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GREAT COMMANDERS 
 
 • * • • 
 
 GENERAL LEE 
 
 BY 
 
 FITZHUGH LEE 
 
 HIS NEPHEW AND CAVALRY COMMANDER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1898 
 

 Copyright, 1894, 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 All -rights reserved. 
 

 I I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF THE SOLDIERS 
 
 ' WHO FOUGHT AND FELL 
 
 UNDER THE WAVE OF ROBERT E. LEE'S SWORD, AND ARE 
 
 " SLEEPING IN UNBROKEN RANKS, WITH THE DEW ON THEIR BROWS 
 
 AND THE RUST ON THEIR MAIL." 
 
 H 
 
 r4 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The occasion has been embraced to express the uni- 
 versal regret that General Lee never wrote anything 
 concerning his career and campaigns. His statements 
 would have settled conflicting opinions on all subjects 
 contained therein. We know that it was his intention 
 to record the deeds of his soldiers, but not to write his 
 personal memoirs. He waited for a " convenient sea- 
 son," and waited too long. In this volume the attempt 
 has been made to imperfectly supply the great desire to 
 have something from Robert E. Lee's pen, by introduc- 
 ing, at the periods referred to, such extracts from his 
 private letters as would be of general interest. He is 
 thus made, for the first time, to give his impressions and 
 opinions on most of the great events with which he was 
 so closely connected. Except in a few instances, the 
 scope of the book has not permitted the tactical details 
 of the battlefield, or the mention by name of many of 
 the officers and organizations whose superb courage 
 contributed to their commander's fame. 
 
 F. L. 
 
 Glasgow, Va., August, i8g4. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. — Ancestry i 
 
 II. — Birth. — Career as Officer of Engineers, United 
 
 States Army 20 
 
 III. — A Cavalry Officer of the Army of the United 
 
 States 52 
 
 IV.— War 78 
 
 V. — Invasion of Virginia 99 
 
 VI.— The Campaign in West Virginia . . . .112 
 VII. — Atlantic Coast Defenses. — Assigned to Duty in 
 Richmond as Commander in Chief under the 
 
 Direction of the Southern President . 128 
 VIII. — Commands the Army defending Richmond, and 
 
 Seven Days Battles 149 
 
 IX. — Second Battle of Manassas 185 
 
 X. — Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg .... 207 
 
 XL— Chancellorsville 240 
 
 XII. — Gettysburg 269 
 
 XlII. — Campaign in Virginia. — Bristol Station. — Mine 
 
 Run. — Wilderness 315 
 
 XIV. — Siege of Petersburg 346 
 
 XV. — Evacuation of Richmond and the Petersburg 
 
 Lines. — Retreat and Surrender . . . 379 
 XVI. — Return to Richmond. — President of Washing- 
 ton College. — Death and Burial . . . 400 
 
 XVII. — Military Character 420 
 
 Index 425 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Portrait of General Robert Edward Lee . . Frontispiece 
 Sections of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland . . . 269 
 
 The Battlefield of Gettysburg 296 
 
 Central Virginia .,-,,,... Back of book 
 
GENERAL LEE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCESTRY. 
 
 Westmoreland is one of a group of counties in Vir- 
 ginia lying between tlie Rappaliannock and Potomac 
 Rivers. It was originally a portion of Northumberland 
 County, and, though small in geographical extent, its 
 historical record is great. Within a space of thirty miles 
 in length and an average width of fifteen miles were born 
 statesmen, soldiers, and patriots whose lives and charac- 
 ters adorn the pages of American history, and whose 
 courage, genius, and learning are the proud inheritance 
 of those who dwell to-day in the powerful republic of 
 America. Here, from England, in 1665, settled the great- 
 grandfather of the '' Father of his Country." American- 
 ized, he became an extensive planter, soldier, magistrate, 
 member of the House of Burgesses, and a gentleman 
 whose virtue and piety were undoubted. In his will he 
 expressed his " sorrow for his sins, and begged forgive- 
 ness from Almighty God, Saviour, and Redeemer." Here 
 his son, Lawrence, and his grandson, Augustine, were 
 born. The second wife of Augustine was Mary Ball, 
 and their first child, born February 22, 1732, was named 
 George Washington. 
 
 This son was destined to establish, with stainless 
 sword, a free republic, and by great skill, unfaltering 
 faith, and sublime patriotism transfer power from king 
 to people. A grateful country acknowledged his illus- 
 trious services, and he was chosen the first President of 
 the United States. This little county was not satisfied 
 with the high honor. On April 28, 1758, James Mon- 
 
 (I) 
 
2 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 roe was born within its limits. He became a distin- 
 guished citizen, served as an officer in the Revolution- 
 ary War, was a member of the General Assembly of 
 Virginia, of the Congress of Confederation, and the Vir- 
 ginia Convention called in June, 1778, to consider the 
 Federal Constitution, a United States Senator, envoy 
 to France, England, and Spain, twice Governor of his 
 native State, Secretary of State in Mr. Madison's admin- 
 istration, and President of the republic for two terms — 
 from 1817 to 1825 — thus adding, by a long and merito- 
 rious public career, additional renown to the county of 
 his birth, his State, and his country. James Madison, 
 fourth President of the United States, was born in the 
 adjoining county of King George seven years before 
 Monroe, and but a few miles distant. To this section, 
 from England, came, too, the Lees, who belonged to one 
 of the oldest families in the mother country, its mem- 
 bers from a very early date being distinguished for 
 eminent services to sovereign and country. By the side 
 of William the Conqueror, at the battle of Hastings, in 
 1066, Lancelot Lee fought, and a later descendant, Lionel 
 Lee, followed Richard Coeur de Lion, taking part in the 
 third crusade to Palestine, in 1192, at the head of a com- 
 pany of " gentlemen cavaliers," displaying great bravery 
 at the siege of Acre. 
 
 The Lees of Virginia, " a family which has, perhaps, 
 given more statesmen and warriors to their new home 
 than any other of our old colonial progenitors," came 
 of an ancient and distinguished stock in England, and 
 neither country can boast a nobler scion than the sub- 
 ject of these memoirs. General Lee had never the time 
 or inclination to study genealogy, and always said he 
 knew nothing beyond his first American ancestor. Colo- 
 nel Richard Lee, who migrated to Virginia in the reign 
 of Charles L He believed, however, from his inherited 
 traditions and the Coat of Arms borne by his progenitors 
 in this country, that his family came originally from 
 Shropshire, England; and when the world rang with his 
 name and fame, and he paid the usual penalty of great- 
 ness by being besieged with reiterated queries respecting 
 his pedigree, this was all he would say. Others, how- 
 ever, tcck more interest in the subject ; he was claimed 
 
ANCESTRY. 3 
 
 by the Lees of Cheshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks, and Essex, 
 as well as of Shropshire, and much was said and written 
 pro and con both before and after his death. 
 
 In recent years his genealogy has been very persist- 
 ently and thoroughly investigated by those learned in 
 antiquarian research, and their conclusion is in favor of 
 Shropshire, though in 1663 the first emigrant, Colonel 
 Richard Lee, made a will in which he states that he was 
 "lately of Stafford Langton in the county of Essex." 
 Now, as we have every reason to believe that he was a 
 younger son, the parental nest was probably full ; neither 
 was it such a " far cry " from Shropshire to the near 
 vicinity of London, a remove preparatory, possibly, to 
 the still greater one across the Atlantic. He certainly 
 used the arms of the Shropshire Lees. 
 
 Colonel Lee's devotion to the House of Stuart was 
 notorious, and had been often proved even by the man- 
 ner of datmg his will — viz., "The 6th of February, in 
 the sixteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, 
 Charles H, King of Great Britain, etc., and in the year 
 of our Lord 1663.* Being Secretary of State and Mem- 
 ber of the Privy Council in Virgmia, he had assisted that 
 stanch royalist, Governor Berkeley, in holding the col- 
 ony to its allegiance, so that after the death of Charles I, 
 Cromwell was forced to send troops and armed vessels 
 of war to reduce it to subjection. Unable to resist, they 
 made a treaty with the " Commonwealth of England," 
 wherein Virginia was described as an "Independent Do- 
 minion," this treaty being ratified in the same manner 
 as with a foreign power. 
 
 Berkeley was then removed and another governor ap- 
 pomted; but the undaunted Colonel Richard Lee "hired 
 a Dutch vessel, freighted it himself, went to Brussels or 
 Breda, surrendered up Sir William Berkeley's old com- 
 mission — for the government of that province — and re- 
 ceived a new one from his present Majesty, Charles II, 
 " a loyal action and deserving my commendation." f It 
 
 * The "Restoration," as is well known, only occurred in 1660, so 
 that the Virginian's loyalty utterly ignored the long years of exile, and 
 recognized Charles II as King from the moment of his father's execution. 
 
 f Introductis ad Latinum Blasoniam. By John Gibbons, Blue Man- 
 tel, London, 1682. 
 
4 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 is also said that he offered the exiled monarch an asy- 
 lum in the New World. It is certain that on the death 
 of Cromwell he aided Governor Berkeley in proclaiming 
 Charles II in Virginia King of England, Scotland, France, 
 Ireland, and Virginia two years before his *' restoration " 
 in England. In consequence, the motto to the Virginia 
 Coat of Arms was " En dat Virginia quintam " until 
 after the union of England and Scotland, when it was 
 " En dat Virginia quartam." 
 
 The inscription on the tombstone of the second Rich- 
 ard Lee, at Burnt House Fields, Mt. Pleasant, West- 
 moreland County, describes him as belonging to an "an- 
 cient and noble family of Morton Regis in Shropshire." 
 It is clearly established that the three earliest repre- 
 sentatives of the family in America, Colonel Richard 
 Lee and his two eldest sons, claimed this Shropshire 
 County descent. 
 
 It is our purpose to trace the Lees in America, not in 
 England. The first emigrant. Colonel Richard Lee, is 
 described as a man of good stature, of comely visage, 
 enterprising genius, a sound head, vigorous spirit, and 
 generous nature; and when he reached Virginia, at 
 that time not much cultivated, he was so pleased with 
 the country that he made large settlements with the 
 servants who accompanied him. To his credit it may 
 be added that when he returned to England, some 
 years afterward, he " gave away all the lands he had 
 taken up, and settled at his own expense, to the serv- 
 ants he had fixed on them, some of whose descendants 
 are now possessed of very considerable estates in that 
 colony." 
 
 After remaining some time in England he again 
 visited Virginia with a fresh band of followers whom 
 he also established there. He first settled in York Coun- 
 ty in 1641, where he was burgess and justice in 1647, 
 and when later he removed to the ''Northern Neck," 
 between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, he 
 filled the offices of Secretary of State and Member of 
 the Privy Council. Of his loyalty to the house of 
 Stuart we have already spoken, and of his various voy- 
 ages, indicating in themselves his "enterprising genius.' 
 When he made his will in London, in 1663, he was re- 
 
ANCESTRY. 
 
 5 
 
 turning on what proved to be his last voyage. He 
 had with him his large, young family, his eldest 
 son John not yet being of age ; but he was so de- 
 termined to establish them in Virginia that he ordered 
 an English estate — Stratford — worth eight or nine hun- 
 dred pounds per annum, to be sold and the money 
 divided between his heirs. He died soon after his 
 return, and as John, the B. A. of Oxford, never married, 
 Richard, the second son, succeeded to the homestead in 
 Westmoreland. He also graduated at Oxford in law, 
 and was distinguished for his learning, spending almost 
 his whole life in study. On October 15, 1667, as " Major 
 Richard Lee, a loyal, discreet person and worthy of the 
 place," he was appointed member of the council. He 
 was born in 1647, married Letitia Corbin, and died in 
 1714, leaving five sons and one daughter. His eldest 
 son, Richard, the third of the name, married and settled 
 in London, though his children eventually returned to 
 Virginia. Philip removed to Maryland in 1700, and was 
 the progenitor of the Lee family in that State. Francis, 
 the third son, died a bachelor, but Thomas, the fourth, 
 with only a common Virginia education (it could not 
 have been much in those days), had such strong natural 
 parts that he became a good Latin and Greek scholar, 
 long after he was a man, without any assistance but his 
 own genius. Though a younger son, with only a limited 
 patrimony, by his " industry and parts " he acquired a 
 considerable fortune, was a member of the council, and 
 so well known and respected that when his house in 
 Westmoreland burned down Queen Caroline sent him a 
 large sum of money out of her privy purse, with an 
 autograph letter. Stratford was rebuilt on an imposing 
 scale, and, becoming the property of " Light-Horse 
 Harry," on his marriage with Matilda, daughter of 
 Philip Ludwell Lee and granddaughter of Thomas, was 
 eventually the birthplace of General R. E. Lee. On the 
 recall of Sir William Gooch, Thomas became president 
 and commander in chief over the colony, in which sta- 
 tion he continued some time, until the King thought 
 proper to appoint him governor, and he is always 
 spoken of as the first native governor, though he died 
 in 1750, before his commission could reach him. He 
 2 
 
6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 married Hannah Ludwell, of an old and honorable 
 Somersetshire family, originally of German extraction, 
 and left six sons and two daughters. 
 
 Stratford is still standing in Westmoreland County, 
 an object of much veneration and respect. Within its 
 walls, m the same chamber, two signers of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence were born, while the fact that Rob- 
 ert Edward Lee first saw the light there makes it yet 
 more interesting. It is a large, stately mansion, built in 
 the shape of the letter *' H," and not far from the banks 
 of the Potomac. Upon the roof were summer houses, 
 with chimneys for columns, where the band played in 
 the evenings, and the ladies and gentlemen promenaded. 
 Thomas Lee was buried at Pope's Creek Church, five 
 miles from Stratford. George Washington was baptized 
 at this church, and in the early days his family, the Lees, 
 Paynes, and other prominent families of the neighbor- 
 hood worshiped there. 
 
 It has been said that as Westmoreland County is dis- 
 tinguished above all other counties in Virginia as the 
 birthplace of genius, so, perhaps, no other Virginian could 
 boast so many distinguished sons as President Thomas 
 Lee. General Washington, in 1771, wrote: "I know of 
 no country that can produce a family all distinguished 
 as clever men, as our Lees." These sons in order of 
 age were : Philip Ludwell, Richard Henry, Thomas, 
 Francis Lightfoot, Henry, and Arthur. Matilda, the 
 first wife of General Henry Lee, the father of General 
 Robert E. Lee, was the daughter of the eldest son, 
 Philip Ludwell Lee. Richard Henry Lee, the second 
 son, is well known to students of American history. 
 He has been generally styled " The Cicero of the 
 American Revolution." He moved on June 10, 1776, 
 that "these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
 and independent States"; and with his brother Francis 
 Lightfoot signed the Declaration of Independence. 
 Having moved this declaration, according to parlia- 
 mentary etiquette, he might have been appointed chair- 
 man of the committee to draw up the instrument, but 
 the sickness of his wife called him home ; or he might 
 also have been the author of the Declaration of American 
 Independence in place of I'homas Jefferson. His serv- 
 
ANCESTRY. j 
 
 ices to the cause of the colony were great, and their 
 struggle for independence was sustained by his tongue 
 and pen. He was a great orator, an accomplished 
 scholar, a learned debater, and a renowned statesman 
 in that period of our country's history. His father's 
 brother, Henry Lee, the fifth son of the second Richard, 
 married a Miss Bland, a great-aunt of John Randolph, 
 of Roanoke. His only daughter married a Fitzhugh. 
 His son Henry married Miss Grymes, and left a family of 
 six sons and four daughters. Henry, the eldest, was the 
 well-known " Light-Horse Harry " of the Revolutionary 
 War, the father of Robert E. Lee. He and Richard 
 Henry Lee are frequently confounded, and their rela- 
 tionship has often been the subject of inquiry. Richard 
 Henry Lee's father, Thomas, and Henry Lee's grand- 
 father, Henry, were brothers. The former was there- 
 fore a first cousin of the latter's father. " Light-Horse 
 Harry " was conspicuous in the military and civil annals 
 of his country as a dashing dragoon in the war be- 
 tween Great Britain and the colonies. His boldness 
 and activity were frequently commended by Washmgton, 
 and he came out of the war with a brilliant reputation. 
 He possessed the love and confidence of the com- 
 mander in chief, and it is possible that Washington's 
 interest was first excited because he was once supposed 
 to have had a tender feeling for Lucy Grymes, his 
 mother, a friendship which was continued by reason of 
 the attractive qualities of the son as soldier and states- 
 man. This attachment was deeply appreciated by Gen- 
 eral Henry Lee, and throughout his career he was stead- 
 fast in his devotion to Washington. 
 
 "Light-Horse Harry's" father, Henry Lee, of Lee- 
 sylvania, and Lucy Grymes were married at Green 
 Spring, on James River, December i, 1753. His mother 
 was the daughter of Lucy Ludwell, who married Colonel 
 Grymes, of the Council of Virginia. Bishop Porteus, of 
 England, was her uncle. Their son Henry was born 
 January 29, 1756, at Leesylvania, some three miles from 
 Dumfries, a village built by Scotch merchants, and then 
 the county town of Prince William. His brother, 
 Charles Lee (not to be confounded with General 
 Charles Lee, an Englishman, and no relation to this 
 
S GENERAL LEE. 
 
 family), was subsequently Attorney General in Wash- 
 ington's second Cabinet. The future cavalry leader was 
 educated at Princeton. Dr. William Shippen writes to 
 .Richard Henry Lee from Philadelphia, August 25, 1770 : 
 " I am persuaded that there is no such school as Prince- 
 ton on this continent. Your cousin Henry Lee is in 
 college, and will be one of the first fellows in this coun- 
 try. He is more than strict in his morality, has fine 
 genius, and is diligent." The profession of law was 
 thought best for the display of his talents, and he was 
 about to embark for England to study it, under the 
 direction of Bishop Porteus, of London, when stopped 
 by hostilities between the mother country and her 
 American colonies. 
 
 Possessing fine descriptive powers, application, great 
 facility for public expression, and with character formed 
 and mind trained by such a distinguished light of the 
 Church of England, a great legal future would seem a 
 safe prediction ; but before the smoke cleared away from 
 the first British gun fired in Massachusetts, its report 
 was heard in Virginia. The English volley lighted patri- 
 otic fires in the hearts of the colonists with the rapidity 
 electricity flies in this age from the touch of the button. 
 The sword was substituted for the law book in the 
 hands of Henry Lee, and we find him, at the age of nine- 
 teen, after the battle of Lexington, a captain of cavalry, 
 being nominated for that position by Patrick Henry, the 
 orator of American liberty. He rose rapidly in his new 
 career. In the Northern Department at Brandywine, 
 Germantown, Springfield, and in the operations in Penn- 
 sylvania, New Jersey, and New York, his address, cool 
 courage, great ability, and unceasing activity as an out- 
 post officer speedily drew the attention of his superiors. 
 Congress recognized his services, promoted him, and 
 gave him an independent partisan corps. Ever there- 
 after his position in the war was near the flashing of the 
 guns. His duties kept him close to the enemy's lines, 
 and his legion was what cavalry should be — the eyes 
 and ears of the army. His communications to Washing- 
 ton were confidential, were sent direct, and he was or- 
 dered by the commander in chief to mark them " Pri- 
 vate." When Washington was anxious to effect Arnold's 
 
ANCESTRY. g 
 
 capture he consulted the commander of the " Light 
 Horse," who planned the famous desertion of Sergeant 
 Champe. He projected and executed the surprise and 
 capture of Paulus Hook by a brilliant coup de ifiaifi, and 
 for prudence, bravery, and tactical skill was presented 
 by Congress with a gold medal emblematical of his suc- 
 cess — a distinction conferred on no other officer below 
 the rank of general during the war. On one side of the 
 medal was a bust of the hero, with the words : " Henry 
 Lee, Legionis Eqiiit. : Frcefecto Comitia A??iertcdna,'" and 
 on the reverse is translated : " Nothwithstanding rivers 
 and intrenchments, he, with a small band, conquered 
 the foe by warlike skill and prowess, and firmly bound, 
 by his humanity, those who had been conquered by his 
 arms. In memory of the conflict at Paulus Hook, 19th 
 August, 1779." 
 
 In November, 1780, he was promoted to be lieu- 
 tenant colonel of dragoons, and his corps is spoken 
 of as the *' finest that made its appearance in the 
 arena of the Revolutionary War." Washington had it 
 formed expressly for him of equal proportions of cav- 
 alry and infantry, both officers and men being picked 
 from the army. Under its victorious guidons rode 
 Peter Johnston, the father of the distinguished soldier, 
 Joseph Eggleston Johnston, who joined the legion when 
 only sixteen years old and led the forlorn hope at the 
 storming of Fort Watson, and was publicly thanked. 
 Afterward he became a judge, and was celebrated for 
 his learning and ability. It is curious that the sons of 
 Judge Johnston and General Henry Lee were afterward 
 classmates at the United States Military Academy, and 
 at the marriage ceremony of Lee, Johnston was a grooms- 
 man. These two eminent soldiers were in the front rank 
 of the United States Army, and served with great dis- 
 tinction under the Southern flag, even as their fathers 
 rode boot to boot in the days of the Revolution. When 
 Henry Lee's legion was selected to assist in the defense 
 of the Carolinas and the Virginias in the Southern De- 
 partment, Washington wrote to Mr. John Matthews, a 
 member of Congress from South Carolina, informing him 
 of its march, saying : " Lee's corps will go to the south- 
 ward ; it is an excellent one, and the officer at the head 
 
lO GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of it has great reserves of genius." Lafayette held the 
 leader of the legion in high estimation, and bears testi- 
 mony to his "distinguished services," his "talents as a 
 corps commander," and his "handsome exploits"; while 
 one of the general officers of the army said : " He seemed 
 to have come out of his mother's womb a soldier." Gen- 
 eral Nathanael Greene, his immediate commander, testi- 
 fied that " few officers, either in America or Europe, were 
 held in so high a point of estimation," in a letter to the 
 President of Congress, February i8, 1782, expressed him- 
 self as " more indebted to this officer [Lee] than any 
 other for the advantages gained over the enemy in the 
 operations of the last campaign," and in a letter to Lee 
 himself writes : " No man in the progress of the cam- 
 paign had equal merit with yourself, nor is there one so 
 reported ; everybody knows I have the highest opinion 
 of you as an officer, and you know I love you as a 
 friend." After the British colors were lowered at York- 
 town Llenry Lee began a civil career which proved to 
 be as great as his military record. In 1778 he was a 
 member of the convention called in Virginia to con- 
 sider the ratification of the Federal Constitution. In the 
 battle of intellectual giants composing that body, with 
 eloquence and zeal he pleaded for its adoption. By his 
 side, and voting with him on that important question, 
 were such men as James Madison, John Marshall, after- 
 ward Chief Justice of the United States, and Edmund 
 Randolph ; while in the ranks of the opposition stood 
 Patrick Henry with immense oratorical strength, George 
 Mason, " the wisest man," Mr. Jefferson said, he " ever 
 knew," Benjamin Harrison, William Grayson, and others, 
 who thought the Constitution, as it came from the hands 
 of its framers, conferred too much power on the Federal 
 Government and too little upon its creator, the States. 
 In 1786 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. 
 From 1792 to 1795 he was Governor of Virginia, and 
 was selected by President Washington to command the 
 fifteen thousand men from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 and Maryland, who were sent into western Pennsylvania 
 to quell what was known as the "Whisky Insurrection," 
 which he successfully accomplished without bloodshed. 
 
ANCESTRY. I j 
 
 This rebellion grew out of a resistance to a tax laid on 
 distilled spirits. Washington accompanied him on the 
 march as far as Bedford, Pa., and in a letter, dated Oc- 
 tober 20, 1794, to Henry Lee, Esq., commander in chief 
 of the militia army on its march against the insurgents 
 in certain counties of western Pennsylvania, says at its 
 conclusion : "In leaving the army I have less regret, as 
 I know I commit it to an able and faithful direction, and 
 that this direction will be ably and faithfully seconded 
 by all." 
 
 While Governor of Virginia, a section lying under the 
 Cumberland Mountains, projecting between Kentucky 
 and Tennessee, was formed into a separate county and 
 named after him. It has since been divided into two, 
 the eastern portion being called after General Winfield 
 Scott. In 1779 General Lee was elected to Congress, 
 and on the death of General Washington was appointed 
 to deliver an address in commemoration of the services 
 of that great man, in which occurs the famous sentence 
 so often quoted : " First in war, first in peace, and first 
 in the hearts of his fellow-citizens."* In i798-'99, as a 
 representative of the County of Westmoreland in the 
 General Assembly, he took an active part in the debate 
 upon Mr. Madison's famous resolutions of that date. In 
 his opinion, the laws of the United States then under 
 discussion were unconstitutional," and if they were, Vir- 
 ginia had a right to object; "but," he exclaimed, "Vir- 
 ginia is my country; her will I obey, however lamenta- 
 ble the fate to which it may subject me." 
 
 When he was Governor of Virginia, six years before, 
 his native State occupied the first place in his heart. In 
 reply to a letter from Mr. Madison, dated Philadelphia, 
 January 21, 1792, asking him if he would relinquish his 
 ofiice and accept command of an army to be organized 
 for the protection of the western frontier, he writes : 
 "Were I called upon by the President to command the 
 next campaign, my respect for him would induce me to 
 disregard every trifling obstruction which might oppose 
 my acceptance of the office, such as my own repose, the 
 
 * [In this popular quotation the word "countrymen" is almost al- 
 ways substituted for the original words used by its author, Henry Lee.] 
 — Editor. 
 
12 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 care of my children and the happiness I enjoy in at- 
 tention to their welfare, and in the execution of the 
 duties of my present station. As a citizen, I should 
 hold myself bound to obey the will of my country 
 in taking any part her interests may demand from me. 
 Therefore I am, upon {his occasion, in favor of obedi- 
 ence to any claim which may be made on me. Yet 
 I should require some essential stipulations — only to 
 secure a favorable issue to the campaign." After 
 speaking of how formidable the enemy was, he adds : 
 "One objection I should only have (the above con- 
 ditions being acceded to), and that is, the abandon- 
 ing of my native county, to whose goodness I am so 
 much indebted ; no consideration on earth could induce 
 me to act a part, however gratifying to me, which could 
 be construed into disregard or faithlessness to this 
 Commonwealth." 
 
 His great son therefore inherited this doctrine. It 
 was branded into his brain and flowed through his 
 veins ; so that later when he had to meet the ques- 
 tion of serving under the flag of the United States 
 or of obeying the will of Virginia, he drew his sword 
 in defense of his mother Commonwealth. When the 
 war was declared with England in 1812, Henry Lee 
 was living in Alexandria, having moved there to facili- 
 tate the education of his children ; he was offered, and 
 accepted at once, a major general's commission in the 
 army. Before entering upon his duties he went to Bal- 
 timore on business, and while there visited the house 
 of Mr. Hanson, the editor of the Federal Republican. 
 "When he was about to leave he found the house sur- 
 rounded by an angry mob, who were offended with the 
 editor for his articles in opposition to the war; as his 
 friend's life was threatened, he determined to assist him 
 in resisting the attack of the mob. The results of that 
 night proved nearly fatal to General Lee, and were dis- 
 graceful to party spirit." The injuries he received at 
 the hands of the excited mob prevented him from enter- 
 ing upon the campaign, obliged him to go to the West 
 Indies for his health, and ultimately caused his death. 
 While abroad, amid the fatal march of his disease, his 
 heart turned ever to his home and familv. His letters to 
 
ANCESTRY. 1 3 
 
 his son, Charles Carter Lee, have been preserved, and are 
 literary models, the object being to impress religion, 
 morality, and learning upon his children, as well as to 
 manifest his great affection for those left behind. 
 *'Fame," he writes, "in arms or art, is naught unless 
 betrothed to virtue." And then : "You know I love my 
 children, and how dear Smith* is to me. Give me a true 
 description of his mind, temper, .and habits. Tell me of 
 Anne. Has she grown tall ? And how is my last, in looks 
 and understandmg ? Robert was always good, and will 
 be confirmed in his happy turn of mind by his ever-watch- 
 ful and affectionate mother; does he strengthen his na- 
 tive tendency?" He wanted to know, too, whether his 
 sons rode and shot well, bearing in mind a Virginian's 
 solicitude always that his sons should be taught to ride, 
 shoot, and tell the truth. 
 
 In his opinion, Hannibal was a greater soldier than 
 Alexander or Ccesar; for he thought an ardent ex'cite- 
 ment of the mind in defending menaced rights brings 
 forth the greatest display of genius, of which, forty- 
 four years afterward, his great son was an illustrious 
 example. On June 18, 1817, from Nassau, he writes: 
 " This is the day of the month when your dear mother 
 became my wife, and it is not so hot in this tropical 
 region as it was then at Shirley. Since that happy day, 
 marked only by the union of two humble lovers, it has 
 become conspicuous as the day our war with Great 
 Britain was declared in Washington, and the one that 
 sealed the doom of Bonaparte on the field of Waterloo. 
 The British general, xWmg gradati?n from his first blow 
 struck in Portugal, climbed on that day to the summit 
 of fame, and became distinguished by the first of titles, 
 ' Deliverer of the Civilized World.' Alexander, Hannibal, 
 and Caesar, among the ancients; Marlborough, Eagene, 
 Turenne, and Frederick, among the moderns, opened 
 their arms to receive him as a brother in glory." 
 
 Again he tells him " that Thales, Pittacus, and others 
 in Greece taught the doctrine of morality almost in our 
 very words, ' Do unto others as you would they should 
 do unto you,' and directs his. son's attention to the fact 
 
 * Sydney Smith Lee, of the navy. 
 
14 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 that the beautiful Arab couplet, written three centuries 
 before Christ, announced the duty of every good man, 
 even in the moment of destruction, not only to forgive, 
 but to benefit the destroyer, as the sandal tree, in the 
 instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe that 
 fells it." The principles sought to be inculcated in 
 these admirable letters will be found running through 
 their lives, lodged firmly in their characters, and their 
 constant reappearance in the life of one of them is an 
 evidence of the impression made. 
 
 At the expiration of nearly five years, finding that 
 there was no hope of his ultimate recovery, he deter- 
 mined to return to his family and friends. In January, 
 1818, he took passage in a New England schooner 
 bound from Nassau to New Providence and Boston. 
 On nearing the coast of the United States he became so 
 much worse that he requested the captain to direct his 
 course to Cumberland Island, lying off the coast of 
 Georgia. He knew that his former trusted friend, Gen- 
 eral Nathanael Greene, had an estate there, and that 
 there resided his married daughter, Mrs. James Shaw. 
 Next to dying within the limits of his native State he 
 preferred to furl the flag of a celebrated career under 
 the generous roof and kindly influence of the hospitable 
 daughter of a beloved brother soldier. He was landed 
 at " Dungeness," known as the most beautiful and at- 
 tractive residence on the Georgia coast, and here he 
 was lovingly received and tenderly cared for. From 
 the window of his sick-room " an extensive view of the 
 Atlantic Ocean, of Cumberland Sound, and the low-lying 
 verdant shores of Georgia could be seen upon the one 
 side, while upon the other lay attractive gardens and 
 groves of oranges and olives, while grand live oaks 
 swayed solemnly to and fro loaded with pendent moss." 
 
 General Henry Lee's sufferings, consequent upon the 
 injuries received in Baltimore, were intense. Mrs. Shaw, 
 General Greene's daughter, said that after his arrival at 
 " Dungeness " they still continued, and that a surgical 
 operation was proposed as offering some hope of pro- 
 longing his life ; but he replied that an eminent physi- 
 cian, to whose skill and care during his sojourn in the 
 West Indies he was much indebted, had disapproved a 
 
ANCESTRY. 1 5 
 
 resort to the proposed operation. His surgeon in at- 
 tendance still urging it, he put an end to the discussion 
 by saying : '' My dear sir, were the great Washington 
 alive and here, joining you in advocating it, I would 
 still resist." His agony at times was very great, causing 
 irritation to overcome his rarely failing amiability. At 
 times he would lose self-control and order his servants 
 and every one else from the room. At length an old 
 woman who had been Mrs. Greene's favorite maid, and 
 who was then an esteemed and privileged family servant, 
 was selected to wait upon him. The first thing General 
 Lee did as she entered his room was to hurl his boot 
 at her head and order her out. Entirely unused to such 
 treatment, without saying a word she deliberately 
 picked up the boot and threw it back. The effect pro- 
 duced was marked and instantaneous. The features of 
 the stern warrior relaxed, in the midst of his pain and 
 anger a smile passed over his countenance, and from 
 that moment to the day of his death he would permit 
 no one except " Mom Sarah " to do him special service. 
 In the presence of the angel of death he recognized 
 and rewarded pluck and spirit in an old negro nurse, 
 even as he did courage in the breasts of his soldiers. 
 
 Not the least among the recollections of " Dunge- 
 ness" is the fact that the last days of one of the great 
 heroes of the Revolution were passed there ; and when 
 the " flowers of spring could no longer charm by their 
 beauty and fragrance, or the soft southern wind bring 
 health and surcease of pain to the suffering and dying, 
 it received into its hospitable bosom and folded in one 
 long and affectionate embrace all that was mortal of the 
 gallant, gifted, and honored dead." Henry Lee and 
 Nathanael Greene now sleep but a short distance apart, 
 where the "recollections of their brave deeds and the 
 grateful songs of the true lovers of liberty are caught 
 up by the billows of a common ocean." Two months 
 after the sick soldier landed he was dead. Every token 
 of respect was shown by the United States Navy vessels 
 in Cumberland Sound ; their colors were put at half- 
 mast, as well as the flags at the military headquarters 
 of the army on Amelia Island. Citizens from the adjoin- 
 ing islands united in paying their respects. Commodore 
 
l6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Henley, of the navy, superintended the last details. A 
 full army band was in attendance, and Captains Elton, 
 Finch, and Madison, and Lieutenants Fitzhugh and 
 Ritchie, of the navy, and Mr. Lyman, of the army, acted 
 as pall-bearers. Upon the stone marking his grave is 
 this inscription : " Sacred to the Memory of General 
 Henry Lee, of Virginia. Obiit March 25, 1818, JEtSit 63." 
 
 Not long before the war of i86i-'65 the Legislature 
 of Virginia passed resolutions for the appointment of a 
 committee who, with the consent of his sons, should re- 
 move the remains to the capital city of Virginia, where 
 a suitable monument would be erected to his memory. 
 The commencement of hostilities prevented the accom- 
 plishment of this purpose. The sad duty had not been 
 performed before by his sons, because one. Major Henry 
 Lee, was abroad, one was an officer of the army, another 
 of the navy, the fourth a lawyer, and their respective 
 duties kept them widely apart, so that the matter, though 
 frequently referred to in their correspondence, had never 
 been fully arranged. The remains of " Light-Horse 
 Harry," therefore, still rest amid the magnolias, cedars, 
 and myrtles of beautiful '' Dungeness." 
 
 In many respects this officer was one of the most re- 
 markable men of his day. He was a patriot and soldier, 
 whose personal courage was tested in the fire of battle; 
 an orator, a writer of vigorous and terse English, with a 
 happy facility for expression rarely equaled. His book, 
 called the Memoirs of the War of " 76," is the standard 
 work to-day of events in the war in the Southern Depart- 
 ment of the United States. Two editions of it had been ex- 
 hausted, and in 1869 a third was issued by his son, R. E. 
 Lee, who, forgetful of his own great deeds, was desirous 
 only of perpetuating those of his distinguished father. 
 
 General Henry Lee was twice married : first to Ma- 
 tilda, the daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee, of Stratford, 
 and afterward to Anne Hill Carter, daughter of Charles 
 Hill Carter, of Shirley. Four children were born from 
 the first marriage. The eldest was named after his be- 
 loved commander. General Nathanael Greene, and died 
 in infancy. The second son died when ten years old. 
 The miniature of this child he always thereafter wore, 
 and it is still preserved in the family. The third son, 
 
ANCESTRY. 
 
 17 
 
 Henry, was born in 1787, and died in Paris, France, 
 January 30, 1837. He graduated at William and Mary 
 College, and served with credit in the War of 1812. He 
 was appointed by General Jackson Consul to Algiers in 
 1829. In journeying through Italy he met the mother 
 of the great Napoleon, and, being an admirer of his 
 Italian campaigns, determined to write his life; the book 
 is well written, as are other works of his. 
 
 The daughter married Bernard Carter, a brother 
 of her stepmother. The children by General Henry 
 Lee's second marriage were Algernon Sydney, Charles 
 Carter, Sydney Smith, and Robert Edward, and two 
 daughters, Anne and Mildred. The first boy lived only 
 eighteen months. The second, named after his wife's 
 father, was educated at Cambridge. " We have just 
 heard," writes his father from San Domingo, June 26, 
 1816, " that you are fixed at the University of Cambridge, 
 the seminary of my choice. You will there have not 
 only excellent examples to encourage your love and prac- 
 tice of virtue, but ample scope to pursue learning to its 
 foundation, thereby fitting yourself to be useful to your 
 country." Charles Carter Lee afterward studied law, 
 and was a most intellectual, learned, and entertaining 
 man. His social qualities were of the highest order, his 
 humor inimitable; his classic wit flowed, as clear as the 
 mountain stream, from a well-stored mind. He was a 
 boon companion and the first guest invited to the ban- 
 quet ; around him all clustered, and from his vicinity 
 peals of laughter always resounded. His speeches, 
 songs, and stories are marked traditions m the family 
 to-day. Gifted with a most retentive memory, and 
 being a great reader, especially of history, his recollec- 
 tion of all he had read made him a most instructive 
 and agreeable companion. Every subject received its 
 best treatment from his genius. He was thoroughly 
 conversant with biblical literature, and had been known 
 to maintain the leading part in discussions of the Bible 
 with a roomful of ministers whose duty it was to expound 
 it. In every drawing-room his presence was most warmly 
 welcomed. At every festive board his song or speech 
 was hailed with enthusiastic greeting. He was clever, 
 generous, liberal, and free-hearted. When paying visits 
 
I8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 with his brothers — and the three often went together — 
 should wine happen to be offered, .Smith and Robert 
 with their usual abstemiousness would decline ; Carter, 
 however, would accept, remarking: ''I have always told 
 these boys that I would drink their share of wine, pro- 
 vided they would keep me generously supplied." He 
 wrote, too, with beauty and fluency of expression, and 
 once said to his brother Robert : " The Government em- 
 ploys you to do its fighting ; it should engage me to 
 write your reports. I admit your superiority in the ex- 
 ercise of the sword and in planning campaigns. I am, 
 however, as you know, the better writer of the two, and 
 can make my pen mightier than your sword after the bat- 
 tle is over. We could thus combine and be irresistible." 
 He died, and was buried at his country seat, Windsor For- 
 est, in Powhatan County. The third son, Sydney Smith, 
 entered the United States Navy at an early age, and 
 served with marked distinction in that service for thirty- 
 four years. When Virginia withdrew from the Union of 
 States he accepted service in the Southern navy. 
 
 A daughter of General R. E. Lee writes of him: " No 
 one who ever saw him can forget his beautiful face, 
 charming personality, and grace of manner, which, joined 
 to a nobility of character and goodness of heart, at- 
 tracted all who came in contact with him, and made him 
 the most generally beloved and popular of men. This 
 was especially so with regard to women, to whom his 
 conduct was that of 2i preux chevalier^ the most chivalric 
 and courteous ; and, having no daughters of his own, 
 he turned with the tenderest affection to the daughters 
 of his brother Robert. His public service of more than 
 thirty years in the navy of the United States is well 
 known. He entered it as a boy of fifteen, and faithfully 
 served his country by land and sea in many climes and on 
 many oceans. He was in Japan with Commodore Perry, 
 commanding his flagship, when that inaccessible coun- 
 try was practically opened to the commerce of the 
 world. He was Commandant of the Naval Academy at 
 Annapolis, and afterward in command of the navy yard 
 at Philadelphia. When the war of secession began he 
 was stationed in Washington, but when Virginia seceded 
 he did not hesitate to abandon the comforts and security 
 
ANCESTRY. 
 
 19 
 
 of the present and ambitions of the future and cast 
 his lot with his native State in a war which, from 
 the very nature of things, there could be but little 
 hope for a naval officer. Uninfluenced then by hope of 
 either fame or fortune, he sadly parted with the friends 
 and comrades of a lifetime, including General Scott, 
 who had been likewise devoted to him as he was to his 
 brother, and for four years served the Southern Confed- 
 eracy with the same ardor and energy and unselfishness 
 that he had previously given to the whole country. When 
 the end came he accepted the situation with character- 
 istic resignation and fortitude." 
 
 The eldest daughter married Mr. William Marshall, 
 and lived in Baltimore. When the war cloud over- 
 shadowed the land. Judge Marshall was ardently devoted 
 to the cause of the Union ; their only son was educated 
 at West Point, and remained in the army of the United 
 States during the war which followed. It was natural, 
 therefore, that the wife's sympathies in the pending 
 struggle should be with husband and child. For many 
 years she was a great invalid and rarely left her couch. 
 Sick and tortured with conflicting emotions, her days 
 were days of trial. It is said she would smilingly agree 
 with her husband in the hope that the armies of the 
 United States would gain victories over the troops of 
 the South, and then into a thousand pieces dash all 
 former arguments by shaking her head and saying: 
 " But, after all, they can't whip Robert." It was the tri- 
 umph of ties of consanguinity over all other bonds. Mil- 
 dred, the youngest daughter, married Mr. Edward Ver- 
 non Childe, of Massachusetts, who removed to and lived 
 in Paris, where she died, where her children were brought 
 up and educated. The eldest son, Edward Lee Childe, 
 possessing an excellent education, fine literary ability, 
 and a love for the memory of his great uncle, wrote a 
 life of him in French, which has been well received by 
 the people of that country, and was translated into Eng- 
 lish, in 1875, by Mr. George Litting, of London, 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRTH. CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS, UNITED 
 
 STATES ARMY. 
 
 Seventy-five years after the birth of Washington, 
 Robert Edward, the fourth son of General Henry Lee 
 and Anne Hill Carter, was born at Stratford, Westmore- 
 land County, Virginia, on the 19th of January, 1807. If 
 he inherited much from a long and illustrious line of 
 paternal ancestors, he no less fell heir to the strong 
 characteristics of his mother's family, one of the oldest 
 and best in Virginia. The unselfishness, generosity, 
 purity, "and faithfulness of the Virginia Carters are wide- 
 ly known, and they have always been " true to all occa- 
 sions true." In his mother was personified all the gentle 
 and sweet traits of a noble woman. Her whole life was 
 admirable, and her love for her children beyond all other 
 thoughts. To her watchful care they were early con- 
 fided by the long absence and death of her distinguished 
 husband. 
 
 Robert was four years old when his father removed 
 the family to Alexandria, six when he visited the West 
 Indies for his health, and eleven when he died. If he 
 was early trained in the way he should go, his mother 
 trained him. If he was " always good," as his father 
 wrote, she labored to keep him so. If his principles 
 were sound and his life a success, to her, more than 
 to any other, should the praise be given. This lovely 
 woman, as stated, was the daughter of Charles Carter, 
 of Shirley, who resided in his grand old mansion on the 
 banks of the James River, some twenty miles below 
 Richmond, then, as now, the seat of an open, profuse, 
 and refined hospitality, and still in the possession of the 
 Carters. Mrs. Henry Lee's mother was Anne Moore, 
 
 (20) 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 2 1 
 
 and her grandmother a daughter of Alexander Spotts- 
 wood, the soldier who fought with Marlborough at Blen- 
 heim, and was afterward sent to Virginia as governor 
 in 1 7 10, and whose descent can be traced in a direct 
 Ime from King Robert the Bruce, of Scotland. 
 
 Robert Edward Lee could look back on long lines 
 of paternal and maternal ancestors, but it is doubtful 
 whether he ever exercised the privilege ; in a letter to 
 his wife, written in front of Petersburg, February, 1865, 
 he says: " I have received your note. I am very much 
 
 obliged to Mr. for the trouble he has taken in 
 
 relation to the Lee genealogy. I have no desire to 
 have it published, and do not think it would afford 
 sufficient interest beyond the immediate family to com- 
 pensate for the expense. 1 think the money had better 
 be applied to relieving the poor. . . ." 
 
 He felt a natural pride in their achievements, but 
 no one knew better than he that in a republic, and in 
 a great war, a man's ancestry could not help him, but 
 that place and promotion depended upon individual 
 merit. His lineage has been traced because the de- 
 scent of a celebrated man excites attention, just as it 
 is interesting to discover the source of a noble river 
 whose blessings to commerce can not be measured. In 
 consequence of the absence of the elder brothers, the 
 ill health of one sister, and the youth of another, to 
 Robert's care, in a measure, his mother was committed. 
 After his father's departure to the tropics she watched 
 over his daily life with tender solicitude, and he was, 
 she said, both a daughter and a son to her. With filial 
 devotion to her comfort his hours out of school were 
 given. He waited on her, nursed her when sick, drove 
 with her, obeyed her every wish, and this reciprocal love 
 was a goodly picture in old Alexandria to those who 
 saw mother and son in those days. As Robert grew in 
 years he grew in grace ; he was like the young tree 
 whose roots, firmly imbedded in the earth, hold it 
 straight from the hour it was first planted till it de- 
 velops into majestic proportions. With the fostering 
 care of such a mother the son must go straight, for she 
 had planted him in the soil of truth, morality, and re- 
 ligion, so that his boyhood was marked by everything 
 3 
 
22 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 that produces nobility of character in manhood. The 
 handsome boy was studious and sedate, was popular 
 with other boys, stood high in the estimation of his 
 teachers, and his early inspiration was good, for his first 
 thoughts were directed upon lofty subjects by an excel- 
 lent mother. 
 
 His birthplace and that of Washington were not only 
 in the same county but only a shcrt distance apart. The 
 landscape of that section of Virginia was the first that 
 greeted the eyes of each. The Potomac River, in all 
 its grandeur and beauty, flowed past Stratford as well 
 as Pope's Creek. Alexandria afterward became his town, 
 as it had before been the town of Washington. The mar- 
 ried life of the two was respectively passed at Mount 
 Vernon and Arlington, the same river rolling at their 
 feet, while the old town stood dignified and historic be- 
 tween the mansions proudly connecting the name and 
 fame of their occupants. 
 
 Robert went first to the Alexandria Academy, being 
 under the tuition of Mr. Leary, who was ever after his 
 firm friend. Later he attended the famous school of 
 Mr. Benjamin Hallowell, in Alexandria, whose house, 
 still standing, is yet conducted as a popular school. 
 Ben. Hallowell was a Quaker of the Quakers. His 
 school stood high ; so did he as a teacher. '' Brimstone 
 Castle " the boys called it, on account of its color. Mr. 
 Hallowell says that young Lee was an exemplary stu- 
 dent, perfectly observant and respectful, and those who 
 knew him, either in the charm of the domestic circle or 
 amid the roar of battle, knew that good old Mr. Hallo- 
 well's opinion must have been correct. 
 
 The time had now arrived to select a profession, and 
 to the army his inclination pointed — a direction which 
 probably resulted from a son's desire to follow in his 
 father's footsteps, especially when that father had been 
 so distinguished in the profession. He was now a mod- 
 est, manly youth, in his eighteenth year, who resolved 
 to take care of himself and relieve his mother to that 
 extent. His father's career had reflected credit upon 
 his country ; could he not hope to do the same? Syd- 
 ney Smith Lee, his next oldest brother, had already 
 entered the navy, and was supporting himself ; so he 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 23 
 
 decided to go in the army. The application for an ap- 
 pointment to the United States Military Academy was 
 successful, and in 1825 his name was entered upon the 
 rolls of that celebrated institution. He had now four 
 years of hard study, vigorous drill, and was absorbing 
 strategy and tactics to be useful to him in after-years. 
 His excellent habits and close attention to all duties 
 did not desert him ; he received no demerits ; was a 
 cadet officer in his class, and during his last year held 
 the post of honor in the aspirations of cadet life — the 
 adjutancy of the corps. He graduated second in a class 
 of forty-six, and was commissioned second lieutenant 
 in the Corps of Engineers. It is interesting to notice 
 that his eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, also 
 entered the Military Academy twenty-five years after 
 his father, was also the cadet adjutant, graduated first 
 in his class, and was assigned to the Engineer Corps. 
 During his whole course at West Point Robert was a 
 model cadet, his clothes looked nice and new, his cross- 
 belts, collar, and summer trousers were as white as the 
 driven snow mounting guard upon the mountain top, 
 and his brass breast and waist plates were mirrors to 
 reflect the image of the inspector. He conscientiously 
 performed his tours of guard duty, whether the non- 
 commissioned officer of the guard was approaching his 
 post or sleeping in his quarters. He neyer " ran the 
 sentinel post," did not go off the limits to the " Benny 
 Havens " of his day, or put " dummies " in his bed, to 
 deceive the officer in charge as he made his inspection 
 after taps, and at the parades stood steady in line. It 
 was a pleasure for the inspecting officer to look down 
 the barrel of his gun, it was bright and clean, and its 
 stock was rubbed so as to almost resemble polished 
 mahogany. 
 
 Cadet Lee in 1829 became Lieutenant Lee of the 
 Engineer Corps of the United States Army. The cadets 
 who graduate in each class with first honors are as- 
 signed to it,^ and its ranks are kept full of first-class 
 material ; its members are composed of students who 
 obey the regulations, are proficient in their studies, and 
 receive few demerits. From this scientific corps dis- 
 tinguished men and great soldiers have issued, and to 
 
24 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 be an officer of the United States Engineer Corps is a 
 passport everywhere. 
 
 A short time previous to the late war a number of 
 officers of the different arms of service were assembled 
 in one of the rooms at West Point. The conversation 
 turned, as it often did, upon the relative merits of the 
 different arms of services, each officer contending for 
 his own branch ; finally an officer of infantry, who 
 afterward became a distinguished major general in the 
 army of the United States, said : "You gentlemen who 
 graduate at the head of your respective classes are of 
 opinion that you are the most talented, and possibly 
 will make the best soldiers and most intelligent officers 
 of the army ; you will find, however, that should war 
 actually take place between the Northern and South- 
 ern States, and you get in a tight place on the field of 
 battle, you can not work yourself out with equations'' 
 All of which is very true. A courier has been known 
 to tell his superior officer how to extricate his troops 
 in a perilous position under fire, because he had more 
 military perception, though less education and engi- 
 neering skill. 
 
 Great soldiers, like poets, are born, not made. Mili- 
 tary training, discipline, the study of strategy, and 
 grand tactics are powerful re-enforcements to natural 
 genius. All .the army commanders from 1861 to 1865, 
 on either side, were West Point graduates; but many 
 West Pointers were indifferent officers; on the other 
 hand, others climbed high on Fame's military ladder 
 who never attended a military school. Generals Logan 
 and Terry on the Northern, and Generals Forrest and 
 Gordon on the Southern side, were distinguished exam- 
 ples; but if to their soldierly qualifications a military 
 education had been added, their ascent to distinction 
 would have been greatly facilitated. 
 
 Lieutenant Lee entered upon the usual life of a 
 young officer of engineers ; his chosen profession had his 
 earnest attention, and every eft'ort was made to acquire 
 information. He knew his studies at West Point were 
 only the foundation upon which to build the life edi- 
 fice. Without continued application to the principles 
 of engineering and study he could not hope to rise 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 25 
 
 above the ordinary level of the military graduate. So 
 his army career began with the fixed determination to 
 put aside daily pleasures of life where they conflicted 
 with daily hours of duty. Officers in this branch of the 
 service had pleasant stations, necessarily near or in 
 the cities. Fortifications for the defense of harbors, 
 forts for the protection of seaports, streams whose cur- 
 rents made bars at wrong places, and other similar 
 works must receive the attention of the engineer. His 
 location was therefore near the centers of civilization. 
 Cavalry and infantry graduates of West Point were or- 
 dered to posts where the sun goes down behind the 
 western hills; guarding long lines of frontier, scouting, 
 and fighting hostile tribes of Indians were their particu- 
 lar duties. The temptations incident to city life did not 
 lie so much in their course as in the path of the en- 
 gineer. The pleasures and fascinations of social life 
 everywhere surrounded him. As soon as he unbuckled 
 sword belt there was but a step to take to get into the 
 gay world. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that 
 sometimes the engineer drank wine when it was red, 
 and did not seek his quarters till the sun had gilded with 
 its first glance the spires of the neighboring church. 
 The artillery officer enjoyed with his comrades his mess 
 table; the infantry officer occasionally had moistened 
 lips from a canteen of frontier fire water; while the 
 " bold dragoon who scorned all care " rode far and 
 sometimes drank deep. 
 
 Lee was naturally exposed to an engineer's tempta- 
 tions, but was careful and abstemious. He went much in 
 the society of ladies — always most congenial to him. His 
 conversation was bright, his wit refined and pleasant. 
 Cement, mortar, lime, curves, tangents, and straight pro- 
 fessional lines disappeared then. He enjoyed a dress 
 parade of this kind, was happy in the drawing-ro(5m in 
 the evening, and happy in his work on the parapet next 
 day. He was in love from boyhood. Fate brought him 
 to the feet of one who, by birth, education, position, and 
 family tradition, was best suited to be his life companion. 
 Mary Custis, the daughter of George Washington Parke 
 Custis, of Arlington, and Robert E. Lee, were married 
 on the 30th of June, 1831, only two years after he had 
 
26 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 emerged from his Alma Mater. They had known 
 each other when she was a child at Arlington and he 
 a young boy in Alexandria, some eight miles away. 
 It is said she met him to admire when he came back 
 to Alexandria on furlough from the Military Acad- 
 emy. It was the first time any one in that vicin- 
 ity had ever seen him in his cadet uniform. He 
 was handsomer than ever ; straight, erect, symmet- 
 rical in form, with a finely shaped head on a pair of 
 broad shoulders. He was then twenty years old 
 and a fine specimen of a West Point cadet on leave 
 of absence. The impressions produced were of an 
 enduring nature, and the officer, upon graduation, 
 follov/ed up the advantage gained by the attractive 
 cadet. 
 
 G. W. P. Custis was the adopted son of Washing- 
 ton and the grandson of Mrs. Washington. Lee was 
 therefore to marry a great granddaughter of Mrs. 
 Washington, and was a fortunate man, not so much, 
 perhaps, from these ties, but because of the great quali- 
 ties of head and heart possessed by Mary Custis, his 
 affianced bride. It is difficult to say whether she was 
 more lovely on that memorable June evening when the 
 Rev, Mr. Keith asked her, '' Wilt thou have this man to 
 be thy wedded husband?" or after many years had 
 passed, and she was seated in her large armchair in 
 Richmond, almost unable to move from chronic rheuma- 
 tism, but busily engaged in knitting socks for sockless 
 Southern soldiers. The public notice of the marriage 
 was short : 
 
 "Married, June 30, 1831, at Arlington House, by 
 the Rev. Mr. Keith, Lieutenant Robert E. Lee, of the 
 United States Corps of Engineers, to Miss Mary A. 
 R. Custis, only daughter of G. W. P. Custis, Esq." 
 The modesty of the newly married couple was spared 
 the modern newspaper notice of what the bride 
 wore at her wedding and what she had packed in 
 her truivks, and her presents and trousseau are in 
 happy oblivion. Beautiful old Arlington was in all 
 her glory that night. The stately mansion never held 
 a happier assemblage. " Its broad portico and wide- 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 
 
 27 
 
 spread wings held out open arms, as it were, to wel- 
 come the coming guest. Its simple Doric columns 
 graced domestic comfort with a classic air. Its nails 
 and chambers were adorned with the patriots and 
 heroes and with illustrations and relics of the great 
 Revolution and of the 'Father of his Country,' and 
 without and within, history and tradition seemed to 
 breathe their legends upon a canvas as soft as a dream 
 of peace." 
 
 At the expiration of the usual leave of absence 
 granted officers who marry, Lieutenant Lee returned 
 to his duties as assistant engineer at Hampton Roads. 
 For four years he labored to make the harbor defens- 
 ible, and to construct there strong works, little dream- 
 ing that it would be his fate to study how to demolish 
 them twenty-seven years afterward. While stationed 
 there the negro insurrection in Southampton took place, 
 and the young lieutenant writes to his mother-in-law 
 about it, telling her that it is at an end, and adding that 
 the troops returned to Fort Monroe last night " from 
 Jerusalem, where they did not arrive until the whole 
 affair was concluded. Colonel Worth says that, from 
 all he can learn, he is satisfied the plot was widely ex- 
 tended, and that the negroes, anticipating the time of 
 rising by one week, mistaking the third Sunday for the 
 last in the month, defeated the whole scheme and pre- 
 vented much mischief. It is ascertained that they used 
 their religious assemblies, which ought to have been de- 
 voted to better purposes, for forming and maturing their 
 plans, and that their preachers were the leading men. A 
 man belonging to a Mrs. Whitehead, and one of their 
 preachers, was the chief, under the title of Major Nelson, 
 and his first act was to kill his mistress, five children, and 
 one grandchild. However, there are many instances of 
 their defending their masters, and one poor fellow, from 
 the inconsiderate and almost unwarrantable haste of the 
 whites, was sadly rewarded. He belonged to a Mr. Blunt, 
 and himself and two others, assisted by his master and his 
 son, nobly fought with them against twenty of the blacks ; 
 after beating them off and running in great haste after 
 horses for them to escape on, a party of whites suddenly 
 came up and, thinking the horses were for other pur- 
 
28 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 poses, shot him dead. The whole number of blacks 
 taken and killed did not amount to the number of whites 
 murdered by them." 
 
 From that point he was ordered to Washington and 
 made assistant to the chief engineer, an agreeable change, 
 for it brought him near the home of his wife. A fine 
 horse carried him every morning from Arlington to his 
 Washington office and back every evening. He loved 
 his chosen profession, and was rising rapidly in it. Now 
 he could combine equestrianism with engineering, and he 
 was happy, and must have been sometimes merry, for his 
 late lamented military secretary, General Long, narrates 
 an incident of his inviting Captain Macomb, a brother 
 officer, to get behind him on horseback one evening on 
 his return to Arlington. Macomb accepted the invita- 
 tion, and the two gayly rode along the great public 
 avenue in Washington, passing by the President's house, 
 bowing to Cabinet officers, and behaving in rather a 
 hilarious way generally. It is difficult for a soldier of 
 the Army of Northern Virginia to picture his command- 
 ing general in a scene such as has been described. 
 
 Five years after leaving his Alma Mater he was pro- 
 moted from second to first lieutenant of engineers, and 
 in two years more reached a captaincy. In 1835 he was 
 made assistant astronomer of the commission appointed 
 to lay the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan. 
 Two years afterward he bade adieu to ArHngton to obey 
 an order to proceed to St. Louis to make estimates, pre- 
 pare plans, and devise means to prevent the " Great 
 Father of Waters " from leaving his legitimate channel 
 and overrunning property upon which he had no claims, 
 for the Mississippi had threatened to leave the St. Louis 
 side and become a flowing citizen of Illinois. In the 
 performance of this duty he came prominently into 
 notice again ; he was so active, so indefatigable, and 
 worked so intelligently and successfully, that the sys- 
 tem of river improvements first introduced there is to 
 this day followed. Some of the citizens of that section 
 did not understand his methods, and threatened to drive 
 him and his working parties away, and at one time actu- 
 ally brought cannon to accomplish their purpose. They 
 did not comprehend the labors of this quiet, methodical 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 29 
 
 engineer, or understand the reason why piles were driven 
 and cofferdams made at acute angles to the shore ; nor 
 did they understand that the flow of the waters being 
 retarded in these angles, sediment was deposited, land 
 made, and the river, in consequence, forced back and 
 confined to its channels on the St. Louis side. 
 
 While thus professionally engaged it occurred to him 
 that he would like to possess a seal with the family's. 
 Coat of Arms, and he writes to an Alexandria cousin 
 about it : 
 
 St. Louis, Augtist 20, 1838, 
 
 My dear Cassius and Cousin : I believe I once spoke 
 to you on the subject of getting for me the Crest, Coat of Arms, 
 etc., of the Lee family, and which, sure enough, you never did. 
 My object in making the request is for the purpose of having a 
 seal cut with the impression of said Coat, which I think is due 
 from a man of my large family to his posterity, and which I have 
 thought, perhaps foolishly enough, might as well be right as 
 wrong. If, therefore, you can assist me in this laudable enter- 
 prise I shall be much obliged, and by enveloping it securely, di- 
 rected to me at this place, and sending it either by mail or some 
 safe hand to the Engineer OHice, Washington City, without any 
 word or further direction, it will come safely to hand. I once saw 
 in the hands of Cousin Edmund, for the only time in my life, our 
 family tree, and as I begin in my old age to feel a little curiosity 
 relat've to my forefathers, their origin, whereabouts, etc., any in- 
 tormation you can give me will increase the obligation. 
 
 So sit down one of these hot evenings and write it off for me, 
 or at any rate the substance, and tell my Cousin Phillippa not to 
 let you forget it. I wish you would at the same time undeceive 
 her on a certain point, for, as I understand, she is laboring under 
 a grievous error. 
 
 Tell her that it is the farthest from my wish to detract from 
 any of the little Lees, but as to her little boy being equal to Mr. 
 Rooney,* it is a thing not even to be supposed, much less believed, 
 although we live in a credulous country, where people stick at 
 nothing from a coon story to a sea serpent. You must remem- 
 ber us particularly to her, to Uncle Edmund, Cousins Sally, 
 Hannah, and all the Lloyds. 
 
 I believe I can tell you nothing here that would interest you, 
 except that we are all well, although my dame has been a little 
 complaining for a day or two. The elections are all over, the 
 " Van-ites " have carried the day in the State, although the Whigs 
 in this district carried their entire ticket, and you will have the 
 
 * A pet name for his son, William H. F. Lee. — Editor. 
 
30 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 pleasure of hearing the great expunger again thunder from his 
 place in the Senate against banks, bribery, and corruption. While 
 on the river I can not help being on the lookout for thai stream 
 of gold that was to ascend the Mississippi, tied up in silk-net 
 purses ! It would be a pretty sight, but J;he tide has not yet 
 made up here. Let me know whether you can enlighten me on 
 the point in question. And believe me, 
 
 Yours very truly, R. E. Lee. 
 
 C. F. Lee, Esq., Alexandria, Virginia. 
 
 And to Mrs. Lee he writes : 
 
 St. Louis, September 4, 1840. 
 
 A few evenings since, feeling lonesome, as the saying is, and 
 out of sorts, I got on a horse and took a ride. On returning 
 through the lower part of the town, I saw a number of little girls 
 all dressed up in their white frocks and pantalets, their hair 
 plaited and tied up with ribbons, running and chasing each 
 other in all directions. I counted twenty-three nearly the same 
 size. As I drew up my horse to admire the spectacle a man 
 appeared at the door with the twenty- fourth in his arms. " My 
 friend," said I, " are all these your children .^ " " Yes," he said, 
 " and there are nine more in the house, and this is the youngest." 
 Upon further inquiry, however, I found that they were only tem- 
 porarily his, and that they were invited to a party at his house. 
 He said, however, he had been admiring them before I came up, 
 and just wished that he had a million of dollars and that they 
 were all his in reality. I do not think the eldest exceeded seven 
 or eight years old. It was the prettiest sight I have seen in the 
 West, and perhaps in my life. . . . 
 
 On the completion of his great services here he was 
 sent to New York and stationed at Fort Hamilton to 
 perfect the defenses of the splendid harbor of that great 
 city. A letter to his wife from that point gives a glimpse 
 of the humor which constantly found vent in his private 
 life. He writes : 
 
 Fort Hamilton, New York, January 14, 1846. 
 
 This week I have been closely occupied here. I have kept 
 "Jim" and ''Miss Leary " (his servants) constantly moving, 
 cleaning up, and fear I will wear them down. I do not know 
 whether it was your departure or my somber phiz which 
 brought Miss Leary out Sunday in a full suit of mourning. A 
 black alpaca trimmed with crape and a thick row of jet buttons 
 on each sleeve, from the shoulder to the wrist, and three rows on 
 the skirt, diverging from the waist to the hem ; it was, however, 
 surmounted by a dashing cap with gay ribbons. 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 31 
 
 He was now a captain of engineers, and his mettle 
 was soon to be tried in the fiery furnace of war, for his 
 country and the Republic of Mexico were daily growing 
 more angry with each other. Mexico, from 15 19, when 
 Hernando Cortez marched through the causeway lead- 
 ing into its Capital City to the present period, has been 
 an object of much interest to other countries. Com- 
 mencing with the Indian Emperor Montezuma's costly 
 presents to Cortez, the land has been associated with in- 
 exhaustible supplies of gold and silver. The Spanish 
 commander, from his quarters near the temple of the 
 Aztec god of war, dreamed of infinite wealth for him- 
 self, his soldiers, and his country. 
 
 A fascinating interest in Mexico has always kept 
 pace with the progress and growth of the contiguous 
 American Republic. Upon the final overthrow of the 
 Mexicans by the Spaniards, the adjoining sections were 
 settled by the latter, and a permanent location was made 
 in Texas, at San Antonio de Bexar, in 1692. France, in 
 selling to the United States Louisiana, claimed the bound- 
 ary line to be the River Rio Grande del Norte, and as- 
 signed this boundary claim to the United States. It 
 was, however, relinquished by the American Republic to 
 Spain, in a treaty made with that country in 181 2. 
 When Mexico, in 1820, threw off the Spanish yoke, she 
 obtained at the same time the domain of Texas. After- 
 ward Stephen F. Austin obtained from the Mexican 
 Government large tracts of land in Texas and estab- 
 lished colonies on them. Citizens of the United States 
 were naturally attracted there, and as they grew in 
 numbers wanted a government similar in form to the 
 one they had left. Stephen Austin was sent to Santa 
 Ar.na, then Emperor of Mexico, with petitions praying 
 for a separate state organization, and to be no longer 
 united with Cohahuila, the neighboring Mexican prov- 
 ince. Austin's petition, it seems, was more than Santa 
 Anna could stand, and he threw him into prison and kept 
 him there over a year. The American Texans, some ten 
 thousand in number, were indignant, and determined to 
 resist the Mexican Emperor's authority. A war ensued, 
 and the redoubtable Santa Anna was finally overthrown 
 and captured at the battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836. 
 
32 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Texas was later an applicant for membership to the union 
 of American States. Her independence had been ac- 
 knowledged by Great Britain, the United States, and 
 other Powers; but Bustamente, who succeeded Santa 
 Anna, repealed the treaty Mexico had with Texas and de- 
 clared war. In the United States opinion was divided be- 
 tween annexation and war. President Van Buren, a citi- 
 zen of New York, would not entertain annexation, while a 
 successor — John Tyler, of Virginia — favored it. A treaty 
 made to carry out the provisions of annexation was re- 
 jected by the Senate. In 1844 it became a party ques- 
 tion, and by the election of James K. Polk, of Tennessee, 
 who was in favor of it, over Henry Clay, of Kentucky, 
 whose adherents were opposed to it, the people of the 
 United States practically decided in favor of annexa- 
 tion. It was then natural and proper that the United 
 States Government should look closely after the inter- 
 ests of her new possessions, and to General Zachary 
 Taylor they were confided. A Virginian by birth, he 
 was appointed a lieutenant in the Seventh Infantry, 
 United States Army, in 1808, being one of the new regi- 
 ments authorized by Congress, upon the recommenda- 
 tion of President Thomas Jefferson. He became con- 
 spicuous in the Indian contests, and was especially 
 famous after winning the battle of Okeechobee in the 
 Seminole War. Promoted to be a brigadier general in 
 1837, three years thereafter he was assigned to the 
 command of the Southern Division of the Western De- 
 partment. He was in place, therefore, to defend Texas 
 against the Mexicans, to insist on the Rio Grande boun- 
 dary line, and to prevent Mexican authorit}^ from be- 
 ing extended to the River Nueces, which was claimed 
 as the proper line. He was the right man in the right 
 place, and when Arista, the Mexican general, crossed 
 the Rio Grande with six thousand men, near Fort 
 Brown, Taylor, being in the vicinity, promptly attacked 
 with two thousand men and defeated him, assumed the 
 offensive, crossed the Rio Grande, and war with Mexico 
 became an accomplished fact. Palo Alto, Resaca de la 
 Palma, Matamoras, Monterey, and Buena Vista are the 
 stars in the military crown on the brow of '' Old Rough 
 and Ready," as he was called. Calm, silent, stern, pos- 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 33 
 
 sessed of military genius, this soldier at once became a 
 favorite with the American people, and for his services 
 was afterward elected to be the twelfth President of the 
 United States. When Mexico's capital was decided to 
 be the objective point of the campaign, Taylor's base 
 of operations was too distant and his line of communi- 
 cation too long. It was thought advisable to select as 
 the base of future operations Vera Cruz. General Win- 
 field Scott, then commander in chief of the United 
 States Army, was assigned, to the command of the 
 army to be concentrated for its reduction. The new 
 army commander, Scott, was born near Petersburg, Va., 
 in June, 1786, and was sixty-one years old when he be- 
 gan the siege of Vera Cruz on the 19th of March, 1847. 
 He was an alumnus of William and Mary College, Wil- 
 liamsburg, Va., and a lawyer for two years before he 
 was appointed to a lieutenancy in the artillery of the 
 United States Army. His services in the war of 1812, 
 and especially in the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's 
 Lane, had made him famous. With a grand physique 
 and imposing presence in full uniform, he was a splen- 
 did specimen of the American soldier. Being in com- 
 mand of the whole army, and in active charge of the 
 army of invasion, his requests for the best officers, as 
 well as ordnance, quartermasters' and commissaries' 
 supplies, were promptly acceded to. A war with a 
 foreign country was highly exciting and new to most of 
 the army and navy officers, so that applications for 
 service in Mexico rapidly rained upon the War Depart- 
 ment, and the Secretary of War had no difficulty in send- 
 ing to Mexico the most capable officers. 
 
 EngineerSi,are as necessary to an army as sails are to 
 a ship ; they locate lines of battle, select positions for the 
 artillery, make reconnoissances, and upon their reports 
 the movements of the army are based. They draw to- 
 pographical maps, construct roads and bridges, and 
 guide troops in battle to positions they had previously 
 reconnoitred. Scott soon drew to him from this branch 
 of the service Totten, J. L. Smith, R. E. Lee, Beaure- 
 gard, McClellan, Foster, Tower, Stevens, G. W. Smith, 
 and others, and at once placed Captain Lee on his per- 
 sonal staff. This officer, when Scott was assembling the 
 
34 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 army at Tampico, for the purpose of investing and cap- 
 turing Vera Cruz, was with General Wool, who had been 
 assigned the duty of invading Mexico from the north, 
 while Taylor advanced from Matamoras, and General 
 Kearny from New Mexico. 
 
 In a letter to Mrs. Lee, dated Rio Grande, October 
 II, 1846, Captain Lee says : ''We have met with no re- 
 sistance yet. The Mexicans who were guarding the 
 passage retired on our approach. There has been a 
 great whetting of knives, grinding of swords, and sharp- 
 ening of bayonets ever smce we reached the river." 
 
 It seems on the eve of active operations Captain 
 Lee's thoughts were ever returning to his family and 
 home. In a letter to his two eldest sons (one thirteen 
 and the other nine years of age), written from Camp 
 near Saltillo, December 24, 1846, he says: "I hope good 
 Santa Claus will fill my Rob's stocking to-night ; that 
 Mildred's, Agnes's, and Anna's may break down with 
 good things. I do not know what he may have for you 
 and Mary (his daughter), but if he only leaves for you 
 one half of what I wish, you will want for nothing. I 
 have frequently thought if I had one of you on each 
 side of me riding on ponies, such as I could get you, I 
 would be comparatively happy." 
 
 The little fellows had been writing to their father 
 asking about his horses and the ponies in Mexico, etc. 
 In reply he tells them "the Mexicans raise a large 
 quantity of ponies, donkeys, and mules, and most of 
 their corn, etc., is carried on the backs of these ani- 
 mals. These little donkeys will carry two hundred 
 pounds on their backs, and the mules will carry three 
 hundred on long journeys over the mountains. The 
 ponies are used for riding and cost from ten to fifty dol- 
 lars, accordmg to their size and quality. I have three 
 horses. Creole is my pet; she is a golden dun, active as 
 a deer, and carries me over all the ditches and gullies 
 that I have met with ; nor has she ever yet hesitated at 
 anything I have put heFat ; she is full-blooded and con- 
 sidered the prettiest thing in the army ; though young, 
 she has'so far stood the campaign as well as any horses 
 of the division." He then tells them about his other 
 two — a dark bay, deep-chested, sturdy, and strong, that 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 
 
 35 
 
 his servant Jim rides, and says that Jim has named him 
 after himself; he goes on to say that he has ridden them 
 all very hard, sometimes fifty or sixty miles a day. 
 
 He was still at Saltillo the next day : it was Christmas, 
 and he had arranged a campaign in his own heart, which 
 would result in his taking advantage of the holiday to 
 write a letter to his wife. He tells Mrs. I,ee that he had 
 put aside that Christmas day to write to her, but just 
 after breakfast orders were received to prepare for bat- 
 tle, intelligence having reached General Wool that the 
 Mexican army was coming. " The troops stood to their 
 arms and I lay on the grass with my sorrel mare saddled 
 by my side and telescope directed to the pass of the 
 mountain through which the road approached. The 
 Mexicans, however, did not make their appearance. 
 Many regrets were expressed at Santa Anna's having 
 spoiled our Christmas dinner for which ample prepara- 
 tion had been made. The little roasters remained tied 
 to the tent pins wondering at their deferred fate, and 
 the headless turkeys retained their plumage unscathed. 
 Finding the enemy did not come, preparations were 
 again made for dmner. We have had many happy 
 Christmases together. It is the first time we have been 
 entirely separated at this holy time since our marriage. 
 I hope it does not interfere with your happiness, sur- 
 rounded as you are by father, mother, children, and dear 
 friends. I therefore trust you are well and happy, and 
 that this is the last time I shall be absent from you dur- 
 ing my life. May God preserve and bless you till then 
 and forever after is my constant prayer." 
 
 The American commander promptly availed himself 
 of the talents of the engineer and summoned Lee to his 
 side, and in the memorable campaign which followed, 
 Lee was his military adviser and possessed his entire 
 confidence. The high estimation and cordial friendship 
 which the army commander ever thereafter displayed for 
 his subordinate was born at Vera Cruz. 
 
 The city of Vera Cruz was surrounded by a wall and 
 strengthened by forts, the castle of San Juan de UUoa, 
 its fortress, was defended by four hundred guns and five 
 thousand men under General Morales. The soldierly 
 genius of Scott at once told him there were' but two 
 
36 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ways to capture the city — either by storming or by the 
 scientific principles of regular siege approaches. In his 
 "Little Cabinet," as he called it (it appears he was even 
 then thinking of a future presidency) — consisting of 
 Colonel Totten, Chief Engineer; Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Hitchcock, Acting Inspector General; Captain R. E. Lee, 
 Engineer ; First-Lieutenant Henry L. Scott, Acting Adju- 
 tant General — these questions were taken up. A death- 
 bed discussion could hardly have been more solemn, the 
 army commander tells us. To his Cabinet he said : " We, 
 of course, gentlemen, must take the city and castle before 
 the return of the vomito, and then escape by pushing 
 the contest into the healthy interior." He was " strong- 
 ly inclined to attempt to capture the place by laying 
 siege to it, not by storming it." The first method, in 
 his opinion, " could be accomplished with moderate loss 
 on his side. The second method would, no doubt," 
 said Scott, *^be equally successful, but at the cost of im- 
 mense slaughter on both sides, including non-combat- 
 ants, Mexicans, and children, because the assault would 
 have to be made in the dark, and the assailants dare not 
 lose time in taking or guarding prisoners without incur- 
 ring the certainty of becoming captives themselves, un- 
 til all the strongholds of the place had been captured." 
 The council determined upon a siege. In two weeks the 
 army and navy were ready to open fire, and one week's 
 bombardment resulted in the capitulation of Vera Cruz, 
 and the adjacent forts on the 29th of March, 1847. In 
 the preparatory two weeks Lee spent nights and days 
 in incessant labor, and his enterprise, endurance, energy, 
 and intelligent arrangement of all the necessary details 
 of the siege were most conspicuous, and to him has been 
 ascribed much credit for the victory. 
 
 At Vera Cruz Captain Lee met his brother. Lieuten- 
 ant Sydney Smith Lee, of the United States Navy, and 
 the soldier and sailor fought together. In a letter writ- 
 ten from Vera Cruz at the time, after describing a bat- 
 tery which had been placed in position by him. Captain 
 Lee adds: "The first day this battery opened. Smith 
 served one of the guns. I had constructed the battery, 
 and was there to direct its fire. No matter where I 
 turned, my eyes reverted to him, and I stood by his gun 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 37 
 
 whenever I was not wanted elsewhere. Oh ! I felt aw- 
 fully, and am at a loss what I should have done had he 
 been cut down before me. I thank God that he was 
 saved. He preserved his usual cheerfulness, and I could 
 see his white teeth through all the smoke and din of the 
 fire. I had placed three 32- and three 68-pound guns in 
 position. . . . Their fire was terrific, and the shells 
 thrown from our battery were constant and regular dis- 
 charges, so beautiful in their flight and so destructive in 
 their fall. It was awful ! My heart bled for the inhab- 
 itants. The soldiers I did not care so much for, but it 
 was terrible to think of the women and children. ... I 
 heard from Smith to-day ; he is quite well, and recov- 
 ered from his fatigue." 
 
 And to his naval brother he writes on March 27, 1847, 
 when it seems he wanted some liquors, in all probability 
 for his guests, as his own abstemiousness was well 
 known : 
 
 My dear Smith : I tried to see you the night you went on 
 board, but failed. I was too thankful you were saved through 
 that hot fire. I felt awful at the thought of your heing shot down 
 before me. I can't get time to see you, nor have I time to attend 
 to anything for myself. There is a French bark anchored by 
 your fleet, and detained at Anton Lizardo — or was — from Bor- 
 deaux. She has some wines, etc. Can you, through any of your 
 comrades, get me a box or two of claret, one of brandy, and four 
 colored shirts. The latter are seventy-five cents each (I have two 
 of them), and the brandy thirty-seven and a half cents per bottle. 
 God bless and preserve you. Your battery (naval) has smashed 
 that side of the town. I have been around the walls to examine. 
 The Quartet Battery has been silenced. I grieve for the fine fel- 
 lows that were killed there. 
 
 Very affectionately your brother, R. E. Lee. 
 
 P. S. — Can you buy me a good telescope from the fleet ? I 
 have lost mine and am woefully at a loss. 
 
 Before leaving for the interior with the army, Captain 
 Lee sought his brother to say good-by. In one of his 
 letters he writes : " Went on board the Mississippi, and 
 passed the night with Smith. I had scarcely been able 
 to see him before, and wished, ere commencing work, to 
 have one night with him. He was very well, but what a 
 place is a ship to enjoy the company of one's brother ! " 
 4 
 
38 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 When Scott set out, on the 12th of April, from Vera 
 Cruz, to join his advanced divisions under Patterson 
 and Twiggs, in front of the heights of Cerro Gordo, Lee 
 accompanied him. It was the reconnoissance of this 
 officer at the head of the pioneers which found a possible 
 route for the troops and their light batteries, by which 
 the Mexican left could be turned. Santa Anna, who 
 commanded the Mexican army, said he did not believe 
 a goat could have come from that direction. In his 
 final report Scott, thus speaks: "The reconnoissance, 
 begun by Lieutenant Beauregard, was continued by 
 Captain Lee, of the engineers, and a road made along 
 one of the slopes over chasms — out of the enemy's view 
 though reached by his fire — was discovered, till, arriving 
 at the Mexican lines, further reconnoissance became im- 
 possible without an action. 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 indefatigable during these operations in re- 
 connoissances, as daring as laborious, and of the utmost 
 value. Nor was he less conspicuous in planning bat- 
 teries and in conducting columns from stations under 
 the heavy fire of the enemy." General Lee thus describes 
 the battle of Cerro Gordo : 
 
 '^ Ferote, April 25, 1841. — The advance of the Ameri- 
 can troops, under Generals Patterson and Twiggs, were 
 encamped at the Piano del Rio, and three miles to their 
 front Santa Anna and his army were intrenched in the 
 pass of Cerro Gordo, which was remarkably strong. 
 The right of the Mexican line rested on the river at a 
 perpendicular rock, unscalable by man or beast, and 
 their left on impassable ravines; the main road was de- 
 fended by field works containing thirty-five cannon ; in 
 their rear was the mountain of Cerro Gordo, surrounded 
 by intrenchments in which were cannon and crowned by 
 a tower overlooking all — it was around this army that 
 it was intended to lead our troops. I reconnoitered the 
 ground in the direction of the ravines on their left, and 
 passed around the enemy's rear. On the i6th a party 
 was set to work in cutting out the road, on the 17th I 
 led General Twiggs's division in the rear of a hill in 
 front of Cerro Gordo, and in the afternoon, when it be- 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 39 
 
 came necessary to drive them from the hill where we 
 intended to construct a battery at night, the first intima- 
 tion of our presence or intentions \vere known. During 
 all that night we were at work in constructing the bat- 
 tery, getting up the guns, ammunition, etc., and they in 
 strengthening their defenses on Cerro Gordo. Soon 
 after sunrise our batteries opened, and I started with a 
 column to turn their left and to get on the Jalapa road. 
 Notwithstanding their efforts to prevent us in this, we 
 were perfectly successful, and the working party, follow- 
 ing our footsteps, cut out the road for the artillery. In 
 the mean time our storming party had reached the crest 
 of Cerro Gordo, and, seeing their whole left turned and 
 the position of our soldiers on the Jalapa road, they 
 broke and fled. Those in the pass laid down their arms. 
 General Pillow's attack on their right failed. All their 
 cannon, arms, ammunition, and most of their men fell 
 into our hands. The papers can not tell you what a 
 horrible sight a field of battle is, nor will I, owing to my 
 accompanying General Twiggs's division in the pursuit, 
 and being since constantly in the advance. I believe all 
 our friends are safe. I think I wrote you that my friend 
 Joe Johnston * was wounded the day before I arrived at 
 the Piano del Rio while reconnoitering. He was wounded 
 in the arm and about the groin ; both balls are out, and 
 he was doing well and was quite comfortable when I 
 left; the latter wound was alone troublesome. Captain 
 Mason, of the rifles, was badly wounded in' the leg, and 
 General Shields was wounded in the chest; I have heard 
 contradictory reports that he was doing well and that he 
 was dead. I hope the former. Jalapa is the most beau- 
 tiful country I have seen in Mexico, and will compare 
 with any I have seen elsewhere. I wish it was in the 
 United States, and that I was located with you and the 
 children around me in one of its rich, bright valleys. 1 
 can conceive nothing more beautiful in the way of land- 
 scape or mountain scenery. We ascended upward of 
 four thousand feet that morning, and whenever we looked 
 back the rich valley below was glittering in the morning 
 sun and the light morning clouds flitting around us. On 
 
 * Afterward the distinguished commander. 
 
40 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 reaching the top, the valley appeared at intervals be- 
 tween the clouds which were below us, and high over 
 all towered Orizaba, with its silver cap of snow. The 
 castle or fort of Perote is one of the best finished that 
 I have ever seen — very strong, with high, thick walls, 
 bastioned fronts, and deep, wide ditch. It is defective 
 in construction and is very spacious, covers twenty-five 
 acres, and although there is within its walls nearly three 
 thousand troops, it is not yet full. Within the fort is a 
 beautiful chapel, in one corner of which is the tomb of 
 Guadalupe Victoria. There are various skulls, ima'ges, 
 etc., in the sanctuaries. This morning I attended the 
 Episcopal service within the fort. It was held on the 
 parade. The mniister was a Mr. McCarty, the chaplain 
 of the Second Brigade, First Division. Many officers 
 and soldiers were grouped around. I endeavored to 
 give thanks to our heavenly Father for all his mercies to 
 me, for his preservation of me through all the dangers I 
 have passed, and all the blessings which he has bestowed 
 upon me, for I know I fall far short of my obligations. 
 We move out to-morrow toward Pueblo. The First 
 Brigade — Duncan's battery, light infantry and cavalry — 
 form the advance. I accompany the advance. General 
 Worth will remain a day or two with the remainder of 
 his division till the Second Division, under General 
 Twiggs, shall arrive. General Scott is still at Jalapa, 
 Major Smith with him. I have with me Lieutenants 
 Mason, Tower, and the Engineer Company. In advance, 
 all is uncertain and the accounts contradictory. We 
 must trust to an overruling Providence, by whom we 
 will be governed for the best, and to our own re- 
 sources." 
 
 And in another letter to his eldest son, dated same 
 day and place, he writes: "I thought of you, my dear 
 Custis, on the i8th in the battle, and wondered, when 
 the musket balls and grape were whistling over my head 
 in a perfect shower, where I could put you if with me to 
 be safe. I was truly thankful that you were at school, 
 I hope learning to be good and wise. You have no 
 idea what a horrible sight a battlefield is." The writer 
 then describes to him the battle of Cerro Gordo, and 
 tells him about the dead and dying Mexicans ; how he 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 41 
 
 had them carried to a house by the roadside, where they 
 were attended by Mexican surgeons; of his finding by 
 the side of a hut a Httle Mexican boy who had been a 
 bugler or drummer, with his arm terribly shattered, and 
 how a large Mexican soldier, in the last agonies of death, 
 had fallen on him ; how he was attracted to the scene by 
 the grief of a little girl ; how he had the dying Mexican 
 taken off the boy, and how grateful the little girl was. 
 " Her large black eyes," he said, " were streaming with 
 tears, her hands crossed over her breast; her hair in one 
 long plait behind reached her waist, her shoulders and 
 arms bare, and without stockings or shoes. Her plain- 
 tive tone of '■ Milk gracias^ Sigftor,' as I had the dying 
 man lifted off the boy and both carried to the hospital, 
 still lingers in my ear. After I had broken away through 
 the chaparral and turned toward Cerro Gordo I mounted 
 Creole, who stepped over the dead men with such care 
 as if she feared to hurt them, but when I started with 
 the dragoons in the pursuit, she was as fierce as possi- 
 ble, and I could hardly hold her." 
 
 From Cerro Gordo to the capital of Mexico, Captain 
 Lee at every point increased the reputation he was ac- 
 quiring. At Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, 
 and Chapultepec he was constantly in the saddle, per- 
 forming with alacrity and courage the duties of a trusted 
 staff officer. '* Before the battle of Contreras," wrote 
 one of the most distinguished soldiers of that war, 
 *' General Scott's troops had become separated in the 
 field of Pedrigal, and it was necessary to communicate 
 instruction to those on the other side of this barrier of 
 rocks and lava. General Scott says in his report that he 
 had sent seven officers since about sundown to commu- 
 nicate instructions; they had all returned without get- 
 ting through, but the gallant and indefatigable Captain 
 Lee, of the engineers, who has been constantly with the 
 operating forces, is just in from Shields, Smith, Cad- 
 walader, etc. . . ." 
 
 Subsequently Scott, while giving testimony before a 
 court of inquiry, said : " Captain Lee, of the engineers, 
 came to me from Contreras with a message from Briga- 
 dier-General Smith. I think about the same time (mid- 
 night) he, having passed over the difficult ground by 
 
.2 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 daylight, found it just possible to return on foot and 
 alone to St. Augustine in the dark, the greatest feat of 
 physical and moral courage performed by any individual 
 to my knowledge, pending the campaign." 
 
 His deeds of personal daring, his scientific counsels, 
 his coup d'ml of the battlefield, his close personal recon- 
 noissances under the scorching; rays of a tropical sun, 
 amid the lightning's flash or thunder's roar, did much to 
 mold the key which unlocked the gates of the Golden 
 City. The reports of his commander are filled with com- 
 mendations of his bravery : " That he was as famous 
 for felicitous execution as for science and daring"; that 
 at '' Chapultepec Captain Lee was constantly con- 
 spicuous, bearing important orders" from him, " till he 
 fainted from a wound and the loss of two nights' sleep 
 at the batteries." This veteran general, in referring 
 afterward to this campaign, was heard to say that his 
 " success in Mexico was largely due to the skill, valor, 
 and undaunted courage of Robert E. Lee," and that he 
 was "the greatest military genius in America, the best 
 soldier that he ever saw in the field, and that if oppor- 
 tunity offered, he would show himself the foremost cap- 
 tam of his time." 
 
 It is certain that Captain Lee came from this Mexi- 
 can campaign crowned with honors and covered with 
 brevets for gallant and meritorious conduct. In a brief 
 six months' campaign he had demonstrated in a wonder- 
 ful manner his qualities as a soldier. He was then forty 
 years old. Brevet major, brevet lieutenant colonel, and 
 brevet colonel followed each other in rapid succession. 
 An examination of his career in Mexico will show that 
 the flanks of the hostile army were his favorite points 
 of reconnoissance. If they could be successfully turned, 
 victory would save human life ; a reference to his cam- 
 paigns, when he afterward became an army commander, 
 will show that the flanks of his enemy were still objects 
 of his greatest attention. 
 
 The Mexican campaign M^as finished, and the Peace 
 Treaty occupied the front rank of importance. In a 
 letter to his wife, dated City of Mexico, February 8, 
 1848, Captain Lee says: "You will doubtless hear many 
 speculations about peace. The boundary is said to be 
 
BIRTH. —CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 
 
 43 
 
 the Rio Grande, giving us Texas, New Mexico, Califor- 
 nia, for which we pay twenty million dollars — five mil- 
 lions to be reserved for liquidation of claims of her citi- 
 zens. These are certainly not hard terms for IMexico, 
 considering how the fortune of war has been against her. 
 For myself, I would not exact now more than I would 
 have taken before the commencement of hostilities, as I 
 should wish nothing but what was just, and that I would 
 have sooner or later. I can readily see that the terms 
 said to be offered on the part of Mexico may not prove 
 satisfactory to a large part of our country, who would 
 think it right to exact everything that power and might 
 could require. Some would sacrifice everything under 
 the hope that the proposition of Messrs. Clay, Calhoun, 
 etc., would be acted upon, and save what they term the 
 national honor. Believing that peace would be for the 
 advantage of both countries, I hope that some terms, 
 just to one and not dishonorable to the other, may be 
 agreed on, and that speedily." 
 
 And again, five days later : " If any early session of 
 the Mexican Congress can be obtained, I have still hopes 
 that the treaty will be ratified, though 1 think the 
 speeches and resolutions of some of our leading men, 
 and probably by this time some action of Congress, may 
 so confuse the Mexican mind in reference to her future 
 course as to encourage the recusant members to absent 
 themselves so as to defeat it. I think it is late on our 
 part to stop now to demonstrate who are the first ag- 
 gressors. It is certain we are the conquerors in a regu- 
 lar war, and by the laws of nations are entitled to dic- 
 tate the terms of peace. We have fought well and fought 
 fairly. We hold and can continue to hold their coun- 
 try, and have a right to exact compensation for the 
 expenses of a war continued, if not provoked, by ig- 
 norance and vanity on the part of Mexico. It is true 
 we bullied her. For that I am ashamed, for she was 
 the weaker party, but we have since, by way of set-off, 
 drubbed her handsomely and in a manner no man might 
 be ashamed of. They begin to be aware how entirely 
 they are beaten, and are willing to acknowledge it. The 
 treaty gives us all the land we want ; the amount we 
 pay is a trifle, and is the cheapest way of ending the 
 
44 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 war. How it will all end I can not say, but will trust to 
 a kind Providence, who will, I believe, order all things 
 for the best." 
 
 The brighter the deeds of the soldier and statesman, 
 the greater the opportunity for the shaft of the critic. 
 General Scott's behavior to a subordinate drew upon him 
 a court of inquiry. In a letter to his wife, dated City of 
 Mexico, March 15, 1848, he says: "The members of the 
 court to sit on General Scott have arrived, and begin 
 proceedings to-day. I fear nothing for General Scott, 
 if the whole truth be known, though the whole country 
 will have suffered by his suspension. The prospects of 
 peace seem to be brightening, and all may yet be well." 
 
 Naturally, when the objective point in a campaign has 
 been reached, and the swords go to the scabbards and 
 the guns are stacked, the distribution of the rewards for 
 meritorious services are of much interest to the friends 
 of those who perform them. Mr. Custis, of Arlington, 
 was properly concerned about the claims to honorable 
 official mention of his son-in-law, and wrote to him on 
 the subject, and the reply he received was eminently 
 characteristic of that modest officer : 
 
 City of Mexico, Aprils^ 1848. 
 I hope my friends will give themselves no annoyance on my 
 account, or any concern about the distribution of favors. I know 
 how those things are awarded at Washington, and how the 
 President will be besieged by clamorous claimants. I do not 
 wish to be numbered among them. Such as he can conscien- 
 tiously bestow, I shall gratefully receive, and have no doubt that 
 those will exceed my deserts. It is a singular coincidence that in 
 1836 Santa Anna, as he passed through Fredericktown, Md., 
 should have found General Scott before the court of inquiry 
 clapped upon him by General Jackson. Our present President 
 thought perhaps he ought to afford the gratification to the same 
 individual to see Scott before another court in presence of the 
 troops he commanded. I hope, however, all will terminate in 
 good. The discontent in the army at this state of things is great. 
 
 Captain Lee was a great observer of Nature : he 
 loved the country, the bright foliage of trees, the run- 
 ning waters, and flowery grasses. His beautiful mare 
 carried him to all points outside of the city. To Mrs. 
 Lee he v/rites : 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 45 
 
 City of Mexico, April 12, 1848. 
 I rode out a few days since for the first time to the " Church 
 of Our Lady of Remedies." It is situated on a hill at the ter- 
 mination of the mountains west of the city, and is said to be the 
 spot to which Cortez retreated after being driven from the city 
 on the memorable " noche triste." I saw the cedar tree at Popot- 
 la, some miles nearer the city, in which it is said he passed a por- 
 tion of that night. The trees of the " noche triste " — so called from 
 their blooming about the period of that event — were in full bloom. 
 The flower is a round ellipsoid, and of the most magnificent scar- 
 let color. The Holy Image was standing on a large silver 
 maguey plant, with a rich crown on her head. There were no 
 votaries at her shrine, which was truly magnificent, but near the 
 entrance of the church, on either side, were the offerings of those 
 whom she had relieved. They consisted of representations in 
 wax of those parts of the human body that she cured of the dis- 
 eases with which they had been afflicted. 
 
