The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox

by Shelby Foote

  Griffin — crusty Griffin, whom Grant had advised Meade to place in arrest for insubordination on his second day over the Rapidan — now headed the V Corps. Warren, deep in the rebel rear with Crawford, corralling prisoners as they came streaming north across the fields and up Ford Road, had sent a staff colonel to inform headquarters of his whereabouts and his success in carrying out the flanking operation, only to have Sheridan scoff at the report. “By God, sir,” he interrupted hotly, “tell General Warren he wasn’t in that fight.” Astonished, the colonel replied that he would dislike to deliver any such message verbally. Might he take it down in writing? “Take it down, sir!” Sheridan barked. “Tell him by God he was not at the front.” Nor was that all. At their sundown meeting he formally notified Griffin that he was to take over in place of Warren, to whom a hastily scrawled field order soon was on its way: “Major General Warren, commanding the Fifth Army Corps, is relieved from duty, and will at once report for orders to Lieutenant General Grant, commanding Armies of the United States. By command of Major General Sheridan.”

  All the same, though he now felt he had an infantry chief he could depend on, he called off the pursuit he had been urging. In part this was because of the encumbrance of so many grayback prisoners that he used their discarded rifles to corduroy the worst stretches of road; but mainly it was because, on second thought — detached as he was from the rest of the army — he concentrated instead on bracing his victory-scattered troops for the counterattack Lee’s opponents had long since learned to expect in such a crisis. Nightfall cooled his blood, and with it his temper, even to the point where he came close to a downright apology for some of the rough talk he had unloaded on subordinates today. “You know how it is,” he told a group of V Corps officers gathered around a Five Forks campfire. “We had to carry this place, and I was fretted all day until it was done.” None of this applied to their former chief, however, and he had said as much to Warren himself when the New Yorker rode up to headquarters in the gathering dusk and asked him to reconsider the order issued for his removal in the heat of battle. “Reconsider, hell,” Sheridan snorted; “I don’t reconsider my decisions. Obey the order.”

  Sedgwick, Burnside, Hancock, Warren: now all four of the men commanding infantry corps at the time of the Rapidan crossing had departed, the last under conditions not unlike those attending the removal of his predecessor Fitz-John Porter, with whom he had shared an admiration for George McClellan, rejected like them by the powers that were. Reporting as ordered to headquarters at Dabney’s Mill about 10 o’clock that night, he found a celebration of Sheridan’s victory in progress. Grant, he said later, “spoke very kindly of my past services and efforts,” though the best he could do for him now, apparently, was put him in charge of the inactive City Point area, where he sat in the backwash while the guns boomed westward.… Warren began at once to press for a court of inquiry to right the hot-tempered wrong he believed had been done him today. He finally got it, fourteen years later, and after nearly three more years of hearings and deliberation he also received a measure of vindication by the court, which not only cleared him of Sheridan’s charges that he had been negligent at Five Forks, but also criticized the manner of his relief. However, that came three months after Warren himself was in his grave. Buried, as he directed in his will, in civilian clothes and without military ceremony, he would in time stand fully accoutered in bronze on the crest of Little Round Top, where he had saved Meade and, some would say, the Union.

  Back at Dabney’s, before Warren’s appearance put something of a damper on the scene, the victory celebration had been set off by Horace Porter’s arrival from Five Forks about an hour after dark; he had sent couriers, but overtook the last and most joyously burdened of these in his haste to share the good news with his friends and fellow members of the staff. They were sitting around a blazing campfire — Grant among them, wrapped in a long blue overcoat and smoking his usual cigar — when the young colonel rode into the firelight, shouting from horseback of Sheridan’s success. “For some minutes,” he would recall, “there was a bewildering state of excitement, grasping of hands, tossing up of hats, and slapping of each other on the back. It meant the beginning of the end, the reaching of the ‘last ditch.’ It pointed to peace and home.”

