A Stillness at Appomattox (62 page)

Grant
scorned
to
look
behind
him.
To
keep
a
safe
supply line
open
all
the
way
back
to
Belle
Plain
and
Aquia
Creek
on the
Potomac
would
take
too
many
fighting
men
away
from the
front,
so
he
simply
refused
to
try.
When
the
army
left Spotsylvania
the
bases
on
the
Potomac
were
closed.
For
the time
being
a
new
base
was
opened
at
Port
Royal,
downstream from
Fredericksburg
on
the
Rappahannock.
That
was
closer
to the
army,
and
as
soon
as
the
distance
back
to
Port
Royal
became
too
great
a
new
base
could
be
opened
at
White
House, on
the
Pamunkey.
Later,
if
things
went
well,
there
could
even be
a
base
on
the
James
River
itself.
Whatever
happened,
the army
would
no
longer
be
tied
to
the
Potomac
by
a
long,
cumbersome
wagon
train.

There
was
significance
in
this,
for
names
can
be
important. At
the
beginning
of
the
war
the
army
had
been
named
the Army
of
the
Potomac,
and
the
overtones
of
that
name
had never
been
forgotten.
Above
everything
else,
the
army
had been
the
shield
of
Washington,
standing
near
the
Potomac River
to
defend
the
capital.
Now
the
ties
had
been
cut.
The army
had
left
the
river
from
which
it
took
its
name,
and
it was
not
going
to
see
that
river
again
while
the
war
lasted.
It was
going
south—going
glacially,
destroying
itself
as
it
destroyed
other
things,
but
moving
with
inevitability.
Except
in its
name,
which
it
wore
proudly,
like
a
battle
flag
prized
all the
more
because
weather
has
stained
it
and
bullets
have
cut i
t,
it
was
no
longer
the
Army
of
the
Potomac.
The
Potomac had
become
a
backwater.
Hereafter
the
rear
was
going
to have
to
take
care
of
itself.

That
meant
problems
for
the
rear
echelon,
and
these
problems
were
borne
largely
by
a
strange
little
detachment
of hopelessly
crippled
men
who
did
not
seem
to
think
that
mere physical
disability
need
keep
a
man
out
of
the
army.
These men,
officially,
were
members
of
the
18th
Regiment
of
the Veteran
Reserve
Corps,
and
they
made
up
as
unusual
a
fighting
force
as
the
United
States
ever
armed
and
equipped
for action.

Sometime
earlier
the
authorities
had
meditated
on
the
great loss
of
manpower
involved
in
the
discharge
of
wounded
veterans
who
were
still
sound
enough
for
light
duty
behind
the lines,
and
they
had
organized
a
body
which
they
called
the Invalid
Corps,
which
was
recruited
in
army
hospitals.
Any wounded
man
who
was
permanently
unfit
for
field
service but
who
could
still
be
moderately
active
might,
if
he
chose, enlist
in
this
Invalid
Corps.
Some
thousands
of
wounded
men joined
up,
and
they
were
scattered
all
over
the
North—guarding
prison
camps
and
arsenals,
acting
as
hospital
guards,
doing
provost
guard
duty
at
draft
offices,
and
so
on.
It
was
a sound
idea,
but
it
got
off
to
a
bad
start.
The
name
"Invalid Corps"
grated
on
everybody,
and
the
field
troops
poked
a good
deal
of
fun
at
it,
and
members
of
the
corps
asked
to
be sent
back
to
the
front
or
discharged
outright
rather
than
bear the
title
"Invalid."
Also,
the
authorities
in
their
wisdom
had devised
a
uniform
of
delicate
robin's-egg
blue,
which
nobody liked.
After
a
time,
therefore,
the
organization
was
renamed the
Veteran
Reserve
Corps
and
given
regular
army
uniforms, and
it
settled
down
to
do
useful
work.

There
were
different
classifications
within
the
corps.
The most
nearly
fit
men
were
enlisted
in
what
was
called
the
First Battalion,
which
meant
that
they
could
be
used
for
non-combat
garrison
and
guard
duty.
Below
them
came
the
Second
Battalion,
whose
men
were
too
crippled
or
enfeebled
to carry
mwskets
or
move
about
freely
on
their
feet
and
who accordingly
were
designated
for
the
lightest
kind
of
duty.

The
18th
Regiment
was
composed
of
six
companies
of
Second Battalion
men—nearly
500
men,
altogether—and
ordinarily they
would
have
had
no
business
within
fifty
miles
of
the
Potomac
River
bases.
But
Grant
was
running
things
these
days and
he
had
stern
ideas
about
making
use
of
army
manpower, and
so
in
mid-May
the
18th
Regiment
was
put
on
a
transport in
Washington
and
told
to
guard
a
batch
of
the
priceless bounty
men
who
were
being
shipped
down
to
the
army.