A Stillness at Appomattox (66 page)

Harbor
was
the
one
spot
he
had
never
heard
any
old
soldier express
a
desire
to
revisit.
⁴

Cold
Harbor
lay
beyond
the
flanks
of
the
armies.
If
the Federals
were
going
to
side-step
once
more
they
would
have to
come
through
here.
Conversely,
if
the
Confederates
planned a
countermove
of
their
own
this
was
a
good
spot
for
them
to take,
because
if
they
held
this
crossroads
they
would
be
closer to
the
Yankee
base
at
White
House
than
the
Yankees
were themselves.
So
as
May
came
to
an
end
the
storm
clouds
of
the war
drifted
down
to
Cold
Harbor,
with
a
hurricane
of
fire
to sweep
the
dreary
plain,
and
the
name
of
the
run-down
little tavern
became
a
name
to
remember
forever.

The
cavalry
got
there
first.
Phil
Sheridan
had
led
his
horsemen
back
to
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
a
week
earlier
after
a wild,
eventful
swing
that
took
him
to
the
very
edge
of
Richmond.
He
had
destroyed
a
good
deal
of
Confederate
property,
he
had
released
certain
captured
Yankees
who
had
been on
their
way
to
the
Richmond
prisons,
he
had
had
a
big
fight with
the
Confederate
cavalry—and
he
had
done
one
of
the grim
things
that
had
to
be
done
if
the
Confederacy
was
to die:
he
had
killed
Jeb
Stuart.
Now
the
raid
was
over
and
cavalry
was
back
on
the
job
again,
and
on
May
31
Sheridan brought
two
mounted
divisions
cross
country,
shook
them
out into
a
line
of
battle,
and
drove
them
yelling
and
clattering over
the
crossroads.

Confederate
troops
were
already
there.
Lee
and
Grant
had simultaneously
realized
the
need
to
occupy
this
spot,
and Rebel
cavalry
stiffened
with
infantry
had
come
on
the
scene just
in
time
to
meet
Sheridan's
hard
drive.
Sheridan's
men forced
them
out—they
had
at
last
turned
from
mere
raiders into
hard
men
of
war,
these
cavalrymen,
and
their
magazine carbines
gave
them
prodigious
fire
power
at
close
range,
and they
got
off
their
horses
and
fought
on
foot
and
got
a
grip
on the
flat
land
around
the
crossroads,
sending
the
Confederate advance
guard
back
in
defeat.

Lee
was
not
going
to
take
this
meekly,
and
he
sent
in
a fresh
division
of
infantry
to
drive
Sheridan's
troopers
out. The
troopers
hung
on,
working
the
levers
of
their
carbines fast
and
kicking
up
the
dust
with
low-flying
bullets,
and
when evening
came
Sheridan
sent
back
word
that
he
did
not think
his
men
could
stay
where
they
were.
He
was
told to
stay
anyway
because
Federal
infantry
would
be
up shortly,
and
while
the
dismounted
cavalrymen
dug
in
their heels
and
fought,
couriers
rode
northeast
to
where
General Wright
had
his
VI
Corps,
on
the
right
end
of
the
Yankee line,
and
told
him
to
get
his
men
around
to
Cold
Harbor
as fast
as
they
could
travel.
⁵

The
Army
of
the
Potomac
had
moved
by
its
left
many times
in
this
campaign,
but
it
always
did
it
in
reverse
order; if
the
army
had
simply
faced
to
its
left
and
started
marching
it
would
have
invited
a
ruinous
flank
attack.
On
a
shift to
the
left,
the
first
troops
to
move
were
always
those
on the
extreme
right.
They
would
fade
back,
move
around
behind
the
army,
and
come
up
on
the
other
end
of
the
line.

So
it
was
today.
The
VI
Corps
held
the
right;
now
it
left its
trenches
and
during
the
night
and
early
morning
it
went slogging
along
through
choking
dust
which
raised
a
foul, strangling
cloud
over
every
regiment
and
made
it
impossi
ble
to
see
the
length
of
a
company.
Intermittent
messages kept
coming
from
Sheridan—hurry
up,
hurry
up,
cavalry
alone can't
hold
this
position
much
longer—and
one
of
Wright's staff
officers
who
rode
on
ahead
to
Cold
Harbor
found Sheridan
"the
most
nervy,
wiry
incarnation
of
business,
and business
only,
I
had
yet
met."
The
men
remembered
this march
as
about
the
worst
they
ever
made,
and
when
they got
to
Cold
Harbor
in
mid-morning
of
June
1,
dirt-caked and
completely
worn
out,
they
were
happy
to
find
that
the firing
had
died
down.
They
formed
line
of
battle,
an
empty echoing
plain
before
them,
and
most
of
the
men
dropped
in their
tracks
and
fell
into
a
drugged
sort
of
sleep.
⁶