A LIFE OF GEN. ROBERT E. LEE.

BY JOHN ESTEN COOKE.

"Duty is the sublimest word in our language." "Human virtue should be equal to human calamity."

LEE.

1876



CONTENTS.

PART I.

LEE'S EARLY LIFE.

I.—Introduction

II.—The Lees of Virginia

III.—General "Light-Horse Harry" Lee

IV.—Stratford

V.—Lee's Early Manhood and Career in the United States Army

VI.—Lee and Scott

VII.—Lee resigns

VIII.—His Reception at Richmond

IX.—Lee in 1861

X.—The War begins

XI.—Lee's Advance into Western Virginia

XII.—Lee's Last Interview with Bishop Meade

PART II.

IN FRONT OF RICHMOND.

I.—Plan of the Federal Campaign

II.—Johnston is wounded

III.—Lee assigned to the Command—his Family at the White House

IV.—Lee resolves to attack

V.—Stuart's "Ride around McClellan"

PART III.

ON THE CHICKAHOMINY.

I.—The Two Armies

II.—Lee's Plan of Assault

III.—The Battle of the Chickahominy

IV.—The Retreat

V.—Richmond in Danger—Lee's Views

VI.—Lee and McClellan—their Identity of Opinion

PART IV.

THE WAR ADVANCES NORTHWARD.

I.—Lee's Protest

II.—Lee's Manoeuvres

III.—Lee advances from the Rapidan

IV.—Jackson flanks General Pope

V.—Lee follows

VI.—The Second Battle of Manassas

PART V.

LEE INVADES MARYLAND.

I.—His Designs

II.—Lee in Maryland

III.—Movements of the Two Armies

IV.—The Prelude to Sharpsburg

V.—The Battle of Sharpsburg

VI.—Lee and McClellan—their Merits in the Maryland Campaign

VII.—Lee and his Men

VIII.—Lee passes the Blue Ridge

IX.—Lee concentrates at Fredericksburg

X.—The Battle of Fredericksburg

XI.—Final Movements of 1862

XII.—The Year of Battles

XIII.—Lee in December, 1862

PART VI.

CHANCELLORSVILLE AND GETTYSBURG.

I.—Advance of General Hooker

II—The Wilderness

III.—Lee's Determination

IV.—Jackson's Attack and Fall

V.—The Battle of Chancellorsville

VI.—Flank Movement of General Sedgwick

VII.—Lee's Generalship and Personal Demeanor during the Campaign

VIII.—Personal Relations of Lee and Jackson

IX.—Circumstances leading to the Invasion of Pennsylvania

X.—Lee's Plans and Objects

XI.—The Cavalry-fight at Fleetwood

XII.—The March to Gettysburg

XIII.—Lee in Pennsylvania

XIV.—Concentration at Gettysburg

XV.—The First Day's Fight at Gettysburg

XVI.—The Two Armies in Position

XVII.—The Second Day

XVIII.—The Last Charge at Gettysburg

XIX.—Lee after the Charge

XX.—Lee's Retreat across the Potomac

XXI.—Across the Blue Ridge again

PART VII.

LAST CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR 1863.

I.—The Cavalry of Lee's Army

II.—Lee flanks General Meade

III.—A Race between Two Armies

IV.—The Fight at Buckland

V.—The Advance to Mine Run

VI.—Lee in the Autumn and Winter of 1863

PART VIII.

LEE'S LAST CAMPAIGNS AND LAST DAYS.

I.—General Grant crosses the Rapidan

II.—The First Collision in the Wilderness

III.—The Battle of the 6th of May

IV.—The 12th of May

V.—From Spottsylvania to the Chickahominy

VI.—First Battles at Petersburg

VII.—The Siege of Richmond begun

VIII.—Lee threatens Washington

IX.—The Mine Explosion

X.—End of the Campaign of 1864

XI.—Lee in the Winter of 1864-'65

XII.—The Situation at the Beginning of 1865

XIII.—Lee attacks the Federal Centre

XIV.—The Southern Lines broken

XV.—Lee evacuates Petersburg

XVI.—The Retreat and Surrender

XVII.—Lee returns to Richmond

XVIII.—General Lee after the War

XIX.—General Lee's Last Years and Death



APPENDIX.

I.—The Funeral of General Lee

II.—Tributes to General Lee



A LIFE

OF

GENERAL ROBERT EDWARD LEE.



PART I.

LEE'S EARLY LIFE,



I.

INTRODUCTION.

The name of Lee is beloved and respected throughout the world. Men of all parties and opinions unite in this sentiment, not only those who thought and fought with him, but those most violently opposed to his political views and career. It is natural that his own people should love and honor him as their great leader and defender in a struggle of intense bitterness—that his old enemies should share this profound regard and admiration is due solely to the character of the individual. His military genius will always be conceded, and his figure remain a conspicuous landmark in history; but this does not account for the fact that his very enemies love the man. His private character is the origin of this sentiment. The people of the North, no less than the people of the South, feel that Lee was truly great; and the harshest critic has been able to find nothing to detract from this view of him. The soldier was great, but the man himself was greater. No one was ever simpler, truer, or more honest. Those who knew him best loved him the most. Reserved and silent, with a bearing of almost austere dignity, he impressed many persons as cold and unsympathetic, and his true character was long in revealing itself to the world. To-day all men know what his friends knew during his life—that under the grave exterior of the soldier, oppressed with care and anxiety, beat a warm and kindly heart, full of an even extraordinary gentleness and sweetness; that the man himself was not cold, or stiff, or harsh, but patient, forbearing, charitable under many trials of his equanimity, and magnanimous without effort, from the native impulse of his heart. Friend and foe thus to-day regard him with much the same sentiment, as a genuinely honest man, incapable of duplicity in thought or deed, wholly good and sincere, inspired always under all temptations by that prisca fides which purifies and ennobles, and resolutely bent, in the dark hour, as in the bright, on the full performance of his duty. "Duty is the sublimest word in our language," he wrote to his son; and, if we add that other august maxim, "Human virtue should be equal to human calamity," we shall have in a few words a summary of the principles which inspired Lee.

The crowning grace of this man, who was thus not only great but good, was the humility and trust in God, which lay at the foundation of his character. Upon this point we shall quote the words of a gentleman of commanding intellect, a bitter opponent of the South in the war:

"Lee is worthy of all praise. As a man, he was fearless among men. As a soldier, he had no superior and no equal. In the course of Nature my career on earth may soon terminate. God grant that, When the day of my death shall come, I may look up to Heaven with that confidence and faith which the life and character of Robert E. Lee gave him. He died trusting in God as a good man, with a good life, and a pure conscience."

He had lived, as he died, with this supreme trust in an overruling and merciful Providence; and this sentiment, pervading his whole being, was the origin of that august calmness with which he greeted the most crushing disasters of his military career. His faith and humble trust sustained him after the war, when the woes of the South wellnigh broke his great spirit; and he calmly expired, as a weary child falls asleep, knowing that its father is near.

Of this eminent soldier and man whose character offers so great an example, a memoir is attempted in this volume. The work will necessarily be "popular" rather than full and elaborate, as the public and private correspondence of Lee are not at this time accessible. These will throw a fuller light on the subject; but sufficient material is at the disposal of the writer to enable him to present an accurate likeness of Lee, and to narrate clearly the incidents of his career. In doing so, the aim of the author is to measure out full justice to all—not to arouse old enmities, which should be allowed to slumber, but to treat his subject with the judicial moderation of the student of history.

A few words will terminate this preface. The volume before the reader was begun in 1866. The writer first, however, informed General Lee of his design, and had the honor to receive from him in reply the assurance that the work "would not interfere with any he might have in contemplation; he had not written a line of any work as yet, and might never do so; but, should he write a history of the campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia, the proposed work would be rather an assistance than a hinderance."

As the writer had offered promptly to discontinue the work if it were not agreeable to General Lee, this reply was regarded in the light of an assurance that he did not disapprove of it. The composition was, however, interrupted, and the work laid aside. It is now resumed and completed at a time when the death of the illustrious soldier adds a new and absorbing interest to whatever is connected with his character or career.



II.

THE LEES OF VIRGINIA.

The Lees of Virginia spring from an ancient and respectable family of Essex, in England.

Of some members of the family, both in the Old World and the New, a brief account will be given. The origin of an individual explains much that is striking and peculiar in his own character; and it will be found that General Lee inherited many of the traits of his ancestors, especially of some eminent personages of his name in Virginia.

The family pedigree is traced back by Lee, in the life of his father, to Launcelot Lee, of London, in France, who accompanied William the Conqueror to England. After the battle of Hastings, which subjected England to the sway of the Normans, Launcelot Lee, like others, was rewarded by lands wrested from the subdued Saxons. His estate lay in Essex, and this is all that is known concerning him. Lionel Lee is the next member of the family of whom mention is made. He lived during the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion, and, when the king went on his third crusade, in the year 1192, Lionel Lee raised a company of gentlemen, and marched with him to the Holy Land. His career there was distinguished; he displayed special gallantry at the siege of Acre, and for this he received a solid proof of King Richard's approbation. On his return he was made first Earl of Litchfield; the king presented him with the estate of "Ditchley," which became the name afterward of an estate of the Lees in Virginia; and, when he died, the armor which he had worn in the Holy Land was placed in the department of "Horse Armory" in the great Tower of London.

