A Stillness at Appomattox (77 page)

And
General
Warren,
sensitive
and
high-strung,
turned
to another
officer
one
day
and
burst
out:

"For
thirty
days
it
has
been
one
funeral
procession
past me,
and
it
is
too
much!"
⁹

Warren
was
showing
the
strain,
and
both
Grant
and Meade
were
noticing
it.
He
had
been
a
good
friend
of
Meade for
a
long
time,
and
Grant
had
been
favorably
impressed
by him.
When
the
army
crossed
the
Rapidan,
Grant
even
made a
mental
note
that
if
anything
should
happen
to
Meade, Warren
would
be
a
good
man
to
put
in
command
of
the army.
But
somehow
he
was
not
bearing
up
well.
Details
engrossed
him,
and
he
seemed
to
have
a
stiff
pride
which
made it
hard
for
him
to
accept
direction
and
counsel.
Worst
of all,
he
was
never
quite
able
to
get
his
corps
moving
promptly. It
was
felt
that
he
was
slow
in
bringing
his
men
into
action the
first
day
at
Spotsylvania,
and
when
the
attack
was
made at
the
Bloody
Angle
and
Warren
was
supposed
to
hit
the Confederate
left
there
had
been
a
three-hour
delay—a
costly thing,
which
led
Grant
to
tell
Meade
to
relieve
Warren
of his
command
if
he
delayed
any
longer.
Meade
replied
that he
was
about
to
do
it
without
orders,
but
Warren
finally got
his
corps
in
motion
just
in
time
to
save
his
job.
¹⁰

As
a
matter
of
fact,
corps
leadership
throughout
the
campaign
had
been
a
good
deal
less
than
distinguished.
Even Hancock
seemed
uninspired;
it
may
be
that
the
wound
he got
at
Gettysburg,
which
was
still
very
far
from
healed,
was slowing
him
up
more
than
anyone
realized.
John
Sedgwick was
gone,
and
Wright
was
not
yet
fully
tested.
He
was
obviously
brave
and
diligent,
but
there
were
signs
that
he might
be
stiff
and
slow.
Burnside
was
no
more
expert
than he
had
ever
been,
and
his
relations
with
Meade
were
delicate.
His
IX
Corps
had
at
last
formally
been
made
a
part of
the
Army
of
the
Potomac.
He
ranked
Meade,
and
was touchy
about
taking
orders
from
him,
and
Meade
was
not a
tactful
person
who
would
try
to
smooth
down
his
ruffled feathers.
Smith
had
served
with
Grant
at
Chattanooga
and had
won
his
confidence
there,
but
he
was
not
fitting
smoothly into
the
Army
of
the
Potomac.

Looking
back
on
the
Cold
Harbor
assault,
a
staff
man
in the
VI
Corps
wrote
scornfully
that
"its
management
would have
shamed
a
cadet
in
his
first
year
at
West
Point."
¹¹
Emory
Upton
went
into
more
detail
in
a
bitter
letter
to
his sister:

"I
am
disgusted
with
the
generalship
displayed.
Our
men have,
in
many
instances,
been
foolishly
and
wantonly
sacrificed.
Assault
after
assault
has
been
ordered
upon
the
enemy's
entrenchments
when
they
knew
nothing
about
the strength
or
position
of
the
enemy.
Thousands
of
lives
might have
been
spared
by
the
exercise
of
a
little
skill;
but,
as
it
is, the
courage
of
the
poor
men
is
expected
to
obviate
all
difficulties."

Reflecting
further
on
the
matter,
he
wrote
a
few
days later:

"Some
of
our
corps
commanders
are
not
fit
to
be
corporals. Lazy
and
indolent,
they
will
not
even
ride
along
their
lines; yet,
without
hesitancy,
they
will
order
us
to
attack
the
enemy,
no
matter
what
their
position
or
numbers.
Twenty thousand
of
our
killed
and
wounded
should
today
be
in
our ranks."
¹²

Grant
was
well
aware
that
there
were
grave
shortcomings in
command,
but
they
were
not
too
easily
identified
by
a man
who
was
looking
down
from
the
top
rather
than
up from
underneath.
To
Grant's
tent
one
day
came
young
Brigadier
General
James
H.
Wilson,
leader
of
one
of
Sheridan's cavalry
divisions,
earlier
in
the
war
a
member
of
Grant's own
staff
and
therefore
a
man
with
whom
Grant
might
talk frankly.
Wilson
was
one
of
the
young,
fire-eating,
just-out-of-West
Point
officers,
like
Upton,
who
studied
the
older men
with
the
eyes
of
impatient
perfectionist
youth.
Also,
he had
served
in
the
Western
armies,
where
Grant
had
had lieutenants
like
Sherman
and
Thomas
and
McPherson.

In
the
privacy
of
his
tent,
Grant
asked
the
young
briga
dier: