into
battle
by
the
flank
a
second
time—and,
all
in
all,
he might
as
well
have
been
north
of
the
Rapidan.
By
prodigious effort
he
got
his
men
faced
south
and
they
started
to
move, but
they
could
reach
no
one
but
isolated
Confederate
skirmishers.
They
stood
squarely
in
front
of
a
great
gap
in
the Confederate
line,
but
they
could
not
come
close
to
finding
it, and
they
drifted
down
through
the
blinding
forest
like
a
hulk gone
out
of
control,
to
run
aground
at
last
a
few
furlongs
away from
the
place
where
they
were
needed.

In
the
rear,
Hancock's
men
were
at
last
coming
up
the Brock
Road.
Hancock
was
in
the
lead,
shoving
the
winded men
out
of
column
and
into
line
in
the
miserable
second growth,
prudently
putting
some
of
them
to
work
building
a log
breastwork
at
the
edge
of
the
road
for
use
in
case
any
thing
went
wrong.