The name of Richard Lee is next mentioned as one of the followers of the Earl of Surrey in his expedition across the Scottish border in 1542. Two of the family about this period were "Knights Companions of the Garter," and their banners, with the Lee arms above, were suspended in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. The coat-of-arms was a shield "band sinister battled and embattled," the crest a closed visor surmounted by a squirrel holding a nut. The motto, which may be thought characteristic of one of General Lee's traits as a soldier, was, "Non incautus futuri"

Such are the brief notices given of the family in England. They seem to have been persons of high character, and often of distinction. When Richard Lee came to Virginia, and founded the family anew there, as Launcelot, the first Lee, had founded it in England, he brought over in his veins some of the best and most valiant blood of the great Norman race.

This Richard Lee, the princeps of the family in Virginia, was, it seems, like the rest of his kindred, strongly Cavalier in his sentiments; indeed, the Lees seem always to have been Cavalier. The reader will recall the stately old representative of the family in Scott's "Woodstock"—Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley—who is seen stalking proudly through the great apartments of the palace, in his laced doublet, slashed boots, and velvet cloak, scowling darkly at the Puritan intruders. Sir Henry was not a fanciful person, but a real individual; and the political views attributed to him were those of the Lee family, who remained faithful to the royal cause in all its hours of adversity.

It will be seen that Richard Lee, the first of the Virginia Lees, was an ardent monarchist. He came over during the reign of Charles I., but returned to England, bequeathing all his lands to his servants; he subsequently came back to Virginia, however, and lived and died there. In his will he styles himself "Richard Lee, of Strafford Langton, in the County of Essex, Esquire." It is not certainly known whether he sought refuge in Virginia after the failure of the king's cause, or was tempted to emigrate with a view to better his fortunes in the New World. Either may have been the impelling motive. Great numbers of Cavaliers "came over" after the overthrow of Charles at Naseby; but a large emigration had already taken place, and took place afterward, induced by the salubrity of the country, the ease of living, and the cheapness and fertility of the lands on the great rivers, where families impoverished or of failing fortunes in England might "make new settlements" and build on a new foundation. This would amply account for the removal of Richard Lee to Virginia, and for the ambition he seems to have been inspired with, to build and improve, without attributing to him any apprehension of probable punishment for his political course. Very many families had the first-named motives, and commenced to build great manor-houses, which were never finished, or were too costly for any one of their descendants to possess. The abolition of primogeniture, despite the opposition of Pendleton and others, overthrew all this; and the Lees, like other families, now possess few of the broad acres which their ancestors acquired.

To return, however, to Richard Lee. He had already visited Virginia in some official capacity under the royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, and had been so much pleased with the soil and climate of the country, that he, as we have said, emigrated finally, and cast his lot in the new land. He brought a number of followers and servants, and, coming over to Westmoreland County, in the Northern Neck of Virginia, "took up" extensive tracts of land there, and set about building manor-houses upon them.

Among these, it is stated, was the original "Stratford" House, afterward destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt, however, and became the birthplace of Richard Henry Lee, and afterward of General Robert E. Lee. We shall speak of it more in detail after finishing, in a few words, our notice of Richard Lee, its founder, and the founder of the Lee family in Virginia. He is described as a person of great force of character and many virtues—as "a man of good stature, comely visage, enterprising genius, sound head, vigorous spirit, and generous nature." This may be suspected to partake of the nature of epitaph; but, of his courage and energy, the proof remains in the action taken by him in connection with Charles II. Inheriting, it would seem, in full measure, the royalist and Cavalier sentiments of his family, he united with Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor, in the irregular proclamation of Charles II. in Virginia, a year or two before his reinstallment on the English throne. He had already, it is reported on the authority of well-supported tradition, made a voyage across the Atlantic to Breda, where Charles II. was then in exile, and offered to erect his standard in Virginia, and proclaim him king there. This proposition the young monarch declined, shrinking, with excellent good sense, from a renewal, under less favorable circumstances, of the struggle which terminated at Worcester. Lee was, therefore, compelled to return without having succeeded in his enterprise; but he had made, it seems, a very strong impression in favor of Virginia upon the somewhat frivolous young monarch. When he came to his throne again, Charles II. graciously wore a coronation-robe of Virginia silk, and Virginia, who had proved so faithful to him in the hour of his need, was authorized, by royal decree, to rank thenceforward, in the British empire, with England, Scotland, and Ireland, and bear upon her shield the motto, "En dat Virginia quartam."

Richard Lee returned, after his unsuccessful mission, to the Northern Neck, and addressed himself thenceforward to the management of his private fortunes and the affairs of the colony. He had now become possessed of very extensive estates between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers and elsewhere. Besides Stratford, he owned plantations called "Mocke Neck," "Mathotick," "Paper-Maker's Neck," "War Captain's Neck," "Bishop's Neck," and "Paradise," with four thousand acres besides, on the Potomac, lands in Maryland, three islands in Chesapeake Bay, an interest in several trading-vessels, and innumerable indented and other servants. He became a member of the King's Council, and lived in great elegance and comfort. That he was a man of high character, and of notable piety for an age of free living and worldly tendencies, his will shows. In that document he bequeaths his soul "to that good and gracious God that gave it me, and to my blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ, assuredly trusting, in and by His meritorious death and passion, to receive salvation."

The attention of the reader has been particularly called to the character and career of Richard Lee, not only because he was the founder of the family in Virginia, but because the traits of the individual reappear very prominently in the great soldier whose life is the subject of this volume. The coolness, courage, energy, and aptitude for great affairs, which marked Richard Lee in the seventeenth century, were unmistakably present in the character of Robert E. Lee in the nineteenth century.

We shall conclude our notice of the family by calling attention to that great group of celebrated men who illustrated the name in the days of the Revolution, and exhibited the family characteristics as clearly. These were Richard Henry Lee, of Chantilly, the famous orator and statesman, who moved in the American Congress the Declaration of Independence; Francis Lightfoot Lee, a scholar of elegant attainments and high literary accomplishments, who signed, with his more renowned brother, the Declaration; William Lee, who became Sheriff of London, and ably seconded the cause of the colonies; and Arthur Lee, diplomatist and representative of America abroad, where he displayed, as his diplomatic correspondence indicates, untiring energy and devotion to the interests of the colonies. The last of these brothers was Philip Ludwell Lee, whose daughter Matilda married her second cousin, General Henry Lee. This gentleman, afterward famous as "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, married a second time, and from this union sprung the subject of this memoir.



III.

GENERAL "LIGHT-HORSE HARRY" LEE.

This celebrated soldier, who so largely occupied the public eye in the Revolution, is worthy of notice, both as an eminent member of the Lee family, and as the father of General Robert E. Lee.

He was born in 1756, in the county of Westmoreland—which boasts of being the birthplace of Washington, Monroe, Richard Henry Lee, General Henry Lee, and General Robert E. Lee, Presidents, statesmen, and soldiers—and, after graduating at Princeton College, entered the army, in 1776, as captain of cavalry, an arm of the service afterward adopted by his more celebrated descendant, in the United States army. He soon displayed military ability of high order, and, for the capture of Paulus's Hook, received a gold medal from Congress. In 1781 he marched with his "Legion" to join Greene in the Carolinas, carrying with him the high esteem of Washington, who had witnessed his skilful and daring operations in the Jerseys. His career in the arduous campaigns of the South against Cornwallis, and the efficient commander of his cavalry arm. Colonel Tarleton, may be best understood from General Greene's dispatches, and from his own memoirs of the operations of the army, which are written with as much modesty as ability. From these it is apparent that the small body of the "Legion" cavalry, under its active and daring commander, was the "eye and ear" of Greene's army, whose movements it accompanied everywhere, preceding its advances and covering its retreats. Few pages of military history are more stirring than those in Lee's "Memoirs" describing Greene's retrograde movement to the Dan; and this alone, if the hard work at the Eutaws and elsewhere were left out, would place Lee's fame as a cavalry officer upon a lasting basis. The distinguished soldier under whose eye the Virginian operated did full justice to his courage and capacity. "I believe," wrote Greene, "that few officers, either in Europe or America, are held in so high a position of admiration as you are. Everybody knows I have the highest opinion of you as an officer, and you know I love you as a friend. No man, in the progress of the campaign, had equal merit with yourself." The officer who wrote those lines was not a courtier nor a diplomatist, but a blunt and honest soldier who had seen Lee's bearing in the most arduous straits, and was capable of appreciating military ability. Add Washington's expression of his "love and thanks," in a letter written in 1789, and the light in which he was regarded by his contemporaries will be understood.

His "Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department" is a valuable military history and a very interesting book. The movements of Greene in face of Cornwallis are described with a precision which renders the narrative valuable to military students, and a picturesqueness which rivets the attention of the general reader. From these memoirs a very clear conception of the writer's character may be derived, and everywhere in them is felt the presence of a cool and dashing nature, a man gifted with the mens aequa in arduis, whom no reverse of fortune could cast down. The fairness and courtesy of the writer toward his opponents is an attractive characteristic of the work,[1] which is written with a simplicity and directness of style highly agreeable to readers of judgment.[2]

[Footnote 1: See his observations upon the source of his successes over Tarleton, full of the generous spirit of a great soldier. He attributes them in no degree to his own military ability, but to the superior character of his large, thorough-bred horses, which rode over Tarleton's inferior stock. He does not state that the famous "Legion" numbered only two hundred and fifty men, and that Tarleton commanded a much larger force of the best cavalry of the British army.]

