A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton Page B

was that nobody quite felt that his old outfit was what it used to be. There was also the possibility that the great increase in the size of each corps would put a new strain on the corps commanders.
    In the midst of all of this reshuffling the army almost lost John Sedgwick. Sedgwick had never felt it necessary to assure Washington that he hated Democrats and loved emancipation, nor had he ever concealed his admiration for Mc Clellan, and these things had made him suspect with Secretary Stanton. Early this winter Sedgwick had bluntly told the War Department that Butler's poorly handled attempt to capture Richmond had done the Union cause more harm than good, and since Butler was a pet of the radical Republicans—a standing test of the other generals' allegiance to the cause, so to speak—this was remembered where it would hurt. In February Sedgwick wrote to his sister that the army grapevine was predicting a reorganization "to get rid of some obnoxious generals," and he admitted that he himself might be on this list. It would not bother him much, he said, if this turned out to be true: "I feel that I have done my part of field duty. . » «, I could even leave altogether without many regrets."
    So when Meade began to make changes Stanton told him that it would be well to find some other place for Sedgwick, and after some argument back and forth it had finally been agreed to put Sedgwick in command up in the Shenandoah Valley. It would have been an odd sort of demotion, for the valley command was destined to be very important, but it was all upset at the last minute when Mr. Lincoln unexpectedly gave the job to Franz Sigel, and in the end Sedgwick remained in command of the VI Corps. 24
    With the men of this corps he was very popular. One day in this winter of 1864 Wheaton's brigade of the VI Corps came in to camp after several months of detached service in western Virginia. The brigade detrained in a miserable cold rain, and since all of the good camp sites had been taken it appeared that they would have to pitch their tents in a muddy field, with no shelter from the elements and the nearest source of wood for campfires several miles away. There was a fine grove near by, to be sure, but some brigadier and his entourage had long since pre-empted it. While the men stood disconsolate in the wet, a burly horseman in a muddy cavalry overcoat came splashing up—Sedgwick. He took in the situation at once, rode over to the little grove, told the brigadier and his henchmen to pack up at once and move to some other place, and ordered Wheaton to have his brigade take over the vacated camp site. 25
    Winfield Scott Hancock led the II Corps. He had been badly wounded at Gettysburg and the wound still bothered him, but he came back at the end of the winter with all of his old gusto and the men were glad to see him. He was a vivid, hearty sort of man—his chief of staff, with strong understatement, remarked that he was "absolutely devoid of asceticism" —and it was believed that he could conduct a long march with less straggling and more professional competence than any other officer in the army. He differed from most Regular Army officers (including Meade himself) in that he liked volunteer soldiers and did his best to make them feel that they were as good as Regulars, and his army corps repaid him for that attitude. 26 The corps badge was a trefoil, and when the men went into action they had a way of yelling: "Clubs are trumps!"
    To the V Corps, in place of the departed Sykes, came one of the most baffling figures in the army—Major General Gouver eur Kemble Warren.

 
     

    Warren was thirty-four, with long jet-black hair and a mustache which he was fond of twirling; a slightly built man with sallow complexion, looking not unlike an Indian, well liked by the troops because he displayed great bravery under fire. (No officer could be popular in this army unless he could show a spectacular contempt for danger.) He was a queer mixture