A Stillness at Appomattox (46 page)

for
some
reason
he
chose
artillery
instead.
He
had
various staff
and
line
appointments
in
the
early
days
of
the
war,
and then
went
over
into
the
volunteer
service
and
became
colonel of
the
121st
New
York,
whose
boys
found
him
stiff
on
the matter
of
discipline
but,
on
the
whole,
a
man
they
could like.
¹

Because
he
was
a
good
leader
of
men
and
also
a
thoughtful
scientific
soldier,
he
had
risen
to
brigade
command,
although
(and
the
fact
irked
him)
he
had
not
yet
been
made a
brigadier
general.
In
the
fall
of
1863,
when
Meade
and
Lee maneuvered
fruitlessly
back
and
forth
across
the
Rapidan country,
Upton
had
led
a
surprise
attack
on
a
Confederate fort
at
Rappahannock
Station,
winning
a
sparkling
little victory
and
capturing
more
than
a
thousand
prisoners.
Now he
was
restlessly
observing
what
happened
when
the
army butted
up
against
the
solid
trenches
that
appeared
like
magic whenever
the
Rebels
drew
their
lines,
and
it
seemed
to
him that
there
was
a
better
way
to
do
things.

Upton,
in
short,
felt
that
he
knew
how
to
break
through those
Rebel
entrenchments,
and
he
spoke
up
about
it,
and on
the
afternoon
of
May
10
they
gave
him
twelve
picked infantry
regiments,
his
own
121st
New
York
among
them, and
told
him
to
go
ahead.

There
was
much
fighting
that
day.
The
opposing
lines
lay in
a
great
rambling
curve,
and
off
toward
the
Federal
right some
divisions
from
Hancock's
and
Warren's
corps
made
a savage
and
costly
assault
on
the
Rebel
trenches,
coming
up through
a
grove
of
spiky
dead
pines
as
tangled
as
anything in
the
Wilderness
and
being
rebuffed
with
heavy
loss.
Half
a mile
or
more
north
and
east
of
the
place
where
they
fought, Upton
massed
his
twelve
regiments
late
in
the
afternoon.

The
spot
that
had
been
picked
for
him
was
not
promising. Upton's
men
faced
east,
looking
toward
a
wood.
There
was a
little
road
going
off
through
the
trees,
and
it
came
out
into a
field
which
sloped
up
for
200
yards
to
the
enemy's
works, which
were
formidable.
Out
in
front
there
was
a
heavy
abatis of
felled
trees,
the
sharpened
branches
pointing
toward
the Federals,
and
the
main
trench
line
was
several
dozen
paces beyond.
This
trench
was
solidly
built
of
logs
and
banked-up earth,
and
along
the
top
there
ran
a
head
log,
blocked
up
a few
inches
above
the
dirt
so
that
Confederate
riflemen
could stand
in
the
trench,
aim
and
fire
their
pieces
through
the
slit under
the
log,
and
enjoy
almost
complete
protection.
Heavy traverses—mounds
of
earth
ru
nning
back
at
right
angles
from the
main
embankment—had
been
built
at
frequent
intervals as
a
protection
against
enfilade
fire.
This
line
was
strongly manned
with
first-rate
troops,
and
a
hundred
yards
in
the rear
of
it
there
was
a
second
line,
not
yet
wholly
completed but
also
held
by
good
troops.
Here
and
there
along
the
front line
there
were
emplacements
for
artillery,
so
that
all
of
the slope
out
in
front
could
be
swept
both
by
rifle
fire
and
by canister.

The
obvious
fact
here—at
least
it
was
obvious
to
Upton-was
that
an
assaulting
column's
only
hope
was
to
get
a
solid mass
of
riflemen
right
on
the
parapet
as
quickly
as
possible. If
the
men
stopped
on
open
ground
to
exchange
volleys
with those
thoroughly
protected
Confederates
they
would
be
destroyed
in
no
time.
So
Upton
formed
his
men
in
four
lines, three
regiments
side
by
side
in
each
line,
and
he
issued
explicit
orders:
every
man
was
to
have
his
musket
loaded
and his
bayonet
fixed,
but
only
the
men
in
the
three
leading
regiments
were
to
cap
their
muskets.
(To
"cap"
a
Civil
War musket
was
to
put
a
copper
percussion
cap
in
the
breech
so that
it
could
instantly
be
fired.
With
uncapped
weapons,
the men
could
not
fire
as
they
charged
but
would
have
to
keep on
advancing
and
so
would
reach
the
trench
with
loaded muskets
which
could
then
very
quickly
be
capped
for
close-range
firing.)
When
the
first
three
regiments
reached
the trench
they
were
to
fan
out
to
right
and
left
and
drive
the
defenders
off
down
the
line,
while
the
second
wave
swarmed
in behind
them
to
open
fire
on
any
reinforcements
that
might try
to
come
up
from
the
Confederate
second
line.
The
remaining
two
lines
were
to
lie
down
just
short
of
the
trench
for use
as
they
might
be
needed.