[Footnote 2: A new edition of this work, preceded by a life of the author, was published by General Robert E. Lee in 1869.]

After the war General Henry Lee served a term in Congress; was then elected Governor of Virginia; returned in 1799 to Congress; and, in his oration upon the death of Washington, employed the well-known phrase, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." He died in Georgia, in the year 1818, having made a journey thither for the benefit of his health.

General Henry Lee was married twice; first, as we have said, to his cousin Matilda, through whom he came into possession of the old family estate of Stratford; and a second time, June 18,1793, to Miss Anne Hill Carter, a daughter of Charles Carter, Esq., of "Shirley," on James River.

The children of this second marriage were three sons and two daughters—Charles Carter, Robert Edward, Smith, Ann, and Mildred.



IV.

STRATFORD.

Robert Edward Lee was born at Stratford, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on the 19th of January, 1807.[1]

[Footnote 1: The date of General Lee's birth has been often given incorrectly. The authority for that here adopted is the entry in the family Bible, in the handwriting of his mother.]

Before passing to Lee's public career, and the narrative of the stormy scenes of his after-life, let us pause a moment and bestow a glance upon this ancient mansion, which is still standing—a silent and melancholy relic of the past—in the remote "Northern Neck." As the birthplace of a great man, it would demand attention; but it has other claims still, as a venerable memorial of the past and its eminent personages, one of the few remaining monuments of a state of society that has disappeared or is disappearing.

The original Stratford House is supposed, as we have said, to have been built by Richard Lee, the first of the family in the New World. Whoever may have been its founder, it was destroyed in the time of Thomas Lee, an eminent representative of the name, early in the eighteenth century. Thomas Lee was a member of the King's Council, a gentleman of great popularity; and, when it was known that his house had been burned, contributions were everywhere made to rebuild it. The Governor, the merchants of the colony, and even Queen Anne in person, united in this subscription; the house speedily rose again, at a cost of about eighty thousand dollars; and this is the edifice still standing in Westmoreland. The sum expended in its construction must not be estimated in the light of to-day. At that time the greater part of the heavy work in house-building was performed by servants of the manor; it is fair, indeed, to say that the larger part of the work thus cost nothing in money; and thus the eighty thousand dollars represented only the English brick, the carvings, furniture, and decorations.

The construction of such an edifice had at that day a distinct object. These great old manor-houses, lost in the depths of the country, were intended to become the headquarters of the family in all time. In their large apartments the eldest son was to uphold the name. Generation after generation was to pass, and some one of the old name still live there; and though all this has passed away now, and may appear a worn-out superstition, and, though some persons may stigmatize it as contributing to the sentiment of "aristocracy," the strongest opponents of that old system may pardon in us the expression of some regret that this love of the hearthstone and old family memories should have disappeared. The great man whose character is sought to be delineated in this volume never lost to the last this home and family sentiment. He knew the kinships of every one, and loved the old country-houses of the old Virginia families—plain and honest people, attached, like himself, to the Virginia soil. We pass to a brief description of the old house in which Lee was born.

Stratford, the old home of the Lees, but to-day the property of others, stands on a picturesque bluff on the southern bank of the Potomac, and is a house of very considerable size. It is built in the form of the letter H. The walls are several feet in thickness; in the centre is a saloon thirty feet in size; and surmounting each wing is a pavilion with balustrades, above which rise clusters of chimneys. The front door is reached by a broad flight of steps, and the grounds are handsome, and variegated by the bright foliage of oaks, cedars, and maple-trees. Here and there in the extensive lawn rises a slender and ghostly old Lombardy poplar—a tree once a great favorite in Virginia, but now seen only here and there, the relic of a past generation.

Within, the Stratford House is as antique as without, and, with its halls, corridors, wainscoting, and ancient mouldings, takes the visitor back to the era of powder and silk stockings. Such was the mansion to which General Harry Lee came to live after the Revolution, and the sight of the old home must have been dear to the soldier's heart. Here had flourished three generations of Lees, dispensing a profuse and open-handed hospitality. In each generation some one of the family had distinguished himself, and attracted the "best company" to Stratford; the old walls had rung with merriment; the great door was wide open; everybody was welcome; and one could see there a good illustration of a long-passed manner of living, which had at least the merit of being hearty, open-handed, and picturesque. General Harry Lee, the careless soldier, partook of the family tendency to hospitality; he kept open house, entertained all comers, and hence, doubtless, sprung the pecuniary embarrassments embittering an old age which his eminent public services should have rendered serene and happy.

Our notice of Stratford may appear unduly long to some readers, but it is not without a distinct reference to the subject of this volume. In this quiet old mansion—and in the very apartment where Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot Lee first saw the light—Robert E. Lee was born. The eyes of the child fell first upon the old apartments, the great grounds, the homely scenes around the old country-house—upon the tall Lombardy poplars and the oaks, through which passed the wind bearing to his ears the murmur of the Potomac.

He left the old home of his family before it could have had any very great effect upon him, it would seem; but it is impossible to estimate these first influences, to decide the depth of the impression which the child's heart is capable of receiving. The bright eyes of young Robert Lee must have seen much around him to interest him and shape his first views. Critics charged him with family pride sometimes; if he possessed that virtue or failing, the fact was not strange. Stratford opened before his childish eyes a memorial of the old splendor of the Lees. He saw around him old portraits, old plate, and old furniture, telling plainly of the ancient origin and high position of his family. Old parchments contained histories of the deeds of his race; old genealogical trees traced their line far back into the past; old servants, grown gray in the house, waited upon the child; and, in a corner of one of the great apartments, an old soldier, gray, too, and shattered in health, once the friend of Washington and Greene, was writing the history of the battles in which he had drawn his sword for his native land.

Amid these scenes and surroundings passed the first years of Robert E. Lee. They must have made their impression upon his character at a period when the mind takes every new influence, and grows in accordance with it; and, to the last, the man remained simple, hearty, proud, courteous—the country Virginian in all the texture of his character. He always rejoiced to visit the country; loved horses; was an excellent rider; was fond of plain country talk, jests, humorous anecdote, and chit-chat—was the plain country gentleman, in a word, preferring grass and trees and streams to all the cities and crowds in the world. In the last year of his life he said to a lady: "My visits to Florida and the White Sulphur have not benefited me much; but it did me good to go to the White House, and see the mules walking round, and the corn growing."

We notice a last result of the child's residence now, or visits afterward to the country, and the sports in which he indulged—the superb physical health and strength which remained unshaken afterward by all the hardships of war. Lee, to the last, was a marvel of sound physical development; his frame was as solid as oak, and stood the strain of exhausting marches, loss of sleep, hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, without failing him.

When he died, it was care which crushed his heart; his health was perfect.



V.

LEE'S EARLY MANHOOD AND CAREER IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY.

Of Lee's childhood we have no memorials, except the words of his father, long afterward.

"Robert was always good," wrote General Henry Lee.[1]

[Footnote 1: To C.C. Lee, February 9, 1817.]

That is all; but the words indicate much—that the good man was "always good." It will be seen that, when he went to West Point, he never received a demerit. The good boy was the good young officer, and became, in due time, the good commander-in-chief.

In the year 1811 General Henry Lee left Stratford, and removed with his family to Alexandria, actuated, it seems, by the desire of affording his children facilities for gaining their education. After his death, in 1818, Mrs. Lee continued to reside in Alexandria; was a communicant of Christ Church; and her children were taught the Episcopal catechism by young William Meade, eventually Bishop of Virginia. We shall see how Bishop Meade, long afterward, recalled those early days, when he and his pupil, young Robert Lee, were equally unknown—how, when about to die, just as the war began in earnest, he sent for the boy he had once instructed, now the gray-haired soldier, and, when he came to the bedside, exclaimed: "God bless you, Robert! I can't call you 'general'—I have heard you your catechism too often!"

Alexandria continued to be the residence of the family until the young man was eighteen years of age, when it was necessary for him to make choice of a profession; and, following the bent of his temperament, he chose the army. Application was made for his appointment from Virginia as a cadet at West Point. He obtained the appointment, and, in 1825, at the age of eighteen, entered the Military Academy. His progress in his studies was steady, and it is said that, during his stay at West Point, he was never reprimanded, nor marked with a "demerit." He graduated, in July, 1829, second in his class, and was assigned to duty, with the rank of lieutenant, in the corps of Engineers.



He is described, by those who saw him at this time, as a young man of great personal beauty; and this is probably not an exaggeration, as he remained to the last distinguished for the elegance and dignity of his person. He had not yet lost what the cares of command afterward banished—his gayety and abandon—and was noted, it is said, for the sweetness of his smile and the cordiality of his manners. The person who gave the writer these details added, "He was a perfect gentleman." Three years after graduating at West Point—in the year 1832—he married Mary Custis, daughter of Mr. George Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, the adopted son of General Washington; and by this marriage he came into possession of the estate of Arlington and the White House—points afterward well known in the war.

The life of Lee up to the beginning of the great conflict of 1861-'65 is of moderate interest only, and we shall not dwell at length upon it. He was employed on the coast defences, in New York and Virginia; and, in 1835, in running the boundary line between the States of Ohio and Michigan. In September, 1836, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant; in July, 1838, to a captaincy; in 1844 he became a member of the Board of Visitors to the Military Academy; in 1845 he was a member of the Board of Engineers; and in 1846, when the Mexican War broke out, was assigned to duty as chief engineer of the Central Army of Mexico, in which capacity he served to the end of the war.

