A Stillness at Appomattox (88 page)

The
first
mistake
lay
in
the
fact
that
somehow
no
one
had told
either
Meade
or
Hancock
that
there
was
going
to
be
a fight
at
Petersburg
that
day.
Hancock's
orders
simply
were
to march
to
City
Point,
to
wait
long
enough
there
to
issue
rations to
his
men,
and
then
to
march
toward
Petersburg
and
put
his men
in
position
at
a
spot
where
the
City
Point
Railroad crossed
something
called
Harrison's
Creek.
He
was
given
a map
showing
all
of
the
roads
to
Petersburg,
and
on
this
map his
objective
point
was
clearly
marked.
It
was
stated
that
the Federals
already
had
field
works
there.

Hancock
undertook
to
obey
orders,
but
there
were
problems.
The
first
was
that
there
were
no
rations
for
him
at
City Point,
and
after
waiting
several
hours
he
got
impatient
and had
the
column
move
on
without
them.
The
next
trouble
was that
the
map
that
had
been
given
him
turned
out
to
be
totally in
error.
Roads
and
streams
did
not
run
how
or
where
the map
said
they
did,
and
the
troops
were
let
in
for
a
great
deal of
countermarching
and
backtracking.
As
the
day
wore
on Hancock
began
to
suspect
that
the
spot
he
was
going
to
did not
exist;
either
the
inhabitants
of
the
region
had
never
heard of
any
Harrison's
Creek
or
they
were
refusing
to
share
their knowledge
with
Yankees.
(It
turned
out
later
that
the
designated
place
was
well
within
the
Rebel
lines.)
With
all
of
this, the
II
Corps
had
a
long
day
on
the
roads,
and
along
toward 5:30
p.m
a
message
arrived
from
U.
S.
Grant
telling
Hancock to
hurry
because
Smith
had
carried
the
outer
works
of
the Petersburg
defense
system
and
needed
help
at
once.
A
few minutes
later
Hancock
got
a
similar
note
from
Smith.

Thus,
for
the
first
time,
Hancock
knew
that
he
was
supposed
to
be
marching
up
to
take
part
in
a
fight.
If
he
had known
this
at
dawn
he
could
have
had
his
men
up
beside Smith's
by
midafternoon,
bad
maps
or
no:
instead,
as
he
wrote in
his
report,
"I
spent
the
best
hours
of
the
day
...
in marching
by
an
incorrect
map
in
search
of
a
designated
position
which,
as
described,
was
not
in
existence."
As
a
result his
men
began
to
come
up
beside
Smith's
men
after
all
of
the fighting
had
stopped.
Smith
had
made
his
decision,
and
when Hancock
asked
him,
as
the
man
on
the
spot,
what
was
going to
happen
next,
Smith
simply
suggested
that
Hancock
have his
men
relieve
Hinks's
boys
in
the
captured
trenches.
Tomorrow
would
be
time
enough
to
renew
the
attack.
¹¹

The
II
Corps
of
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
was
a
battle-wise outfit,
and
during
the
last
six
weeks
it
had
been
hammered so
hard
that
most
of
the
spring
had
gone
out
of
it.
Nevertheless,
it
is
recorded
that
for
once
in
their
lives
the
men
in
this corps
made
furious
and
profane
objections
when
they
were told
that
they
would
not
immediately
be
rushed
into
battle.

During
their
march
that
day
an
electric
sense
of
coming victory
had
gone
through
the
ranks.
The
men
had
a
fairly clear
idea
of
what
was
going
on,
and
they
understood
that
at last
a
flank
march
had
been
fully
successful.
They
had
got ahead
of
their
opponents,
they
were
going
to
get
to
Petersburg
before
Lee's
army
could
get
there,
and
they
were
strategists
enough
to
know
what
that
was
going
to
mean.
¹²
So they
tramped
along
perkily,
while
the
sun
went
down
and the
twilight
faded
into
ghostly
moonlight,
and
up
ahead
they heard
firing.
They
came
up
through
the
backwash
of
Smith's battle,
at
last,
and
they
passed
some
of
Hinks's
colored
soldiers,
gaily
hauling
brass
cannon
to
the
rear
with
long
ropes, fifty
men
on
a
cannon,
everybody
shouting
and
laughing.
The II
Corps
looked
at
this
with
interest
and
called
out
the
obvi
ous
question:
Where
did
you
get
those
guns?
Proudly
the
colored
soldiers
replied
that
they
had
just
captured
them
from the
Rebels.

The
deduction
which
Hancock's
veterans
drew
from
this was
not
complimentary
to
Hinks's
division,
but
it
sent
II Corps
morale
sky-high.
If
these
colored
troops
had
captured guns
in
prepared
earthworks,
Hancock's
men
figured,
that could
only
mean
that
Lee's
veterans
had
not
yet
reached Petersburg.
The
Army
of
the
Potomac
was
winning
the
race. Up
and
down
the
moving
column
the
men
shifted
their blanket
rolls,
moved
cartridge
boxes
around
to
where
they could
get
at
them
more
easily,
and
remarked
to
no
one
in particular:
"Put
us
into
it,
Hancock,
my
boy,
and
well
end this
damned
rebellion
tonight."