A Stillness at Appomattox (82 page)

It
was
risky
business.
This
was
no
mere
repetition
of
the sidestep
which
had
been
done
so
many
times
on
the
march down
from
the
Rapidan.
This
time
the
whole
army
was
marching
directly
away
from
its
foes,
gambling
that
it
could
disappear
completely
even
though
the
two
armies
were
in
intimate contact
along
a
five-mile
front,
their
lines
nowhere
more
than a
few
hundred
yards
apart.
Once
it
got
clean
away—if
it
did —the
Federal
army
had
to
make
a
fifty-mile
hike
and
cross
a tidal
river
which
was
half
a
mile
wide
and
fifteen
fathoms deep:
a
river
which,
unlike
all
of
the
little
streams
which
had been
crossed
earlier,
bore
on
its
surface
a
number
of
formidable
ironclad
Confederate
gunboats.
There
were
Yankee
gunboats,
to
be
sure,
to
keep
these
in
check,
but
if
even
one Southern
warship
managed
to
slip
past
these
defenders,
it could
turn
the
projected
river
crossing
into
disaster.

Much
worse
than
the
danger
of
the
gunboats,
however, was
the
chance
that
Lee
would
find
out
what
was
going
on and
would
move
out
to
interfere.
If
he
should
catch
the
Army of
the
Potomac
in
the
act
of
turning
its
back
on
him
and marching
down
to
the
James
River,
what
he
and
his
soldiers might
do
to
it
would
hardly
bear
thinking
about.
Two
years ago
he
had
detected
McClellan
making
the
same
move
on
the same
ground,
and
only
the
utter
greenness
of
his
staff
and command
arrangements
had
kept
him
from
destroying
Mo

Clellan's
army.
The
greenness
had
long
since
been
corrected.

Yet
in
making
this
move
Grant
was
not
simply
gambling that
Lee
could
be
hoodwinked.
Lee
or
any
other
general could
be
fooled
briefly,
in
this
country
of
obscure
roads
and concealing
swamps
and
woods,
but
it
was
not
likely
that
he could
be
fooled
for
very
long.
What
Grant
was
really
banking
on
was
the
belief
that
the
terrible
pounding
of
the
last six
weeks
had
taken
something
out
of
the
Army
of
Northern Virginia—that
it
was
no
longer
the
quick,
instantly
responsive instrument
that
had
made
such
deadly
thrusts
in
the
past, and
that
it
would
not
lash
out
today
as
it
had
done
in
1862, when
it
discovered
its
opponent
in
the
act
of
making
a
flank march
across
its
front.
Those
tawny
gray
legions
were
still unconquerable
behind
trenches,
but
they
had
lost
the
incomparable
offensive
power
of
the
old
days:
that,
in
essence, seems
to
have
been
the
bet
Grant
was
really
making.
²³

The
different
Federal
moves
were
intricate,
this
night
of June
12,
but
the
timing
was
good.
Hancock
and
Wright
took their
men
back
to
the
inner
trench
line
as
insurance
against accidents.
Smith
led
his
XVIII
Corps
back
to
White
House, where
the
transports
were
waiting.
Burnside
followed,
turning
off
a
few
miles
short
of
White
House
to
follow
a
road down
to
the
James.
Wilson's
cavalry,
left
behind
by
Sheridan, moved
down
to
a
Chickahominy
crossing
at
Long
Bridge— the
bridge
had
long
since
been
destroyed
and
the
name
merely designated
a
place—and
went
splashing
across
the
river
in the
midnight
dark,
laying
a
pontoon
bridge
immediately afterward.
Warren's
V
Corps
promptly
crossed
on
this
bridge and
marched
boldly
in
the
direction
of
Richmond
along
the fringe
of
historic
White
Oak
Swamp.

By
dawn
of
June
13
there
was
nobody
left
at
Cold
Harbor. Even
the
inner
line
was
empty,
for
it
needed
to
be
held
only long
enough
to
protect
the
withdrawal
of
the
rest
of
the
army, and
by
daylight
the
VI
Corps
was
following
Burnside's
men and
Hancock
was
taking
his
corps
down
over
the
Long
Bridge crossing.
When
Confederate
skirmishers
crept
forward
across the
strangely
silent
rifle
pits
they
found
nothing
but
empty trenches
and
the
indescribable
unseemly
refuse
left
behind by
a
departing
army.
Since
the
Yankees
did
seem
to
be
moving
toward
Richmond
below
White
Oak
Swamp,
Lee
pulled his
own
army
out
of
its
lines
and
moved
down
to
cover
the capital,
occupying
roughly
the
ground
that
had
been
fought over
so
hard
during
the
McClellan
retreat
in
1862,
from
Glen-dale
to
Malvern
Hill.
Meanwhile,
Warren
withdrew
his
own corps—he
had
moved
forward
simply
to
protect
the
rest
of the
army
during
the
early
stages
of
the
march—and
headed
for a
spot
known
as
Charles
City
Courthouse,
close
to
the
James. Wilson's
cavalry
remained
behind,
holding
all
of
the
road crossings
and
driving
back
the
inquisitive
Rebel
patrols.
A curtain
was
drawn
between
the
two
armies,
and
for
the
first time
in
a
month
and
a
half
Federal
and
Confederate
infantry were
out
of
contact.