Up to the date of the Mexican War, Captain Lee had attracted no public attention, but had impressed the military authorities, including General Winfield Scott, with a favorable opinion of his ability as a topographical engineer. For this department of military science he exhibited endowments of the first class—what other faculties of the soldier he possessed, it remained for events to show. This opportunity was now given him in the Mexican War; and the efficient character of his services may be seen in Scott's Autobiography, where "Captain Lee, of the Engineers," is mentioned in every report, and everywhere with commendation. From the beginning of operations, the young officer seems to have been summoned to the councils of war, and General Scott particularly mentions that held at Vera Cruz—so serious an affair, that "a death-bed discussion could hardly have been more solemn." The passages in which the lieutenant-general mentions Lee are too numerous, and not of sufficient interest to quote, but two entries will exhibit the general tenor of this "honorable mention." After Cerro Gordo, Scott writes, in his official report of the battle: "I am compelled to make special mention of Captain R.E. Lee, engineer. This officer greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Vera Cruz; was again indefatigable during these operations, in reconnoissance as daring, as laborious, and of the utmost value." After Chapultepec, he wrote: "Captain Lee, so constantly distinguished, also bore important orders for me (September 13th), until he fainted from a wound, and the loss of two nights' sleep at the batteries."

We may add here the statement of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, that he "had heard General Scott more than once say that his success in Mexico was largely due to the skill, valor, and undaunted energy of Robert E. Lee."

For these services Lee received steady promotion. For meritorious conduct at Cerro Gordo, he was made brevet major; for the same at Contreras and Cherubusco, brevet lieutenant-colonel; and, after Chapultepec, he received the additional brevet of colonel—distinctions fairly earned by energy and courage.

When the war ended, Lee returned to his former duties in the Engineer Corps of the U.S.A., and was placed in charge of the works, then in process of construction, at Fort Carroll, near Baltimore. His assignment to the duty of thus superintending the military defences of Hampton Roads, New York Bay, and the approaches to Baltimore, in succession, would seem to indicate that his abilities as engineer were highly esteemed. Of his possession of such ability there can be no doubt. The young officer was not only thoroughly trained in this high department of military science, but had for his duties unmistakable natural endowments. This fact was clearly indicated on many occasions in the Confederate struggle—his eye for positions never failed him. It is certain that, had Lee never commanded troops in the field, he would have left behind him the reputation of an excellent engineer.

In 1855 he was called for the first time to command men, for his duties hitherto had been those of military engineer, astronomer, or staff-officer. The act of Congress directing that two new cavalry regiments should be raised excited an ardent desire in the officers of the army to receive appointments in them, and Lee was transferred from his place of engineer to the post of lieutenant-colonel in the Second Cavalry, one of the regiments in question. The extraordinary number of names of officers in this regiment who afterward became famous is worthy of notice. The colonel was Albert Sydney Johnston; the lieutenant-colonel, R.E. Lee; the senior major, William J. Hardee; the junior major, George H. Thomas; the senior captain, Earl Yan Dorn; the next ranking captain, Kirby Smith; the lieutenants, Hood, Fields, Cosby, Major, Fitzhugh Lee, Johnson, Palmer, and Stoneman, all of whom became general officers afterward on the Southern side, with the exception of Thomas, and the three last named, who became prominent generals in the Federal army. It is rare that such a constellation of famous names is found in the list of officers of a single regiment. The explanation is, nevertheless simple. Positions in the new regiments were eagerly coveted by the best soldiers of the army, and, in appointing the officers, those of conspicuous ability only were selected. The Second Regiment of cavalry thus became the corps d'elite of the United States Army; and, after Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee was the ranking officer.

Lee proceeded with his regiment to Texas, remaining there for several years on frontier duty, and does not reappear again until 1859.

Such was the early career in the army of the soldier soon to become famous on a greater theatre—that of a thoroughly-trained, hard-working, and conscientious officer. With the single exception of his brief record in the Mexican War, his life had been passed in official duties, unconnected with active military operations. He was undoubtedly what is called a "rising man," but he had had no opportunity to display the greatest faculties of the soldier. The time was coming now when he was to be tested, and the measure of his faculties taken in one of the greatest wars which darken the pages of history.

A single incident of public importance marks the life of Lee between 1855 and 1861. This was what is known to the world as the "John Brown raid"—an incident of the year 1859, and preluding the approaching storm. This occurrence is too well known to require a minute account in these pages, and we shall accordingly pass over it briefly, indicating simply the part borne in the affair by Lee. He was in Washington at the time—the fall of 1859—on a visit to his family, then residing at Arlington, near the city, when intelligence came that a party of desperadoes had attacked and captured Harper's Ferry, with the avowed intent of arming and inciting to insurrection the slaves of the neighborhood and entire State. Lee was immediately, thereupon, directed by President Buchanan to proceed to the point of danger and arrest the rioters. He did so promptly; found upon his arrival that Brown and his confederates had shut themselves up in an engine-house of the town, with a number of their prisoners. Brown was summoned to surrender, to be delivered over to the authorities for civil trial—he refused; and Lee then proceeded to assault, with a force of marines, the stronghold to which Brown had retreated. The doors were driven in, Brown firing upon the assailants and killing or wounding two; but he and his men were cut down and captured; they were turned over to the Virginia authorities, and Lee, having performed the duty assigned him returned to Washington, and soon afterward to Texas.

He remained there, commanding the department, until the early spring of 1861. He was then recalled to Washington at the moment when the conflict between the North and the South was about to commence.



VI.

LEE AND SCOTT.

Lee found the country burning as with fever, and the air hot with contending passions. The animosity, long smouldering between the two sections, was about to burst into the flame of civil war; all men were taking sides; the war of discussion on the floor of Congress was about to yield to the clash of bayonets and the roar of cannon on the battle-field.

Any enumeration of the causes which led to this unhappy state of affairs would be worse than useless in a volume like the present. Even less desirable would be a discussion of the respective blame to be attached to each of the great opponents in inaugurating the bitter and long-continued struggle. Such a discussion would lead to nothing, and would probably leave every reader of the same opinion as before. It would also be the repetition of a worn-out and wearisome story. These events are known of all men; for the political history of the United States, from 1820, when the slavery agitation began, on the question of the Missouri restriction, to 1861, when it ended in civil convulsion, has been discussed, rediscussed, and discussed again, in every journal, great and small, in the whole country. The person who is not familiar, therefore, with the main points at issue, must be ignorant beyond the power of any writer to enlighten him. We need only say that the election of Abraham Lincoln, the nominee of the Republican party, had determined the Gulf States to leave the Union. South Carolina accordingly seceded, on the 20th of December, 1860; and by the 1st of February, 1861, she had been followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The struggle thus approached. Military movements began at many points, like those distant flashes of lightning and vague mutterings which herald the tempest. Early in February Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected President of the Confederate States, at Montgomery. On the 13th of April Fort Sumter surrendered to General Beauregard, and on the next day, April 14, 1861, President Lincoln issued his proclamation declaring the Gulf States in rebellion, and calling upon the States which had not seceded for seventy-five thousand men to enforce the Federal authority.

Tip to this time the older State of Virginia had persistently resisted secession. Her refusal to array herself against the General Government had been based upon an unconquerable repugnance, it seemed, for the dissolution of that Union which she had so long loved; from real attachment to the flag which she had done so much to make honorable, and from a natural indisposition to rush headlong into a conflict whose whole fury would burst upon and desolate her own soil. The proclamation of President Lincoln, however, decided her course. The convention had obdurately refused, week after week, to pass the ordinance of secession. Now the naked question was, whether Virginia should fight with or against her sisters of the Gulf States. She was directed to furnish her quota of the seventy-five thousand troops called for by President Lincoln, and must decide at once. On the 17th of April, 1861, accordingly, an ordinance of secession passed the Virginia Convention, and that Commonwealth cast her fortunes for weal or woe with the Southern Confederacy.

Such is a brief and rapid summary of the important public events which had preceded, or immediately followed, Lee's return to Washington in March, 1861. A grave, and to him a very solemn, question demanded instant decision. Which side should he espouse—the side of the United States or that of the South? To choose either caused him acute pain. The attachment of the soldier to his flag is greater than the civilian can realize, and Lee had before him the brightest military prospects. The brief record which we have presented of his military career in Mexico conveys a very inadequate idea of the position which he had secured in the army. He was regarded by the authorities at Washington, and by the country at large, as the ablest and most promising of all the rising class of army officers. Upon General Winfield Scott, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Army, he had made an impression which is the most striking proof of his great merit. General Scott was enthusiastic in his expressions of admiration for the young Virginian; and with the death of that general, which his great age rendered a probable event at any moment, Lee was sure to become a candidate for the highest promotion in the service. To this his great ability gave him a title at the earliest possible moment; and other considerations operated to advance his fortunes. He was conceded by all to be a person of the highest moral character; was the descendant of an influential and distinguished family, which had rendered important services to the country in the Revolution; his father had been the friend of Washington, and had achieved the first glories of arms, and the ample estates derived from his wife gave him that worldly prestige which has a direct influence upon the fortunes of an individual. Colonel Lee could thus look forward, without the imputation of presumption, to positions of the highest responsibility and honor under the Government. With the death of Scott, and other aged officers of the army, the place of commander-in-chief would fall to the most deserving of the younger generation; and of this generation there was no one so able and prominent as Lee.[1]

[Footnote 1: "General Scott stated his purpose to recommend Lee as his successor in the chief command of the army."—Hon. Reverdy Johnson.]