  Only the general-in-chief remained seated, puffing stolidly at his cigar while Porter burbled of six guns captured along with thirteen rebel flags. “How many prisoners have been taken?” Grant asked. More than 5000, he was told. He rose, went into his tent, and began to write telegraphic dispatches by the flickering light of a candle. When these were done he gave them to an orderly for transmission, then came back out to resume his seat beside the fire. “I have ordered an immediate assault along the lines,” he said.

  * * *

  Hearing before sunset of the reverse at Five Forks (though not of its extent, which would leave Pickett gunless by nightfall and unable to muster 2000 infantry in his shattered ranks next morning) Lee ordered Anderson to have Bushrod Johnson march his three remaining brigades at once to Sutherland Station, three miles north on the Southside Railroad, to combine with Pickett and Fitz Lee for the defense of that vital supply line and the even more vital Richmond & Danville, farther west. In partial compensation for this stripping of his right, and though the shift reduced by about 400 the number of defenders in A. P. Hill’s two divisions east of Burgess Mill — already so thin-spread, one of them declared, that the pickets were “as far apart as telegraph poles” — he brought two of Heth’s regiments across Hatcher’s Run to patrol the empty works along the south bank of that stream. Still robbing Peter to pay Paul, when he returned to his headquarters near the Appomattox, two miles west of Petersburg, he wired Longstreet to bring Field’s division south by rail tonight from beyond the James. That would leave only Kershaw’s reduced division and Ewell’s reservists to cover Richmond: a grave risk, but no graver than the one Lee ran in gambling that Grant would not launch an all-out southside attack before Old Peter arrived to help prevent the breaking of Hill’s line. Situated as he was, his right flank turned and a deep river at his back, if he had known that Pickett’s losses today, combined with those a week ago at Stedman, had cost him a solid fourth of his army, he probably would have evacuated Petersburg that night. Instead, he held on where he was, shifting and sidling his few troops to meet a crisis whose true dimensions were unknown to him, in hope of deferring his departure until such time — quite possibly tomorrow night — as would allow him to alert his subordinate commanders, not to mention the Richmond authorities, at least a few hours in advance.

  In any case, having done what he could within his means to meet the problem caused by the loss of Five Forks, he turned in early, so weary that he only removed his boots and outer garments before lying down to sleep. It was as well; for he had no sooner rested his head on the pillow, shortly after 9 o’clock, than guns began to growl all up and down the long curve of Union works, possibly signifying that he would have to turn out in a hurry to meet what Grant had in mind to do when the bombardment lifted. Whatever it was, he hoped it would not come before Field arrived to chink the undermanned stretches of his line. At 1.45 (April 2 now, a Sunday, though dawn was three hours off) a sudden ripple of picket fire intensified the duller rumble of artillery. Awake or asleep, Lee may or may not have heard it, intermittent at first and then a rising clatter. Certainly A. P. Hill did, for he appeared at the Turnbull house, Lee’s command post, about an hour before dawn. Disturbed by the weakness of his six-mile front along the Boydton Plank Road leading down to Burgess Mill — especially those portions of it whose outworks had been overrun by the Federals in reaction to Gordon’s storming of Fort Stedman, eight days back — Little Powell had returned from sick leave yesterday, though he still was far from well. Unable to sleep tonight, what with the roar of cannons and the stutter of small-arms fire, he had ridden from his own headquarters, back on the outskirts of Petersburg, a mile and a half out Cox Road to the Turnbull house to inquire whether a
nyone there knew what the Yankees were up to in the rackety, flame-stabbed darkness out beyond his front.

