A Stillness at Appomattox (38 page)

The
Federal
attacking
line
hung
on
for
a
while,
and
then
a new
Confederate
brigade
appeared
off
to
one
side,
driving in
a
fire
that
went
lengthwise
along
the
huddled
line
and killed
men
who
crouched
fiat
against
the
slope,
and
it
was
too much.
The
men
made
a
final,
desperate
attempt
to
charge
the

Rebel
line,
and
a
few
of
them
reached
the
breastworks
and got
into
a
leaden-armed
bayonet
fight
with
men
as
weary
as themselves.
Then
at
last
they
gave
up
and
ran-a
queer,
slow, stumbling
flight,
because
they
were
simply
too
tired
to
run fast,
even
when
discipline
was
gone
and
they
were
running for
their
lives.

The
brigadier
commanding
these
troops
wrote
later
that
he himself
very
much
wanted
to
run
at
top
speed,
but
could
do no
more
than
hobble
along
using
his
unsheathed
sword
as
a cane.
He
fell
in
a
field
before
he
got
very
far,
and
he
was
carried
off,
unconscious,
and
the
Rebels
kept
on
firing
as
the
men retreated.
The
remnant
of
Robinson's
division
at
last
regrouped
itself
back
of
the
knoll
from
which
it
had
started.
Its division
commander
and
every
brigade
commander
had
been put
out
of
action,
more
than
2,000
enlisted
men
had
been shot,
there
were
stragglers
all
over
the
place,
and
there
was no
more
fight
left
in
anybody.
The
division
had
fought
its last
fight.
A
day
or
so
later
army
headquarters
broke
it
up
and assigned
its
remnants
to
other
units.
⁴

The
rest
of
Warren's
corps
came
up,
followed
by
Sedgwick's,
and
the
fight
that
had
begun
as
an
advance-guard scrap
for
possession
of
an
insignificant
little
ridge
spread
all across
both
sides
of
the
little
valley
and
began
to
pull
two whole
armies
into
it.
The
troops
which
had
been
racing
for Spotsylvania
Court
House
were
running
a
dead
heat
to
this rolling,
half-wooded
area
a
mile
west
and
north
of
the
hamlet, and
as
fast
as
the
men
came
up
they
were
strung
out
on
the firing
lines,
each
line
unrolling
to
north
and
south
as
more troops
arrived.
Batteries
were
brought
up,
their
gun
crews glad
to
see
open
ground
again
in
place
of
the
impossible Wilderness
tangle,
and
the
guns
took
position
on
the
high ground
and
began
hammering.

It
was
a
confused
fight
that
grew
by
what
it
fed
on,
with separate
regiments
colliding
briefly
here
and
there
as
they struggled
for
favorable
positions.
There
was
a
whole
series
of little
assaults
and
counterassaults
which
cost
lives
and
drained away
reserves
of
strength
and
endurance
but
which
were buried
in
the
reports
as
incidental
to
the
general
process
of

getting
the
battle
lines
established.
Toward
evening,
though, Grant
felt
that
there
were
enough
men
on
hand
to
make
a real
fight
of
it,
and
the
Federals
staggered
forward
for
an
attack.

Gruff
General
Crawford
got
his
Pennsylvania
Reserves ahead
so
that
they
overlapped
the
right
end
of
the
Confederate
line
and
for
a
moment
it
looked
as
if
they
might
break something
loose,
but
the
men
were
simply
too
exhausted
to drive
their
attack
home.
Also,
at
the
last
minute
they
collided with
Robert
Rodes's
division
of
Confederates,
which
had
just come
on
the
scene
in
a
state
of
equal
exhaustion.
For
a
time the
worn-out
troops
blazed
away
at
each
other
at
short
range, and
then
the
Pennsylvanians
pulled
back
and
the
day
ended with
the
rival
armies
spread
out
in
a
great
crescent,
the
concave
side
to
the
east,
with
Spotsylvania
Court
House
nestled on
the
Confederate
side
of
the
curve.
Sedgwick's
and
Warren's
men
were
in
line
side
by
side,
and
Hancock
was
coming up
behind
and
Burnside
was
bringing
his
corps
down
through the
night
from
somewhere
off
to
the
north.

The
infantry
lines
were
restless
as
the
darkness
came
down, and
patrols
and
skirmishers
were
forever
prodding
at
one
another
and
firing
sharply
at
the
sight
or
sound
of
movement, and
now
and
then
the
chat-chatter
of
their
firing
provoked
the artillery
to
add
its
own
voice.
Farther
back,
the
immense column
of
Yankee
cavalry
was
all
astir.
It
was
taking
off
on
a ponderous
move
that
might
turn
into
a
very
big
thing,
and while
there
were
certain
military
reasons
for
the
move
the controlling
factor
in
all
of
it
was
the
fact
that
two
very
hot-tempered
men
had
just
had
a
violent
argument.