The personal relations of Lee with General Scott constituted another powerful temptation to decide him against going over to the Southern side. We have referred to the great admiration which the old soldier felt for the young officer. He is said to have exclaimed on one occasion: "It would be better for every officer in the army, including myself, to die than Robert Lee." There seems no doubt of the fact that Scott looked to Lee as his ultimate successor in the supreme command, for which his character and military ability peculiarly fitted him. Warm personal regard gave additional strength to his feelings in Lee's favor; and the consciousness of this regard on the part of his superior made it still more difficult for Lee to come to a decision.



VII.

LEE RESIGNS.

It is known that General Scott used every argument to persuade Lee not to resign. To retain him in the service, he had been appointed, on his arrival at Washington, a full colonel, and in 1860 his name had been sent in, with others, by Scott, as a proper person to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Brigadier-General Jessup. To these tempting intimations that rapid promotion would attend his adherence to the United States flag, Scott added personal appeals, which, coming from him, must have been almost irresistible.

"For God's sake, don't resign, Lee!" the lieutenant-general is said to have exclaimed. And, in the protracted interviews which took place between the two officers, every possible argument was urged by the elder to decide Lee to remain firm.

The attempt was in vain. Lee's attachment to the flag he had so long fought under, and his personal affection for General Scott, were great, but his attachment to his native State was still more powerful. By birth a Virginian, he declared that he owed his first duty to her and his own people. If she summoned him, he must obey the summons. As long as she remained in the Union he might remain in the United States Army. When she seceded from the Union, and took part with the Gulf States, he must follow her fortunes, and do his part in defending her. The struggle had been bitter, but brief. "My husband has wept tears of blood," Mrs. Lee wrote to a friend, "over this terrible war; but he must, as a man and a Virginian, share the destiny of his State, which has solemnly pronounced for independence."

The secession of Virginia, by a vote of the convention assembled at Richmond, decided Lee in his course. He no longer hesitated. To General Scott's urgent appeals not to send in his resignation, he replied: "I am compelled to. I cannot consult my own feelings in this matter." He accordingly wrote to General Scott from Arlington, on the 20th of April, enclosing his resignation. The letter was in the following words:

GENERAL: Since my interview with you, on the 18th instant, I have felt that I ought not longer to retain my commission in the army. I therefore tender my resignation, which I request you will recommend for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life, and all the ability I possessed.

During the whole of that time—more than a quarter of a century—I have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors, and the most cordial friendship from my comrades. To no one, general, have I been as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration, and it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation. I shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration, and your name and fame will always be dear to me.

Save in defence of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the continuance of your happiness and prosperity, and believe me, most truly yours,

R.E. LEE. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT, Commanding United States Army.

In this letter, full of dignity and grave courtesy, Lee vainly attempts to hide the acute pain he felt at parting from his friend and abandoning the old service. Another letter, written on the same day, expresses the same sentiment of painful regret:

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, April 20,1861.

MY DEAR SISTER: I am grieved at my inability to see you ... I have been waiting "for a more convenient season," which has brought to many before me deep and lasting regret. Now we are in a state of war which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn, and, though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question, whether I should take part against my native State. With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the army, and, save in defence of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword.

I know you will blame me, but you must think as kindly of me as you can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought right. To show you the feeling and struggle it has cost me, I send a copy of my letter to General Scott, which accompanied my letter of resignation. I have no time for more.... May God guard and protect you and yours, and shower upon you every blessing, is the prayer of your devoted brother,

R.E. LEE.

The expression used in this letter—"though I recognize no necessity for this state of things"—conveys very clearly the political sentiments of the writer. He did not regard the election of a Republican President, even by a strictly sectional vote, as sufficient ground for a dissolution of the Union. It may be added here, that such, we believe, was the opinion of a large number of Southern officers at that time. Accustomed to look to the flag as that which they were called upon to defend against all comers, they were loath to admit the force of the reasoning which justified secession, and called upon them to abandon it. Their final action seems to have been taken from the same considerations which controlled the course of Lee. Their States called them, and they obeyed.

In resigning his commission and going over to the South, Lee sacrificed his private fortunes, in addition to all his hopes of future promotion in the United States Army. His beautiful home, Arlington, situated upon the heights opposite Washington, must be abandoned forever, and fall into the hands of the enemy. This old mansion was a model of peaceful loveliness and attraction. "All around here," says a writer, describing the place, "Arlington Heights presents a lovely picture of rural beauty. The 'General Lee house,' as some term it, stands on a grassy lot, surrounded with a grove of stately trees and underwood, except in front, where is a verdant sloping ground for a few rods, when it descends into a valley, spreading away in beautiful and broad expanse to the lovely Potomac. This part of the splendid estate is apparently a highly-cultivated meadow, the grass waving in the gentle breeze, like the undulating bosom of Old Atlantic. To the south, north, and west, the grounds are beautifully diversified into hill and valley, and richly stored with oak, willow, and maple, though the oak is the principal wood. The view from the height is a charming picture. Washington, Georgetown, and the intermediate Potomac, are all before you in the foreground."

In this old mansion crowning the grassy hill, the young officer had passed the happiest moments of his life. All around him were spots associated with his hours of purest enjoyment. Each object in the house—the old furniture and very table-sets—recalled the memory of Washington, and were dear to him. Here were many pieces of the "Martha Washington china," portions of the porcelain set presented to Mrs. Washington by Lafayette and others—in the centre of each piece the monogram "M.W." with golden rays diverging to the names of the old thirteen States. Here were also fifty pieces, remnants of the set of one thousand, procured from China by the Cincinnati Society, and presented to Washington—articles of elaborate decoration in blue and gold, "with the coat-of-arms of the society, held by Fame, with a blue ribbon, from which is suspended the eagle of the order, with a green wreath about its neck, and on its breast a shield representing the inauguration of the order." Add to these the tea-table used by Washington and one of his bookcases; old portraits, antique furniture, and other memorials of the Lee family from Stratford—let the reader imagine the old mansion stored with these priceless relics, and he will understand with what anguish Lee must have contemplated what came duly to pass, the destruction, by rude hands, of objects so dear to him. That he must have foreseen the fate of his home is certain. To take sides with Virginia was to give up Arlington to its fate.

There is no proof, however, that this sacrifice of his personal fortunes had any effect upon him. If he could decide to change his flag, and dissolve every tie which bound him to the old service, he could sacrifice all else without much regret. No one will be found to say that the hope of rank or emolument in the South influenced him. The character and whole career of the man contradict the idea. His ground of action may be summed up in a single sentence. He went with his State because he believed it was his duty to do so, and because, to ascertain what was his duty, and perform it, was the cardinal maxim of his life.



VIII.

HIS RECEPTION AT RICHMOND.

No sooner had intelligence of Lee's resignation of his commission in the United States Army reached Richmond, than Governor Letcher appointed him major-general of the military forces of Virginia. The appointment was confirmed by the convention, rather by acclamation than formal vote; and on the 23d of April, Lee, who had meanwhile left Washington and repaired to Richmond, was honored by a formal presentation to the convention.

The address of President Janney was eloquent, and deserves to be preserved. Lee stood in the middle aisle, and the president, rising, said:

"MAJOR-GENERAL LEE: In the name of the people of our native State, here represented, I bid you a cordial and heart-felt welcome to this hall, in which we may almost yet hear the echoes of the voices of the statesmen, the soldiers, and sages of by-gone days, who have borne your name, and whose blood now flows in your veins.

"We met in the month of February last, charged with the solemn duty of protecting the rights, the honor, and the interests of the people of this Commonwealth. We differed for a time as to the best means of accomplishing that object, but there never was, at any moment, a shade of difference among us as to the great object itself; and now, Virginia having taken her position, as far as the power of this convention extends, we stand animated by one impulse, governed by one desire and one determination, and that is, that she shall be defended, and that no spot of her soil shall be polluted by the foot of an invader.

"When the necessity became apparent of having a leader for our forces, all hearts and all eyes, by the impulse of an instinct which is a surer guide than reason itself, turned to the old county of Westmoreland. We knew how prolific she had been in other days of heroes and statesmen. We knew she had given birth to the Father of his Country, to Richard Henry Lee, to Monroe, and last, though not least, to your own gallant father, and we knew well, by your deeds, that her productive power was not yet exhausted.

"Sir, we watched with the most profound and intense interest the triumphal march of the army led by General Scott, to which you were attached, from Vera Cruz to the capital of Mexico. We read of the sanguinary conflicts and the blood-stained fields, in all of which victory perched upon our own banners. We knew of the unfading lustre that was shed upon the American arms by that campaign, and we know, also, what your modesty has always disclaimed, that no small share of the glory of those achievements was due to your valor and your military genius.

"Sir, one of the proudest recollections of my life will be the honor that I yesterday had of submitting to this body confirmation of the nomination, made by the Governor of this State, of you as commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of this Commonwealth. I rose to put the question, and when I asked if this body would advise and consent to that appointment, there rushed from the hearts to the tongues of all the members an affirmative response, which told with an emphasis that could leave no doubt of the feeling whence it emanated. I put the negative of the question, for form's sake, but there was an unbroken silence.

