Read Online A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton - Free Book Online
Authors: Bruce Catton
Tags: Military, Non-Fiction
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saw. They would appear to have made an odd picture, standing together. Grant was five feet eight, stooped, unmilitary in his gait, with creased horizontal wrinkles across his brow giving him a faintly harassed look, and for once he was togged out in dress uniform, black sugar-loaf hat set squarely on his head, sash about his waist, straight sword of a general officer belted at his side. Meade was taller, skinny, and bearing something of a patrician air, harsh lines cutting down from the corners of his nose. He spoke of the army as "My people," and he wore a felt hat with peaked crown and turned-down brim which gave him a Tyrolean appearance. 2 They had their talk, and then the Zouaves presented arms and the band played ruffles and flourishes, and Grant went away. He came back, a little more than a fortnight later, and from that moment on, in spite of fact and logic, the army was known as "Grant's army."
Grant made his headquarters in a plain brick house near Culpeper Court House, with tents for his staff pitched in the yard, and he got down to work. He was commander of all of the armies of the United States—counting everything, he had twenty-one army corps and eighteen military departments under him, for a total of 533,000 soldiers—and he had a diversity of jobs to do, from winning the war down to keeping the politicians from running the Army of the Potomac, and he had very little time for small talk. 3
Ulysses S. Grant was a natural—an unmistakable rural Middle Westerner, bearing somehow the air of the little farm and the empty dusty road and the small-town harness shop, plunked down here in an army predominantly officered by polished Easterners. He was slouchy, round-shouldered, a red bristly beard cropped short on his weathered face, with a look about the eyes as of a man who had come way up from very far down; his one visible talent seemingly the ability to ride any horse anywhere under any conditions. These days, mostly, he rode a big bay horse named Cincinnati, and when he went out to look at the troops he set a pace no staff officer could match, slanting easily forward as if he and the horse had been made in one piece, and his following was generally trailed out behind him for a hundred yards, scabbards banging against the sides of lathered horses, the less military officers frantically grabbing hats and saddle leather as they tried to keep up.
Somewhere within the general in chief there hid the proud, shy little West Point graduate who put on the best uniform a brevet second lieutenant of infantry could wear when he went home to Ohio on furlough after graduation, and who got laughed at for a dude by livery-stable toughs, and who forever after preferred to wear the plain uniform of a private soldier, with officer's insignia stitched to the shoulders. He had three stars to put there now—more than any American soldier had worn except George Washington and Winfield Scott—and he had little eccentricities. He breakfasted frequently on a cup of coffee and a cucumber sliced in vinegar, and if he ate meat it had to be cooked black, almost to a crisp: this author of much bloodshed detested the sight of blood, and was made queasy by the sight of red meat. When he prepared for his day's rounds he accepted from his servant two dozen cigars, which were stowed away in various pockets, and he carried a flint and steel lighter with a long wick, modern style, so that he could get a light in a high wind.
He received many letters asking for his autograph, but, he admitted, "I don't get as many as I did when I answered them." He was not without a quiet sense of humor; writing his memoirs, he told about the backwoods schools he went to as a boy, saying that he was taught so many times that "a noun is the name of a thing" that he finally came to believe it. As a man he was talkative but as a general he was close-mouthed. When the crack VI Corps was paraded for him and officers asked him if he ever saw anything to equal it
Grant made his headquarters in a plain brick house near Culpeper Court House, with tents for his staff pitched in the yard, and he got down to work. He was commander of all of the armies of the United States—counting everything, he had twenty-one army corps and eighteen military departments under him, for a total of 533,000 soldiers—and he had a diversity of jobs to do, from winning the war down to keeping the politicians from running the Army of the Potomac, and he had very little time for small talk. 3
Ulysses S. Grant was a natural—an unmistakable rural Middle Westerner, bearing somehow the air of the little farm and the empty dusty road and the small-town harness shop, plunked down here in an army predominantly officered by polished Easterners. He was slouchy, round-shouldered, a red bristly beard cropped short on his weathered face, with a look about the eyes as of a man who had come way up from very far down; his one visible talent seemingly the ability to ride any horse anywhere under any conditions. These days, mostly, he rode a big bay horse named Cincinnati, and when he went out to look at the troops he set a pace no staff officer could match, slanting easily forward as if he and the horse had been made in one piece, and his following was generally trailed out behind him for a hundred yards, scabbards banging against the sides of lathered horses, the less military officers frantically grabbing hats and saddle leather as they tried to keep up.
Somewhere within the general in chief there hid the proud, shy little West Point graduate who put on the best uniform a brevet second lieutenant of infantry could wear when he went home to Ohio on furlough after graduation, and who got laughed at for a dude by livery-stable toughs, and who forever after preferred to wear the plain uniform of a private soldier, with officer's insignia stitched to the shoulders. He had three stars to put there now—more than any American soldier had worn except George Washington and Winfield Scott—and he had little eccentricities. He breakfasted frequently on a cup of coffee and a cucumber sliced in vinegar, and if he ate meat it had to be cooked black, almost to a crisp: this author of much bloodshed detested the sight of blood, and was made queasy by the sight of red meat. When he prepared for his day's rounds he accepted from his servant two dozen cigars, which were stowed away in various pockets, and he carried a flint and steel lighter with a long wick, modern style, so that he could get a light in a high wind.
He received many letters asking for his autograph, but, he admitted, "I don't get as many as I did when I answered them." He was not without a quiet sense of humor; writing his memoirs, he told about the backwoods schools he went to as a boy, saying that he was taught so many times that "a noun is the name of a thing" that he finally came to believe it. As a man he was talkative but as a general he was close-mouthed. When the crack VI Corps was paraded for him and officers asked him if he ever saw anything to equal it
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