A Stillness at Appomattox (31 page)

So
the
whole
advance
crumbled,
and
back
by
the
Brock Road
it
looked
as
if
this
half
of
the
army
had
broken
up.
Hundreds
of
men
were
pouring
down
the
Plank
Road,
and
other hundreds
were
breaking
out
of
the
woods,
and
the
whole Wilderness
seemed
to
be
leaking
beaten
Yankees.
Hancock's inner
thoughts
just
then
were
not
recorded,
but
he
must
have thanked
the
god
of
battles
that
the
evening
before
he
had had
his
men
build
a
stout
log
breastwork
all
along
the
western side
of
the
Brock
Road,
a
heavy
fence
of
piled-up
saplings standing
three
feet
high
and
running
north
and
south
for
two miles
or
more.

It
was
just
the
dike
that
was
needed
to
check
this
retreat. Disorganized
men
who
reached
it
looked
about
them,
fell
in behind
the
barricade,
loaded
their
muskets
and
peered
into the
blank
woodland
from
which
they
had
just
emerged.
Shattered
regiments
and
brigades,
crawling
over
this
rude
fence, managed
to
form
new
ranks
on
the
east
side
of
it,
and
stood there
waiting
for
orders,
their
panic
gone.
Off
to
the
north
the roar
of
battle
continued,
for
Burnside's
men
at
last
were
making
their
presence
felt,
but
they
had
come
in
too
late
and their
attack
was
not
heavy
enough,
and
nothing
that
they could
do
could
change
the
situation
on
the
south
side
of
the Hank
Road.

What
had
happened
was
perfectly
simple,
and
it
had
turned Into
catastrophe
largely
because
nobody
could
see
what
was going
on.

When
Hancock
made
his
advance
that
morning
he
had been
plagued
by
a
report
(which
happened
to
be
false)
that some
or
all
of
Longstreet's
men
were
apt
to
come
up
into
action
from
the
south.
On
his
extreme
left,
therefore,
he
held one
division
out
of
action
as
flank
guard.
All
sorts
of
wild rumors
about
approaching
Confederates
had
been
circulating that
morning,
and
the
result
was
that
some
8,000
of
Hancock's
best
soldiers
had
been
immobilized.
Furthermore,
as the
rest
of
the
corps
advanced
along
the
Plank
Road,
a
gap two
miles
wide
had
opened
between
the
assaulting
column and
this
reserve
division.

Eventually
Hancock
decided
that
all
of
the
rumors
were false,
and
he
sent
word
to
this
idle
division
to
advance
so
as
to come
up
on
the
left
flank
of
the
men
who
were
making
the attack
on
the
Tapp
farm.
If
this
had
been
done,
Longstreet's counterattack
would
probably
have
been
blunted.
But
all
of Hancock's
messages
seem
to
have
gone
astray—couriers
hit
by stray
bullets,
or
captured
by
Confederates,
or
just
plain
lost
in the
battle
turmoil—and
John
Gibbon,
the
highly
competent soldier
who
commanded
the
reserve
division,
never
got
the orders.
So
the
division
stayed
out
of
action,
and
when
the

Federals
began
to
fight
with
Longstreet's
troops
in
the
wild chaos
two
miles
to
the
west
their
southern
flank
was
unprotected.
¹⁵

Longstreet
discovered
this,
and
mounted
a
cunning
flank attack.
This
hit
the
left
end
of
the
Yankee
firing
line
and
broke it
just
at
the
moment
when
the
confusion
of
the
whole
line was
at
its
worst.
The
effect
was
like
tipping
over
the
first
in
a row
of
dominoes.
The
men
who
were
driven
in
by
the
flank attack
went
north,
toward
the
Plank
Road,
retreating
across the
immediate
rear
of
all
the
troops
that
were
in
line.
Blind and
bewildered,
and
quite
unable
to
see
anything,
the
men in
front
knew
only
that
the
troops
on
the
left
were
running away;
and
in
the
invisibility
out
of
which
they
had
emerged there
sounded
much
musketry
and
the
jeering,
triumphant sound
of
the
Rebel
yell.
The
fight
had
not
been
making
much sense
for
half
an
hour
or
more;
now
it
was
ceasing
to
make any
sense
at
all,
and
one
after
another
the
men
headed
back for
the
Brock
Road—not
panicky,
for
the
most
part,
but
not doing
any
more
fighting
just
now,
either.

For
a
while
there
was
a
lull.
The
Confederates
were
as much
disorganized
by
their
victory
as
the
Federals
had
been by
their
own
a
little
earlier.
In
the
confusion
Longstreet
was shot
by
his
own
men,
and
he
was
carried
to
the
rear
coughing blood,
out
of
action
for
months
to
come,
and
it
was
going
to take
an
hour
or
more
to
get
his
brigades
unscrambled
so
that the
advance
could
be
resumed.
So
Hancock
was
given
precious
time
to
organize
his
defenses
along
the
Brock
Road, and
when
the
Rebel
attack
was
at
last
renewed
the
men
were ready
for
it.