"Sir, we have, by this unanimous vote, expressed our convictions that you are at this day, among the living citizens of Virginia, 'first in war.' We pray to God most fervently that you may so conduct the operations committed to your Charge that it may soon be said of you that you are 'first in peace,' and when that time comes you will have earned the still prouder distinction of being 'first in the hearts of your countrymen.'"

The president concluded by saying that Virginia on that day intrusted her spotless sword to Lee's keeping, and Lee responded as follows:

"MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: Profoundly impressed with the solemnity of the occasion, for which I must say I was not prepared, I accept the position assigned me by your partiality. I would have much preferred had your choice fallen upon an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow-citizens, I devote myself to the service of my native State, in whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my sword."

Such were the modest and dignified expressions of Lee in accepting the great trust. The reply is brief and simple, but these are very great merits on such an occasion. No portion of the address contains a phrase or word denunciatory of the Federal Government, or of the motives of the opponents of Virginia; and this moderation and absence of all rancor characterized the utterances of Lee, both oral and written, throughout the war. He spoke, doubtless, as he felt, and uttered no expression of heated animosity, because he cherished no such sentiment. His heart was bleeding still from the cruel trial it had undergone in abruptly tearing away from the old service to embark upon civil war; with the emotions of the present occasion, excited by the great ovation in his honor, no bitterness mingled—or at least, if there were such bitterness in his heart, he did not permit it to rise to his lips. He accepted the trust confided to him in terms of dignity and moderation, worthy of Washington; exchanged grave salutations with the members of the convention; and then, retiring from the hall where he had solemnly consecrated his life to his native Commonwealth, proceeded at once to energetic work to get the State in a posture of defence.

The sentiment of the country in reference to Lee was even warmer than that of the convention. For weeks, reports had been rife that he had determined to adhere to the Federal Government in the approaching struggle. Such an event, it was felt by all, would be a public calamity to Virginia; and the general joy may be imagined when it was known that Lee had resigned and come to fight with his own people. He assumed command, therefore, of all the Virginia forces, in the midst of universal public rejoicing; and the fact gave strength and consistency to the general determination to resist the Federal Government to the last.



IX.

LEE IN 1861.

At this time—April, 1861—General Lee was fifty-four years of age, and may be said to have been in the ripe vigor of every faculty. Physically and intellectually he was "at his best," and in the bloom of manhood. His figure was erect, and he bore himself with the brief, somewhat stiff air of command derived from his military education and service in the army. This air of the professional soldier, which characterized generally the graduates of West Point, was replaced afterward by a grave dignity, the result of high command and great responsibilities. In April, 1861, however, he was rather the ordinary army officer in bearing than the commander-in-chief.

He had always been remarkable for his manly beauty, both of face and figure, and the cares of great command had not yet whitened his hair. There was not a gray hair in his head, and his mustache was dark and heavy. The rest of his face was clean-shaven, and his cheeks had that fresh, ruddy hue which indicates high physical health. This was not at that time or afterward the result of high living. Of all the prominent personages of his epoch. Lee was, perhaps, the most temperate. He rarely drank even so much as a single glass of wine, and it was a matter of general notoriety in the army afterward, that he cared not what he ate. The ruddy appearance which characterized him from first to last was the result of the most perfectly-developed physical health, which no species of indulgence had ever impaired. He used no tobacco then or afterward, in any shape—that seductive weed which has been called "the soldier's comfort"—and seemed, indeed, superior to all those small vices which assail men of his profession. Grave, silent, with a military composure of bearing which amounted at times, as we have said, to stiffness, he resembled a machine in the shape of a man. At least this was the impression which he produced upon those who saw him in public at this time.

The writer's design, here, is to indicate the personal appearance and bearing of General Lee on the threshold of the war. It may be said, by way of summing up all, that he was a full-blooded "West-Pointer" in appearance; the militaire as distinguished from the civilian; and no doubt impressed those who held official interviews with him as a personage of marked reserve. The truth and frankness of the man under all circumstances, and his great, warm heart, full of honesty and unassuming simplicity, became known only in the progress of the war. How simple and true and honest he was, will appear from a letter to his son, G.W. Custis Lee, written some time before:

"You must study," he wrote, "to be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right. If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it, if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot: you will wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind. Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly, with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not. If you have any fault to find with any one, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back. We should live, act, and say, nothing to the injury of any one. It is not only best as a matter of principle, but it is the path to peace and honor.

"In regard to duty, let me, in conclusion of this hasty letter, inform you that, nearly a hundred years ago, there was a day of remarkable gloom and darkness—still known as 'the dark day'—a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished, as if by an eclipse. The Legislature of Connecticut was in session, and, as its members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the last day—the day of judgment—had come. Some one, in the consternation of the hour, moved an adjournment. Then there arose an old Puritan legislator, Davenport, of Stamford, and said that, if the last day had come, he desired to be found at his place doing his duty, and, therefore, moved that candles be brought in, so that the House could proceed with its duty. There was quietness in that man's mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to obey present duty. Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things, like the old Puritan. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. Never let me and your mother wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part."

The maxims of this letter indicate the noble and conscientious character of the man who wrote it. "Frankness is the child of honesty and courage." "Say just what you mean to do on every occasion." "Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one." "Duty is the sublimest word in our language ... do your duty in all things ... you cannot do more." That he lived up to these great maxims, amid all the troubled scenes and hot passions of a stormy epoch, is Lee's greatest glory. His fame as a soldier, great as it is, yields to the true glory of having placed duty before his eyes always as the supreme object of life. He resigned his commission from a sense of duty to his native State; made this same duty his sole aim in every portion of his subsequent career; and, when all had failed, and the cause he had fought for was overthrown, it was the consciousness of having performed conscientiously, and to his utmost, his whole duty, which took the sting from defeat, and gave him that noble calmness which the whole world saw and admired. "Human virtue should be equal to human calamity," were his august words when all was lost, and men's minds were sinking under the accumulated agony of defeat and despair. Those words could only have been uttered by a man who made duty the paramount object of living—the performance of it, the true glory and crown of virtuous manhood. It may be objected by some critics that he mistook his duty in espousing the Southern cause. Doubtless many persons will urge that objection, and declare that the words here written are senseless panegyric. But that will not affect the truth or detract from Lee's great character. He performed at least what in his inmost soul he considered his duty, and, from the beginning of his career, when all was so bright, to its termination, when all was so dark, it will be found that his controlling sentiment was, first, last, and all the time, this performance of duty. The old Puritan, whose example he admired so much, was not more calm and resolute. When "the last day" of the cause he fought for came—in the spring of 1865—it was plain to all who saw the man, standing unmoved in the midst of the general disaster, that his sole desire was to be "found at his place, and doing his duty."

From this species of digression upon the moral constituents of the individual, we pass to the record of that career which made the great fame of the soldier. The war had already begun when Lee took command of the provisional forces of Virginia, and the collisions in various portions of the Gulf States between the Federal and State authorities were followed by overt acts in Virginia, which all felt would be the real battle-ground of the war. The North entered upon the struggle with very great ardor and enthusiasm. The call for volunteers to enforce obedience to the Federal authority was tumultuously responded to throughout the entire North, and troops were hurried forward to Washington, which soon became an enormous camp. The war began in Virginia with the evacuation and attempted destruction of the works at Harper's Ferry, by the Federal officer in command there. This was on the 19th of April, and on the next day reinforcements were thrown into Fortress Monroe; and the navy-yard at Norfolk, with the shipping, set on fire and abandoned.

Lee thus found the Commonwealth in a state of war, and all his energies were immediately concentrated upon the work of placing her in a condition of defence. He established his headquarters in the custom-house at Richmond; orderlies were seen coming and going; bustle reigned throughout the building, and by night, as well as by day, General Lee labored incessantly to organize the means of resistance. From the first moment, all had felt that Virginia, from her geographical position, adjoining the Federal frontier and facing the Federal capital, would become the arena of the earliest, longest, and most determined struggle. Her large territory and moral influence, as the oldest of the Southern States, also made her the chief object of the Federal hostility. It was felt that if Virginia were occupied, and her people reduced under the Federal authority again, the Southern cause would be deprived of a large amount of its prestige and strength. The authorities of the Gulf States accordingly hurried forward to Richmond all available troops; and from all parts of Virginia the volunteer regiments, which had sprung up like magic, were in like manner forwarded by railway to the capital. Every train brought additions to this great mass of raw war material; large camps rose around Richmond, chief among which was that named "Camp Lee;" and the work of drilling and moulding this crude material for the great work before it was ardently proceeded with under the supervision of Lee.

An Executive Board, or Military Council, had been formed, consisting of Governor Letcher and other prominent officials; but these gentlemen had the good sense to intrust the main work of organizing an army to Lee. As yet the great question at Richmond was to place Virginia in a state of defence—to prepare that Commonwealth for the hour of trial, by enrolling her own people. It will be remembered that Lee held no commission from the Confederate States; he was major-general of the Provisional Army of Virginia, and to place this Provisional Army in a condition to take the field was the first duty before him. It was difficult, not from want of ardor in the population, but from the want of the commonest material necessary in time of war. There were few arms, and but small supplies of ammunition. While the Federal Government entered upon the war with the amplest resources, the South found herself almost entirely destitute of the munitions essential to her protection. All was to be organized and put at once into operation—the quartermaster, commissary, ordnance, and other departments. Transportation, supplies of rations, arms, ammunition, all were to be collected immediately. The material existed, or could be supplied, as the sequel clearly showed; but as yet there was almost nothing. And it was chiefly to the work of organizing these departments, first of all, that General Lee and the Military Council addressed themselves with the utmost energy.

