A Stillness at Appomattox (55 page)

On
this
nineteenth
of
May
the
Confederates
made
another of
their
patented
blows
at
the
Yankee
flank.
Ewell's
corps went
out
beyond
the
Union
right
and
came
down
through
the woods
heading
straight
for
a
road
where
the
vast
wagon
trains were
unloading,
and
all
that
stood
in
the
way
was
an
untested
division
made
up
of
some
of
those
heavy
artillery
regiments
which
had
been
uprooted
from
their
comfortable berths
in
the
Washington
forts.

The
veterans
had
not
been
kind
to
these
men.
As
they
were marched
up
to
go
into
their
first
fight,
the
ex-artillerists
passed a
batch
of
wounded
men
who
were
awaiting
medical
attention.
These
men
exhibited
their
wounds,
some
of
which
were pretty
ghastly,
and
pointed
out
that
the
heavies
would
very soon
be
getting
hurt
as
badly
as
this
or
even
worse.
Some called
out,
"Dearest,
why
did
you
leave
your
earthworks?" Others
pulled
a
covering
blanket
from
a
dreadfully
mangled corpse
that
lay
by
the
road
and
invited
the
green
soldiers
to look
at
what
happened
to
combat
soldiers.
There
was
nothing for
the
heavies
to
do
but
swallow
hard
and
keep
marching, and
before
long
they
formed
line
of
battle
and
went
off through
the
underbrush
to
fight
with
Lee's
veterans.

The
heavies
knew
nothing
about
fighting,
but
they
were willing
to
learn.
For
an
hour
or
more
they
had
it
out
with Ewell's
men,
back
and
forth
across
a
series
of
wooded
hollows and
little
ravines,
and
at
the
end
of
that
time
the
Confederates
were
in
full
retreat,
with
900
dead
and
wounded
left on
the
ground.
About
an
equal
number
of
the
heavies
had been
shot,
and
when
a
newspaper
correspondent
asked
how they
had
behaved,
one
of
their
officers
explained:
"Well,
after a
few
minutes
they
got
a
little
mixed
and
didn't
fight
very tactically,
but
they
fought
confounded
plucky."
It
is
recorded that
ever
after
that
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
had
no
more jeers
for
heavy
artillerists
but
admitted
them
to
full
comradeship.
²⁶

A
day
or
so
after
this
the
army
began
to
move
again.
It was
not
just
edging
a
little
farther
around
the
Confederate flank,
this
time,
but
was
really
taking
to
the
road,
heading south.
The
soldiers'
spirits
rose
with
the
move—the
Spotsylvania
area
was
one
any
soldier
would
be
glad
to
leave—and although
a
light
rain
was
falling,
it
merely
served
to
lay
the dust,
and
as
they
marched
a
number
of
the
battle-thinned regiments
did
what
veterans
rarely
did:
they
began
to
sing while
they
marched.

Yet
moods
could
change
fast,
and
the
singing
did
not
last long.
A
regiment
would
be
trudging
down
the
road,
singing as
if
all
of
war's
trials
were
far
away.
Then,
inexplicably,
the song
would
come
to
a
sudden
stop.
There
would
be
a
brief silence,
and
then
from
one
end
of
the
regiment
to
the
other, spurred
by
a
common
impulse,
the
men
would
yell:
"I
want
to go
home!"
²⁷

1.
The Cripples Who
Could
Not
Run

The
drama
no
longer
lay
i
n
the
great
events
that
took
place down
by
the
footlights.
At
the
back
of
the
stage
there
was
a silent
unbroken
procession
of
young
men
who
looked
old
and tired,
wearing
uniforms
much
the
worse
for
weather
and
hard wears
a
procession
that
moved
eternally
out
of
life
and
into death
or
mutilation,
compelling
the
attention
simply
because there
were
so
many
men
in
it
that
it
was
hard
to
think
about anything
else.
Lincoln
had
to
see
it,
and
he
paced
the
halls the
White
House
without
sleep,
a
grotesque
lanky
figure who
could
feel
the
lash
on
another
man's
back,
and
he
considered
the
sound
and
fury
which
Macbeth
had
heard
on
his own
stage
and
he
listened
for
something
beyond
it.
If
that something
was
there
it
would
come
out
someday,
and
if
it
was not
there
then
the
sooner
the
idiot's
tale
was
told
and
finished the
better
for
everyone.
Always
the
silent
procession
kept moving,
and
there
were
off-stage
sounds
of
hoarse
cheers,
and bursts
of
musketry
and
the
thudding
of
the
guns,
and
the maddening
imperious
command
of
the
bugles.