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Authors: Bruce Catton

Tags: #Non Fiction, #Military

A Stillness at Appomattox (9 page)

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Cavalry's
camps
were
better
policed,
the
endless
picket
details
were
reduced,
and
it
appeared
that
Sheridan
was
going to
insist
on
using
his
corps
as
a
compact
fighting
unit.
When Sheridan
was
taken
to
the
White
House
to
meet
the
President,
Lincoln
quoted
the
familiar
army
jest—"Who
ever
saw a
dead
cavalryman?"—and
it
was
obvious
that
Sheridan
was not
amused.
Meeting
a
friend
at
Willard's
a
little
bit
later, Sheridan
said:
"I'm
going
to
take
the
cavalry
away
from
the bobtailed
brigadier
generals.
They
must
do
without
their escorts.
I
intend
to
make
the
cavalry
an
arm
of
the
service."

One
trooper
complained
that
people
now
were
checking
up on
all
routine
jobs,
so
that
a
man
grooming
his
horse
had
to put
in
a
full
sixty
minutes
at
its
"There
is
an
officer
watching you
all
the
time,
and
if
you
stop
he
yells
out,
'Keep
to
work
9
there!"'
With
all
of
this
came
businesslike
new
weapons? seven-shot
Spencer
magazine
carbines,
made
regulation
equipment
by
a
recently
revived
Cavalry
Bureau.
15

Artillerists
were
put
through
endless
maneuvers,
wheeling back
and
forth
in
the
dust
and
mud
to
become
letter-perfect in
such
intricacies
as
"changing
front
to
the
right
on
the
first section,"
and
banging
away
in
constant
target
practice.
Batteries
were
taught
to
come
galloping
up
to
a
line,
halt
and unlimber,
completely
disassemble
their
pieces
until
wheels, guns,
gun
carriages,
and
limber
chests
lay
separate
on
the ground,
then
at
a
word
of
command
reassemble
the
whole business
and
go
galloping
away
again.
One
gunner
declared that
a
good
gun
crew
could
perform
the
whole
maneuver
in several
seconds
less
than
one
minute,
and
another
grumbled that
all
of
this
"was
of
as
much
practical
use
to
us
as
if
we had
been
assiduously
drilled
to
walk
on
stilts";
and
whether it
was
useful
or
otherwise
the
drill
was
repeated
over
and over
and
the
gun
crews
got
toughened
up
for
the
approaching campaign.
16

None
of
this,
naturally,
missed
the
infantry.
There
were
unending
drills,
and
much
target
practice.
The
army
command had
caught
on
to
the
notorious
fact
that
some
soldiers
simply did
not
know
how
to
shoot.
On
every
battlefield,
ordnance officers
had
collected
hundreds
of
discarded
muskets
containing
anywhere
from
two
to
a
dozen
unexploded
cartridges.
In the
heat
of
battle
men
failed
to
notice
that
they
had
not
pulled trigger,
and
reloaded
weapons
which
had
not
been
fired;
or, indeed,
they
were
so
untaught
that
they
did
not
even
know enough
to
cap
their
pieces
and
so
pulled
trigger
to
no
effect, failing
to
realize
in
all
the
battle
racket
that
they
had
not actually
fired.
A
circular
from
headquarters
decreed
that
every man
in
the
army
should
be
made
to
load
and
fire
his
weapon under
supervision
of
an
officer,
since
"it
is
believed
there
are men
in
this
army
who
have
been
in
numerous
actions
without ever
firing
their
guns."
17

The
bark
of
the
drill
sergeant
echoed
across
the
hard-trodden
parade
grounds
where
new
levies
were
being
put
into shape.
(In
the
Irish
Brigade,
an
irate
non-com
was
heard shouting:
"Kape
your
heels
together,
Tim
Mullaney
in
the rear
rank,
and
don't
be
standing
wid
wan
fut
in
Bull
Run
and" the
other
in
the
Sixth
Ward!")
Transportation
was
cut
down,
one
wagon
to
a
brigade
was
the
rule
now—and
many
wagon drivers
came
back
to
the
ranks
and
shouldered
muskets.
One of
these
passed
a
wagon
train
one
day
and
heard
a
mule
braying.
Fixing
his
eye
on
the
beast,
the
man
retorted:
"You needn't
laugh
at
me—you
may
be
in
the
ranks
yourself
before Grant
gets
through
with
the
army."
All
in
all,
it
was
as
a
New England
soldier
wrote:
"We
all
felt
at
last
that
the boss
had arrived."
18

There
were
many
reviews:
no
McClellan
touch
now,
with pomp
and
flourish,
but
a
businesslike
marshaling
of
troops
to be
seen
by
the
general
in
chief,
who
rode
by
always
at
a
gallop,
sometimes
on
Cincinnati,
sometimes
on
a
little
black
pacer named
Jeff
Davis,
and
who
for
all
his
speed
always
seemed able
to
look
each
man
in
the
ranks
squarely
in
the
eye.
The general
did
not
appear
to
care
whether
anyone
cheered
or
not. The
Iron
Brigade
was
drawn
up
one
day
in
line
of
massed battalions,
a
cold
drizzle
coming
down,
and
as
Grant
came along
the
line
regiment
after
regiment
gave
him
a
cheer.
Grant was
preoccupied,
studying
the
faces
of
the
hard
fighters
in this
famous
brigade,
and
he
neglected
to
give
the
customary wave
of
the
hat
in
response,
and
so
the
colonel
of
the
6th Wisconsin
at
the
far
end
of
the
line
told
his
men
not
to
cheer but
simply
to
give
the
formal
salute.
They
obeyed,
and
as Grant
came
along
he
noticed
the
omission
and
slowed
to
a walk.
The
colors
were
dipped,
and
Grant
took
off
his
hat
and bowed.
The
Wisconsin
boys
were
pleased,
and
after
the
parade
broke
up
they
said
that
"Grant
wants
soldiers,
not
yaup-ers."
1
®

BOOK: A Stillness at Appomattox
9.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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