The result was, that the State found herself very soon in a condition to offer a determined resistance. The troops at the various camps of instruction were successively sent to the field; others took their places, and the work of drilling the raw material into soldiers went on; supplies were collected, transportation found, workshops for the construction of arms and ammunition sprung up; small-arms, cannon, cartridges, fixed and other ammunition, were produced in quantities; and, in a time which now seems wholly inadequate for such a result, the Commonwealth of Virginia was ready to take the field against the Federal Government.



X.

THE WAR BEGINS.

Early in May, Virginia became formally a member of the Southern Confederacy, and the troops which she had raised a portion of the Confederate States Army. When Richmond became the capital soon afterward, and the Southern Congress assembled, five brigadier-generals were appointed, Generals Cooper, Albert S. Johnston, Lee, J.E. Johnston, and Beauregard. Large forces had been meanwhile raised throughout the South; Virginia became the centre of all eyes, as the scene of the main struggle; and early in June occurred at Bethel, in Lower Virginia, the first prominent affair, in which General Butler, with about four thousand men, was repulsed and forced to retire.

The affair at Bethel, which was of small importance, was followed by movements in Northern and Western Virginia—the battles at Rich Mountain and Carrick's Ford; Johnston's movements in the Valley; and the advance of the main Federal army on the force under Beauregard, which resulted in the first battle of Manassas. In these events, General Lee bore no part, and we need not speak of them further than to present a summary of the results. The Federal design had been to penetrate Virginia in three columns. One was to advance from the northwest under General McClellan; a second, under General Patterson, was to take possession of the Valley; and a third, under General McDowell, was to drive Beauregard back from Manassas on Richmond. Only one of these columns—that of McClellan—succeeded in its undertaking. Johnston held Patterson in check in the Valley until the advance upon Manassas; then by a flank march the Confederate general hastened to the assistance of Beauregard. The battle of Manassas followed on Sunday, the 21st of July. After an unsuccessful attempt to force the Confederate right, General McDowell assailed their left, making for that purpose a long detour—and at first carried all before him. Reenforcements were hurried forward, however, and the Confederates fought with the energy of men defending their own soil. The obstinate stand made by Evans, Bee, Bartow, Jackson, and their brave associates, turned the fortunes of the day, and, when reenforcements subsequently reached the field under General Kirby Smith and General Early, the Federal troops retreated in great disorder toward Washington.



XI.

LEE'S ADVANCE INTO WESTERN VIRGINIA.

General Lee nowhere appears, as we have seen, in these first great movements and conflicts. He was without any specific command, and remained at Richmond, engaged in placing that city in a state of defence. The works which he constructed proved subsequently of great importance to the city, and a Northern officer writes of Lee: "While the fortifications of Richmond stand, his name will evoke admiration; the art of war is unacquainted with any defence so admirable."

Lee's first appearance in the war, as commander of troops in the field, took place in the fall of 1861, when he was sent to operate against the forces under General Rosecrans in the fastnesses of Western Virginia. This indecisive and unimportant movement has been the subject of various comment; the official reports were burned in the conflagration at Richmond, or captured, and the elaborate plans drawn up by Lee of his intended movement against General Reynolds, at Cheat Mountain, have in the same manner disappeared. Under these circumstances, and as the present writer had no personal knowledge of the subject, it seems best to simply quote the brief statement which follows. It is derived from an officer of high rank and character, whose statement is only second in value to that of General Lee himself:

"After General Garnett's death, General Lee was sent by the President to ascertain what could be done in the trans-Alleghany region, and to endeavor to harmonize our movements, etc., in that part of the State. He was not ordered to take command of the troops, nor did he do so, during the whole time he was there.

"Soon after his arrival he came to the decided conclusion that that was not the line from which to make an offensive movement. The country, although not hostile, was not friendly; supplies could not be obtained; the enemy had possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, from which, and the Ohio River as a base, he could operate with great advantage against us, and our only chance was to drive him from the railroad, take possession, and use it ourselves. We had not the means of doing this, and consequently could only try to hold as much country as possible, and occupy as large a force of the enemy as could be kept in front of us. The movement against Cheat Mountain, which failed, was undertaken with a view of causing the enemy to contract his lines, and enable us to unite the troops under Generals Jackson (of Georgia) and Loring. After the failure of this movement on our part, General Rosecrans, feeling secure, strengthened his lines in that part of the country, and went with a part of his forces to the Kanawha, driving our forces across the Gauley. General Lee then went to that line of operations, to endeavor to unite the troops under Generals Floyd and Wise, and stop the movements under Rosecrans. General Loring, with a part of his force from Valley Mountain, joined the forces at Sewell Mountain. Rosecrans's movement was stopped, and, the season for operations in that country being over, General Lee was ordered to Richmond, and soon afterward sent to South Carolina, to meet the movement of the enemy from Port Royal, etc. He remained in South Carolina until shortly before the commencement of the campaign before Richmond, in 1862."

The months spent by General Lee in superintending the coast defences of South Carolina and Georgia, present nothing of interest, and we shall therefore pass to the spring of 1862, when he returned to Richmond. His services as engineer had been highly appreciated by the people of the South, and a writer of the period said: "The time will yet come when his superior abilities will be vindicated, both to his own renown and the glory of his country." The time was now at hand when these abilities, if the individual possessed them, were to have an opportunity to display themselves.



XII.

LEE'S LAST INTERVIEW WITH BISHOP MEADE.

A touching incident of Lee's life belongs to this time—the early spring of 1862. Bishop Meade, the venerable head of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, lay at the point of death, in the city of Richmond. When General Lee was informed of the fact, he exhibited lively emotion, for the good bishop, as we have said in the commencement of this narrative, had taught him his catechism when he was a boy in Alexandria. On the day before the bishop's death. General Lee called in the morning to see him, but such was the state of prostration under which the sick man labored, that only a few of his most intimate friends were permitted to have access to his chamber. In the evening General Lee called again, and his name was announced to Bishop Meade. As soon as he heard it, he said faintly, for his breathing had become much oppressed, and he spoke with great difficulty: "I must see him, if only for a few moments."

General Lee was accordingly introduced, and approached the dying man, with evidences of great emotion in his countenance. Taking the thin hand in his own, he said:

"How do you feel, bishop?"

"Almost gone," replied Bishop Meade, in a voice so weak that it was almost inaudible; "but I wanted to see you once more."

He paused for an instant, breathing heavily, and looking at Lee with deep feeling.

"God bless you! God bless you, Robert!" he faltered out, "and fit you for your high and responsible duties. I can't call you 'general'—I must call you 'Robert;' I have heard you your catechism too often."

General Lee pressed the feeble hand, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Yes, bishop—very often," he said, in reply to the last words uttered by the bishop.

A brief conversation followed, Bishop Meade making inquiries in reference to Mrs. Lee, who was his own relative, and other members of the family. "He also," says the highly-respectable clergyman who furnishes these particulars, "put some pertinent questions to General Lee about the state of public affairs and of the army, showing the most lively interest in the success of our cause."

It now became necessary to terminate an interview which, in the feeble condition of the aged man, could not be prolonged. Much exhausted, and laboring under deep emotion, Bishop Meade shook the general by the hand, and said:

"Heaven bless you! Heaven bless you! and give you wisdom for your important and arduous duties!"

These were the last words uttered during the interview. General Lee pressed the dying man's hand, released it, stood for several minutes by the bedside motionless and in perfect silence, and then went out of the room.

On the next morning Bishop Meade expired.



PART II.

IN FRONT OF RICHMOND.



I.

PLAN OF THE FEDERAL CAMPAIGN.

The pathetic interview which we have just described took place in the month of March, 1862.

By the latter part of that month, General McClellan, in command of an army of more than one hundred thousand men, landed on the Peninsula between the James and York Rivers, and after stubbornly-contested engagements with the forces of General Johnston, advanced up the Peninsula—the Confederates slowly retiring. In the latter part of May, a portion of the Federal forces had crossed the Chickahominy, and confronted General Johnston defending Richmond.

Such was the serious condition of affairs in the spring of 1862. The Federal sword had nearly pierced the heart of Virginia, and, as the course of events was about to place Lee in charge of her destinies, a brief notice is indispensable of the designs of the adversaries against whom he was to contend on the great arena of the State.

While the South had been lulled to sleep, as it were, by the battle of Manassas, the North, greatly enraged at the disaster, had prepared to prosecute the war still more vigorously. The military resources of the South had been plainly underestimated. It was now obvious that the North had to fight with a dangerous adversary, and that the people of the South were entirely in earnest. Many journals of the North had ridiculed the idea of war; and one of them had spoken of the great uprising of the Southern States from the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico as a mere "local commotion" which a force of fifty thousand men would be able to put down without difficulty. A column of twenty-five thousand men, it was said, would be sufficient to carry all before it in Virginia, and capture Richmond, and the comment on this statement had been the battle of Manassas, where a force of more than fifty thousand had been defeated and driven back to Washington.