  Lee was awake, though still in bed, when Hill arrived, hazel eyes glittering feverishly above his auburn beard, high-set cheekbones hectic with the illness that had kept him from duty so much of the past year. Nearly two decades apart in age — one fifty-eight and looking it, prone beneath the bedclothes, the other eight months short of forty, slim and immaculately uniformed as always — the two generals began a discussion of what could be done if, as seemed likely from the step-up in the firing with the swift approach of dawn, a blue assault preceded Field’s arrival from beyond the James. Then Longstreet entered, burly and imperturbable despite the persistent lameness of his sword arm from the bullet that had cut him down at the height of his Wilderness flank attack, just one month less than a year ago this week. His arrival, as commander of the reinforcements ordered southward in all haste, was encouraging until he explained that he and his staff had ridden ahead on horseback to save space on the crowded cars for Field’s 4600 infantry. They were still on the way, so far as he knew, though he could not say how long it would be before the first of them reached Petersburg, let alone the front. Daylight was glimmering through by now, and Lee was indicating on a map the route he wanted these troops to take as soon as they detrained, when a staff colonel rushed into the room exclaiming that panicked teamsters were dashing their wagons “rather wildly” up the Cox Road past the Turnbull gate, apparently in flight from a Federal breakthrough somewhere down near Hatcher’s Run. A wounded officer, hobbling back on crutches, had even told of being driven from his quarters more than a mile behind the center of Hill’s line.

  Alarmed — as well he might be, since this first word of a penetration also indicated the likelihood of a rout — Lee drew a wrapper around him and went to the front door. Sure enough, though swirls of ground fog obscured the color of their uniforms in the growing light, long lines of men resembling skirmishers were moving toward him from the southwest, the nearest of them not over half a mile away. Uncertain whether they were retreating Confederates or advancing Federals, he sent an aide to take a closer look. Just then, however, they halted as if in doubt, and as they did the quickening daylight showed their clothes were blue. Lee turned to Longstreet and told him to go at once to the Petersburg station and hurry Field’s men westward, relay by relay, as fast as they unloaded from the cars. Then he turned to speak to Hill; but Hill was already running toward his horse, intent on reaching and rallying the troops in rear of his broken line. He mounted and rode south, accompanied by Sergeant G. W. Tucker, his favorite courier. Disturbed by something desperate in his fellow Virginian’s manner — or perhaps because he had heard that during the recently interrupted sick leave, spent with kinsmen in a Richmond rife with rumors of impending evacuation, Little Powell had said he had no wish to survive the fall of the capital — Lee sent a staffer to caution Hill not to expose himself unduly.

  Out front, across the open fields to the southwest, the line of bluecoats remained halted in a swale. Apparently made cautious by the activity in the Turnbull yard, they seemed to be waiting for reinforcements to come up before they continued their advance. Lee studied them briefly, then went into the house to finish dressing. When he reappeared, he wore his best gray uniform and had buckled on his sword. This last was so unusual that it occurred to at least one member of his staff that the general had decided to be in “full harness” in case he was obliged to surrender before the rising sun went down. In any event, he mounted Traveller and rode out for a closer examination of whatever calamity was at hand.

  Piecemeal, in the absence of reports from subordinates who were too busy just then to do anything but fight to hang on where they were or hurry rearward to avoid capture, he managed to gather at least a notion of what had happened as a result of the massive three-corps blue assault launched at daybreak, 60,000 strong, against nearly the whole twelve miles of works, defended by less than one fourth that number, from the Appomattox down to Burgess Mill. On the left, east and directly south of Petersburg, Gordon’s front-line troops were driven back on their inner fortifications by the force of Parke’s attack. There they rallied, supported by Pendleton’s reserve artillery, which Lee had massed in their rear the day before, and not only resisted all further efforts to dislodge them, but were counterattacking even now to recover the outworks they had lost. Southwest along the thinly manned stretch of Hill’s line, whose forward positions had been overrun the week before, events took a different turn. Attacking from close up, one of Wright’s three divisions broke through a single line of works defended by two of Wilcox’s brigades. Swept from their trenches, these veterans fell back north through the soggy woods, firing as they went. Beyond the Boydton Plank Road — within two miles of the Turnbull house, where Lee was conferring with A. P. Hill and Longstreet — their pursuers fanned out to the left, southwest down the plank road toward Hatcher’s Run, in rear of that part of the gray line under assault by Ord. Heth’s division and the other half of Wilcox’s, pressed in front and threatened from the rear, gave way in turn, withdrawing northwest up the left bank of the run, and Ord’s and Wright’s men followed for a time, then veered northeast into the angle between the Boydton Plank Road and Cox Road. These were the bluecoats Lee discerned through wisps of fog when he came to the Turnbull front door in his wrapper, and this was the breakthrough — the two breakthroughs, really — that had more or less abolished Hill’s half dozen miles of line between Gordon’s right and Hatcher’s Run.

