A Stillness at Appomattox (71 page)

At
last,
unable
to
get
the
unwieldy
machine
moving
properly,
headquarters
ordered
another
postponement
and
fixed the
hour
of
attack
for
daybreak
on
June
3.
Darkness
came, and
there
were
bursts
of
rain,
turning
now
and
then
into hail.
All
along
the
disordered
lines
the
men
dropped
off
to sleep,
lying
face
down
on
the
ground
in
the
wet,
glad
that it
was
raining
because
it
would
lay
the
dust
and
cut
the heat,
dimly
conscious
that
a
good
many
things
had
been going
wrong.
¹⁷

Much
had
gone
wrong,
and
what
mattered
most
was
that the
attack
was
going
to
be
twenty-four
hours
late.
An
assault
at
dawn
on
June
2
might
possibly
have
succeeded, since
on
that
morning
the
Rebels
in
front
of
Cold
Harbor
had not
had
time
to
get
set
for
it.
An
assault
at
dawn
on
June
3 would
not
have
a
chance
in
the
world
to
succeed,
and
the felony
was
compounded
by
the
fact
that
nobody
in
particular
had
thought
to
study
the
lay
of
the
land
and
the
position of
the
Confederate
defenses.
¹⁸
The
Union
army
had
spent the
twenty-four
hours
of
delay
chiefly
in
wearing
itself
out; the
Confederates
had
used
the
time
with
enormous
industry and
clever
engineering
skill
to
build
a
network
of
trenches, gun
emplacements,
and
skirmishers'
pits
like
nothing
the Army
of
the
Potomac
had
ever
encountered
before.

It
was
no
simple
line
of
breastworks
that
the
army
was going
to
attack
in
the
morning.
From
the
Chickahominy swamps
all
the
way
to
the
Totopotomoy,
the
Confederate line
on
the
morning
of
June
3
was
cunningly
and
elaborately
designed
to
take
advantage
of
every
ravine,
knoll, and
hillock,
every
bog
and
water
course,
every
clump
of trees
and
patch
of
brambles,
so
that
unending
cross
fires could
be
laid
on
all
possible
avenues
of
approach.
A
newspaper
correspondent
wrote
of
these
lines:
"They
are
intricate,
zig-zagged
lines
within
lines,
lines
protecting
flanks of
lines,
lines
built
to
enfilade
an
opposing
line,
lines
within which
lies
a
battery
...
a
maze
and
labyrinth
of
works within
works
and
works
without
works,
each
laid
out
with some
definite
design
either
of
defense
or
offense."
¹⁹

The
ground
was
deceptive.
The
Confederate
works
lay on
an
uneven
chain
of
low
hills
and
ridges,
none
of
them high
enough
to
look
frightening,
all
of
them
just
high
enough to
be
ideal
for
defensive
purposes.
There
was
hardly
a
spot on
the
front
which
could
not
be
hit
by
rifle
fire
and
artillery fire
from
dead
ahead
and
from
both
sides.
The
very
pickets and
skirmishers
were
dug
in,
and
to
make
matters
worse
the Union
front
at
Cold
Harbor
bowed
out
slightly,
so
that advancing
units
would
follow
diverging
paths
and
would expose
their
flanks
to
heavy
fire.
²⁰

Neither
Grant
nor
Meade
had
ordered
anybody
to
make a
detailed
survey
of
the
ground.
Apparently
they
assumed that
the
corps
commanders
would
do
that
as
a
matter
of routine.
The
assumption
was
wrong,
since
corps
routine
in the
Army
of
the
Potomac
did
not
extend
to
such
matters, and
so
nobody
knew
anything
of
any
consequence
about what
lay
ahead.
All
that
was
certain
was
that
40,000
men in
three
army
corps
were
to
begin
marching
toward
Richmond
at
dawn.
What
they
were
going
to
run
into
along
the way
was
something
they
would
have
to
find
out
for
themselves.

The
rain
stopped
just
before
dawn,
and
as
the
sky
grew lighter
it
was
clear,
with
a
promise
of
heat.
Gunners
in
the Federal
gun
emplacements
could
just
see
and
hear
the
infantry
columns
moving
forward
in
the
dim
light.
A
moment later
they
saw
orderlies
come
back,
leading
riderless
horses, by
which
they
knew
that
the
regimental
and
brigade
commanders
were
going
in
on
foot.
The
light
grew
stronger,
and half
a
mile
ahead
the
men
could
see
the
main
line
of
Confederate
works—an
uneven
tracing
of
raw
earth
across
the fields
and
through
the
groves,
looking
empty
but
somehow ominous.
Then
couriers
came
spurring
up
to
battery
commanders,
and
on
the
II
Corps
front
one
cannon
was
fired as
a
signal,
and
along
three
miles
of
gun
pits
the
men
ran to
their
places.