It was thus apparent that the war was to be a serious struggle, in which the North would be compelled to exert all her energies. The people responded to the call upon them with enthusiasm. All the roving and adventurous elements of Northern society flocked to the Federal standard, and in a short time a large force had once more assembled at Washington. The work now was to drill, equip, and put it in efficient condition for taking the field. This was undertaken with great energy, the Congress cooeperating with the Executive in every manner. The city of Washington resounded with the wheels of artillery and the tramp of cavalry; the workshops were busy night and day to supply arms and ammunition; and the best officers devoted themselves, without rest, to the work of drilling and disciplining the mass.

By the spring of 1862 a force of about two hundred thousand men was ready to take the field in Virginia. General Scott was not to command in the coming campaigns. He had retired in the latter part of the year 1861, and his place had been filled by a young officer of rising reputation—General George B. McClellan, who had achieved the successes of Rich Mountain and Carrick's Ford in Western Virginia. General McClellan was not yet forty, but had impressed the authorities with a high opinion of his abilities. A soldier by profession, and enjoying the distinction of having served with great credit in the Mexican War, he had been sent as United States military commissioner to the Crimea, and on his return had written a book of marked ability on the military organizations of the powers of Europe. When the struggle between the North and South approached, he was said—with what truth we know not—to have hesitated, before determining upon his course; but it is probable that the only question with him was whether he should fight for the North or remain neutral. In his politics he was a Democrat, and the war on the South is said to have shocked his State-rights view. But, whatever his sentiments had been, he accepted command, and fought a successful campaign in Western Virginia. From that moment his name became famous; he was said to have achieved "two victories in one day," and he received from the newspapers the flattering name of "the Young Napoleon."

The result of this successful campaign, slight in importance as it was, procured for General McClellan the high post of commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. Operations in every portion of the South were to be directed by him; and he was especially intrusted with the important work of organizing the new levies at Washington. This he performed with very great ability. Under his vigorous hand, the raw material soon took shape. He gave his personal attention to every department; and the result, as we have said, in the early spring of 1862, was an army of more than two hundred thousand men, for operations in Virginia alone.

The great point now to be determined was the best line of operations against Richmond. President Lincoln was strongly in favor of an advance by way of Manassas and the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, which he thought would insure the safety of the Federal capital. This was always, throughout the whole war, a controlling consideration with him; and, regarded in the light of subsequent events, this solicitude seems to have been well founded. More than once afterward, General Lee—to use his own expression—thought of "swapping queens," that is to say, advancing upon Washington, without regard to the capture of Richmond; and President Lincoln, with that excellent good sense which he generally exhibited, felt that the loss of Washington would prove almost fatal to the Federal cause.—Such was the origin of the President's preference for the Manassas line. General McClellan did not share it. He assented it seems at first, but soon resolved to adopt another plan—an advance either from Urbanna on the Rappahannock, or from West Point on the York. Against his views and determination, the President and authorities struggled in vain. McClellan treated their arguments and appeals with a want of ceremony amounting at times nearly to contempt; he adhered to his own plan resolutely, and in the end the President gave way. In rueful protest against the continued inactivity of General McClellan, President Lincoln had exclaimed, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it;" and "if something is not soon done, the bottom will be out of the whole affair."

At last General McClellan carried his point, and an advance against Richmond from the Peninsula was decided upon. In order to assist this movement, General Fremont was to march through Northwestern Virginia, and General Banks up the Valley; and, having thus arranged their programme, the Federal authorities began to move forward to the great work. To transport an army of more than one hundred thousand men by water to the Peninsula was a heavy undertaking; but the ample resources of the Government enabled them to do so without difficulty. General McClellan, who had now been removed from his post of commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, and assigned to the command only of the army to operate against Richmond, landed his forces on the Peninsula, and, after several actions of an obstinate description, advanced toward the Chickahominy, General Johnston, the Confederate commander, deliberately retiring. Johnston took up a position behind this stream, and, toward the end of May, McClellan crossed a portion of his forces and confronted him.



II.

JOHNSTON IS WOUNDED.

The army thus threatening the city which had become the capital of the Confederacy was large and excellently equipped. It numbered in all, according to General McClellan's report, one hundred and fifty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight men, of whom one hundred and fifteen thousand one hundred and two were effective troops—that is to say, present and ready for duty as fighting-men in the field.

Results of such magnitude' were expected from this great army, that all the resources of the Federal Government had been taxed to bring it to the highest possible state of efficiency. The artillery was numerous, and of the most approved description; small-arms of the best patterns and workmanship were profusely supplied; the ammunition was of the finest quality, and almost inexhaustible in quantity; and the rations for the subsistence of the troops, which were equally excellent and abundant, were brought up in an unfailing stream from the White House, in General McClellan's rear, over the York River Railroad, which ran straight to his army.

Such was the admirable condition of the large force under command of General McClellan. It would be difficult to imagine an army better prepared for active operations; and the position which it held had been well selected. The left of the army was protected by the wellnigh impassable morass of the White-oak Swamp, and all the approaches from the direction of Richmond were obstructed by the natural difficulties of the ground, which had been rendered still more forbidding by an abattis of felled trees and earthworks of the best description. Unless the right of McClellan, on the northern bank of the Chickahominy, were turned by the Confederates, his communications with his base at the White House and the safety of his army were assured. And even the apparently improbable contingency of such an assault on his right had been provided for. Other bodies of Federal troops had advanced into Virginia to cooeperate with the main force on the Peninsula. General McDowell, the able soldier who had nearly defeated the Confederates at Manassas, was at Fredericksburg with a force of about forty thousand men, which were to advance southward without loss of time and unite with General McClellan's right. This would completely insure the communications of his army from interruption; and it was no doubt expected that Generals Fremont and Banks would cooeperate in the movement also. Fremont was to advance from Northwestern Virginia, driving before him the small Confederate force, under Jackson, in the Valley; and General Banks, then at Winchester, was to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains, and, posting his forces along the Manassas Railroad, guard the approaches to Washington when McDowell advanced from Fredericksburg to the aid of General McClellan. Thus Richmond would be half encircled by Federal armies. General McClellan, if permitted by the Confederates to carry out his plan of operations, would soon be in command of about two hundred thousand men, and with this force it was anticipated he would certainly be able to capture Richmond.

Such was the Federal programme of the war in Virginia. It promised great results, and ought, it would seem, to have succeeded. The Confederate forces in Virginia did not number in all one hundred thousand men; and it is now apparent that, without the able strategy of Johnston, Lee, and Jackson, General McClellan would have been in possession of Richmond before the summer.

Prompt action was thus necessary on the part of the sagacious soldier commanding the army at Richmond, and directing operations throughout the theatre of action in Virginia. The officer in question was General Joseph E. Johnston, a Virginian by birth, who had first held General Patterson in check in the Shenandoah Valley, and then hastened to the assistance of General Beauregard at Manassas, where, in right of his superior rank, he took command. Before the enemy's design to advance up the Peninsula had been developed, Johnston had made a masterly retreat from Manassas. Reappearing with his force of about forty thousand men on the Peninsula, he had obstinately opposed McClellan, and only retired when he was compelled by numbers to do so, with the resolution, however, of fighting a decisive battle on the Chickahominy. In face, figure, and character, General Johnston was thoroughly the soldier. Above the medium height, with an erect figure, in a close-fitting uniform buttoned to the chin; with a ruddy face, decorated with close-cut gray side-whiskers, mustache, and tuft on the chin; reserved in manner, brief of speech, without impulses of any description, it seemed, General Johnston's appearance and bearing were military to stiffness; and he was popularly compared to "a gamecock," ready for battle at any moment. As a soldier, his reputation was deservedly high; to unshrinking personal courage he added a far-reaching capacity for the conduct of great operations. Throughout his career he enjoyed a profound public appreciation of his abilities as a commander, and was universally respected as a gentleman and a patriot.

General Johnston, surveying the whole field in Virginia, and penetrating, it would seem, the designs of the enemy, had hastened to direct General Jackson, commanding in the Valley, to begin offensive operations, and, by threatening the Federal force there—with Washington in perspective—relieve the heavy pressure upon the main arena. Jackson carried out these instructions with the vigor which marked all his operations. In March he advanced down the Valley in the direction of Winchester, and, coming upon a considerable force of the enemy at Kernstown, made a vigorous assault upon them; a heavy engagement ensued, and, though Jackson was defeated and compelled to retreat, a very large Federal force was retained in the Valley to protect that important region. A more decisive diversion soon followed. Jackson advanced in May upon General Banks, then at Strasburg, drove him from that point to and across the Potomac; and such was the apprehension felt at Washington, that President Lincoln ordered General McDowell, then at Fredericksburg with about forty thousand men, to send twenty thousand across the mountains to Strasburg in order to pursue or cut off Jackson.

Thus the whole Federal programme in Virginia was thrown into confusion. General Banks, after the fight at Kernstown, was kept in the Valley. After Jackson's second attack upon him, when General Banks was driven across the Potomac and Washington threatened, General McDowell was directed to send half his army to operate against Jackson. Thus General McClellan, waiting at Richmond for McDowell to join him, did not move; with a portion of his army on one side of the stream, and the remainder on the other side, he remained inactive, hesitating and unwilling, as any good soldier would have been, to commence the decisive assault.