  Fortunately for him, at this stage the attackers were about as disorganized by their sudden gains as his own troops were by their retreat. Straggling was heavy among the pursuers, and various units were intermingled, shaken loose from their regular order of battle and strung out in long lines like skirmishers. Their pause for realignment and the ensuing wait for reinforcements, at a time when absolutely nothing stood between them and his headquarters, gave Lee the chance to dress and mount Traveller for a first-hand study of the situation. Westward there was scattered firing, and a heavier clatter rolled in from the east, where the sun by now was rising over Petersburg, obscured by smoke from Pendleton’s guns supporting Gordon in his fight to hold back Parke. Southward, however, there was an ominous silence along the lines where Ord and Wright had undone Heth and Wilcox. Riding toward the Turnbull gate for a look across the fields in that direction, Lee saw a group of horsemen turn in from the road: members of Hill’s staff, he observed as they drew nearer, and then noted with a pang of apprehension that the man astride the corps commander’s handsome dapple-gray was Sergeant Tucker. This could only mean that Hill was dead or wounded.

  He was dead; Tucker, who had been with him when he fell, told how it happened. Proceeding south from the Turnbull house before sunrise, just short of the Boydton Plank Road they found Union soldiers cavorting among the huts the men of Mahone’s division had occupied, as the army’s one reserve, until they were detached and shifted north of the Appomattox to take over Pickett’s position on Bermuda Hundred. This in itself showed the depth of the breakthrough, but Hill, skirting the celebration being staged a mile behind his lines, was determined to continue the search for his missing troops, even though all that could be seen in any direction were random groups of blue-clad stragglers from the attack that had swept this way and then moved on. Beyond the plank road he turned right, explaining that he hoped to reach Heth on the far side of the break that seemed to have made a clean sweep of Wilcox and all four of his brigades. The two rode west about a mile along a screening fringe of woods, through which from time to time they sighted still more clots of Federals on the prowl, but no Confederates at all. “Sergeant,” Hill said at last, for the sense of danger grew as they proceeded, “should anything happen to me, you must go back to General Lee and report it.” Tucker responded by taking the lead, and removed his navy Colt from its holster to be prepared for whatever loomed. Presently he drew rein, having spotted a squad-sized cluster of bluecoats in the wood
s directly ahead, the two closest of whom scuttled for shelter behind a large tree and extended their rifle barrels around its trunk, one above the other. “We must take them,” Hill said, coming forward. But Tucker would not have it. “Stay there: I’ll take them,” he said, and shouted to the hidden pair, some twenty yards away: “If you fire you’ll be swept to hell! Our men are here. Surrender.” Beside him now, Hill too had drawn his pistol and held it at the ready. “Surrender!” he cried, his gauntleted left hand extended palm-out toward the two blue soldiers crouched behind their tree. “I can’t see it,” Tucker heard one of them say, and then: “Let’s shoot them.” One rifle had been lowered. Now it rose and both went off. A bullet whistled past the courier’s head: but not past Little Powell’s. Unhorsed, he lay sprawled and motionless on the ground, arms spread. Later, when his body was recovered, friends discovered that the bullet had passed through the gauntlet, cutting off his thumb, before it entered his heart and dropped him, dead perhaps before he struck the earth. Tucker dodged and grabbed the bridle of the riderless gray horse, spurring his own mount back the way they had come. Beyond range of the two soldiers — Corporal John W. Mauk and Private Daniel Wolford, stragglers from a Pennsylvania regiment in one of Wright’s divisions — he changed to the faster horse and made good time, first to Hill’s headquarters, then to Lee’s, where he told and retold what had happened to his chief, back there amid the wreckage of what had been his rear until this morning.