 The inactive life was growing burdensome. The 
 strains of " Home, sweet home " were falling on the ears 
 of the Americans, and their hearts were beating in antic- 
 ipation of meeting once more relatives and friends. In 
 a letter, dated City of Mexico, May 21, 1848, he writes 
 to his naval brother, Sydney Smith Lee : 
 
 My dear Rose (he calls him by a pet name) : I have a little 
 good news to tell you this evening and as little time to tell it in. 
 The mail from Ouereton last night brought letters from reliable 
 persons, one of whom I saw, stating that on the evening of the 
 1 5th inst. a vote was taken in the Chamber of Deputies on the gen- 
 eral passage of the Treaty of Peace and carried in the affirmative 
 by forty-eight votes to thirty-six. That it would come up on the 
 19th on its final passage, and, after being passed, be sent to the 
 Senate, where it would undoubtedly pass by an unusual majority 
 and probably by the 24th. So certain was its passage through 
 the Senate considered, that the President, Pena y Pena, had de- 
 termined, as soon as it had finally passed the Deputies, to write 
 our Commissioners to Ouereton to be reaYly to make the inter- 
 change, etc. This morning at 10 A. M. a special express arrived 
 from Ouereton with the intelligence of the final passage by the 
 Chamber of Deputies of the Treaty, with all the modifications of 
 our Senate, by a vote of fifty-one to thirty-five. It therefore only 
 wants the confirmation of the Senate, of which those who ought 
 to know, say there is no doubt. We all feel quite exhilarated at 
 the prospect of getting home, when I shall again see you and my 
 dear Sis Nannie. Where will you be this summer.^ I have 
 heard that the Commissioners start for Ouereton to-morrow. I 
 
46 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 know not whether it is true. General Smith will probably leave 
 here for Vera Cruz on the 24th or 25th to make arrangements 
 for the embarkation of troops. As soon as it is certain that we 
 march out, and I make the necessary arrangements for the en- 
 gineer transportation, etc., I shall endeavor to be off. I shall 
 therefore leave everything till I see you. Several of your naval 
 boys are here who will be obliged to " cut out." Love to Sis 
 Nannie and the boys. Rhett Buchanan and all friends are well. 
 Very truly and affectionately, R. E. Lee. 
 
 , Again : " Mr. Gardner and Mr. Trist depart to-mor- 
 row. I had hoped that after the President had adopted 
 Mr. Trist's treaty, and the Senate confirmed it, they 
 would have paid him the poor compliment of allowing 
 him to finish it, as some compensation for all the abuse 
 they had heaped upon him; but, I presume, it is per- 
 fectly fair, having made use of his labors and taken 
 from him all he had earned, that he should be kicked off 
 as General Scott has been, whose skill and science, hav- 
 ing crushed the enemy and conquered a peace, can now 
 be dismissed and turned out as an old horse to die." 
 
 In Scott's army in Mexico at that time were many 
 subordinate officers fighting under a common flag, who 
 were destined to become familiar to the public four- 
 teen years afterward by the skill and courage with 
 which they fought each other. Their swords, then 
 drawn for victory against a common, foe, were to be 
 pointed against each other's breasts, and those who 
 had slept beneath the same blanket, drank from the 
 same canteen, and formed those ties of steel which are 
 strongest when pledged amid common dangers around 
 a common mess table, were to be marshaled under the 
 banners of opposing armies. Ulysses S. Grant was 
 then twenty-five years old, a lieutenant of the Fourth 
 Infantry, self-reliant, brave, and fertile in resources. 
 He fought with old " Zach " at Palo Alto, Resaca de 
 la Palma, and at Monterey; was at Vera Cruz, and 
 in all the battles which followed until the Mexican 
 capital was entered. George Gordon Meade was an 
 officer of topographical engineers, first on the staff of 
 General Taylor and afterward on the staff of General 
 Patterson at Vera Cruz. There too was George B. Mc- 
 Clellan, twenty-one years old, as an engineer officer, who 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 47 
 
 received brevets as first lieutenant and captain for his 
 bravery in battle. Irvin McDowell, who afterward be- 
 came first commander of the Army of the Potomac, was 
 aid-de-camp to General John E. Wool. George H. 
 Thomas was second lieutenant. Third Artillery, and was 
 brevetted three times for gallantry; Joseph Hooker was 
 assistant adjutant general on the staff of General Persi- 
 for F. Smith ; Gideon J. Pillow was brevetted three times. 
 Ambrose E. Burnside joined the army on its march, with 
 some recruits. Winfield Scott Hancock was there as 
 second lieutenant, Sixth Infantry, twenty-three years 
 of age, and was brevetted for his conduct at Contreras 
 and Churubusco. There too was Albert Sidney Johnston 
 of the First (Texas) Rifles and afterward inspector 
 general of Butler's division ; so also Joseph E. Johnston, 
 lieutenant colonel of voltigeurs, wounded twice and 
 brevetted three times. Braxton Bragg was present as a 
 captain of a light battery in the Third Artillery, the first 
 man to plant the regimental colors on the rampart of 
 Chapultepec ; and there too was Thomas Jonathan Jack- 
 son, twenty-three years old, second lieutenant of Ma- 
 gruder's light battery of artillery. Young in years and 
 rank, he gave early evidence of those qualities of a sol- 
 dier for which he became distinguished under the name 
 of Stonewall Jackson. Magruder, his captain, com- 
 mended him highly in his report, writing that '^ if de- 
 votion, industry, talent, and gallantry are the highest 
 qualities of a soldier, then Lieutenant Jackson is en- 
 titled to the distinction which their possession confers." 
 In the army also was Longstreet, lieutenant of infantry, 
 twenty-six years old, brevetted twice and wounded at 
 Chapultepec; and Magruder, known among his com- 
 rades as " Prince John," from courtly manners, distin- 
 guished appearance, and fine conversational powers, who 
 commanded a light battery in Pillow's division, was twice 
 brevetted and wounded at Chapultepec. John Sedgwick 
 was with the army, first lieutenant of artillery, a class- 
 mate of Bragg and Early and Hooker, twice brevetted ; 
 and so was Richard S. Ewell, a typical dragoon ; Am- 
 brose P. Hill, only twenty-one years old, second lieuten- 
 ant of the First Artillery; and Daniel H. Hill, Jubal 
 Early, and many others who afterward became famous. 
 
48 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Little did these young fellows, who marched, bivou- 
 acked, fought, and bled side by side on the burning 
 sands of old Mexico, imagine that in less than two de- 
 cades McDowell would be training his guns on John- 
 ston and Beauregard at first Manassas, while McClellan, 
 Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, and Grant would each 
 in turn test the prowess of Lee; nor did their old com- 
 mander, Scott, dream he was training these young men 
 in practical strategy, grand tactics, and the science of 
 war, in order that they might direct the information thus 
 acquired against each other. 
 
 The memory of Winfield Scott has not been securely 
 embalmed in the hearts of the people of the Southern 
 States, because he was a Virginian who did not resign 
 his commission in the United States Army and tender 
 his sword to his native State in 1861. It should be re- 
 membered, however, that for over half a century he had 
 fought for the flag and worn the uniform of the army 
 of the United States, and had been permanently partially 
 disabled by wounds. Before his Mexican campaign he 
 had served with distinction from where the Northern 
 lakes are bound in icy fetters, to Florida, the land of 
 sun and flowers, in a great degree losing touch with the 
 citizens of States. In fifty-three years of continuous 
 army service he had developed into a sort of national 
 military machine, and when war began between the States 
 of the North and those of the South he was seventy- 
 five years old. Neither the Indian '' Black Hawk," with 
 his Sacs and Foxes, the Seminoles, the Mexicans, nor the 
 unhappy condition of his own land, greatly disturbed 
 him, for already his vision was fixed ''across the river," 
 and his tent was being erected upon the eternal camp- 
 ing ground. Naturally, he wanted to go to his grave 
 wrapped in the folds of the starry flag he had so long 
 defended. In the North his decision was highly ap- 
 plauded ; in the South opinion was divided. In the 
 estimation of some, he should have returned to his 
 mother Commonwealth, for, under their construction of 
 our forms of Government, his first allegiance was due to 
 her. Others, however, heartily concurred in his decision 
 to remain in the North, because " he might have been in 
 the way." The solemn game of war can only be played 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 49 
 
 by active participants, and when a soldier becomes in- 
 active his place is in the rear rank. The aged warrior 
 was consigned to a back seat by the Federal War De- 
 partment, and quietly waited the summons of the trumpet 
 of the Angel of Death. It is true Scott was pompous 
 and vain of a splendid physical appearance, and had a 
 full appreciation of the high and distinguished posi- 
 tion he had attained, but he was a soldier of undoubted 
 military capacity. The people nicknamed him " Fuss 
 and Feathers," because, in gaudy uniform, he sometimes 
 made the atmosphere blue around him and imparted to 
 it a smell of sulphur when things did not go exactly to 
 suit him. He was a disciple of the doctrme of Epicurus 
 so far as it related to the organ of taste. When he in- 
 dulged in "a hasty plate of soup " it was unavoidable, 
 and he has been known to raise a storm because the 
 guest at his table would cut lettuce instead of rolling 
 the leaf around his fork so as not to bruise it. The 
 old soldier is resting quietly now where the '' Hudson's 
 silvery sands roll 'mid the hills afar," and if he lacked 
 to some degree personal popularity, was without mag- 
 netic influence, and did not possess that power which 
 Carnot calls the '' Glory of the soldier and the strength 
 of armies," he is remembered by the whole country as a 
 courteous and chivalric gentleman and as a great com- 
 mander of true military genius. 
 
 His unswerving friendship for Robert E. Lee and 
 his never-failing belief m his military ability was dem- 
 onstrated by his recommendation that he should be 
 his successor, and which doubtless prompted the United 
 States (lovernment to offer to Brevet-Colonel Lee the 
 position of commander in chief of their armies in 1861. 
 
 " Peace hath her victories no less than war." A treaty 
 was ratified between the United States and Mexico which 
 was received with joy by the inhabitants of both coun- 
 tries, and was most heartily welcomed by the Americans 
 in Mexico. Captain Lee was once more at home, bear- 
 ing with him the plaudits of the army and the high ap- 
 preciation of its commander. He wrote from Arlington, 
 June 30, 1848, to his brother of the navy : 
 
 Here I am once again, my dear Smith, perfectly surrounded 
 by Mary and her precious children, who seem to devote them- 
 
50 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 selves to staring at the furrows in my face and the white hairs in 
 my head. It is not surprising that I am hardly recognizable to 
 some of the young eyes around me and perfectly unknown to the 
 youngest, but some of the older ones gaze with astonishment and 
 wonder at me, and seem at a loss to reconcile what they see and 
 what was pictured in their imaginations. I find them too much 
 grown, and all well, and I have much cause for thankfulness and 
 gratitude to that good God who has once more united us. I was 
 greeted on my arrival by your kind letter, which was the next 
 thing to seeing you in person. I wish I could say when I shall 
 be able to visit you, but I as yet know nothing of the intention of 
 the Department concerning me, and can not now^ tell what my 
 movements will be. Mary has recently returned from a visit to 
 poor Anne,* and gives a pitiable account of her distress. You 
 may have heard of her having hurt her left hand ; she is now 
 consequently without the use of either, and can not even feed 
 herself. She has suffered so much that it is not wonderful her 
 spirits should be depressed. She sent many injunctions that I 
 must come to her before even unpacking my trunk, and I think of 
 running over there for a day after the Fourth of July, if practicable. 
 You say I must let you know when I am ready to receive visits. 
 Now ! Have you any desire to see the celebration, etc., of the Fourth 
 of July } Bring Sis Nannie and the little ones ; I long to see you 
 all ; I only arrived yesterday, afteralongjourneyup the Mississippi, 
 which route I was induced to take for the better accommodation 
 of my horse, as I wished to spare her as much annoyance and 
 fatigue as possible, she already having undergone so much suf- 
 fering in my service. I landed her at Wheeling and left her to 
 come over with Jim. I have seen but few of our friends as yet, 
 but hear they are all well. Cousin Anna is at Ravensworth. I 
 met Mrs. John Mason yesterday as I passed through W. All her 
 people are well. I hear that that pretty Rhett, hearing of my 
 arrival, ran off yesterday evening to take refuge with you. Never 
 mind, there is another person coming from Mexico from whom 
 she can not hide herself. Tell her with my regrets that I brought 
 inuchas cosas from her young rifleman, who is as bright and 
 handsome as ever. No, Sis Nannie, your sister was not here 
 when I arrived. Are you satisfied.^ She had gone to Alexandria 
 to learn the news and do a little shopping, but I have laid violent 
 hands on her npw. An opportunity has just offered to the Post- 
 office and I have scribbled off this to assure you of my love and 
 remembrance. With much love to Sis Nannie and the children, 
 and kind regards to Mrs. R. and Misses V. and C., I remain. 
 Affectionately your brother, 
 
 R. E. Lee. 
 
 * His sister, Mrs. Marshall. 
 
BIRTH.— CAREER AS OFFICER OF ENGINEERS. 51 
 
 After the Treaty of Peace with Mexico, Lee was as- 
 signed to the important duty of constructing works for 
 the defense of the harbor of Baltimore, and was so oc- 
 cupied until 1852, when he was made Superintendent of 
 the United States Military Academy, from whose walls 
 he had emerged as a cadet twenty-three years before. 
 At West Point he was employed for three years in 
 watching over the drill, discipline, and studies of cadets, 
 who were one day to become officers of the army. The 
 detail was a complimentary one, and the office of super- 
 intendent at that time, by law, could only be filled by 
 engineer officers. His accustomed ability was displayed 
 in these new duties, and the Academy received great 
 benefit from a sagacious administration of its affairs. 
 While so engaged, Mrs. Lee's mother — Mrs. Custis — 
 died. She was a perfect type of the Christian woman : 
 soft in manner, kind in heart, affectionate in nature, and 
 refined and ladylike in everything. From West Point, 
 April 27, 1853, Captain Lee writes to his wife: "May 
 God give you strength to enable you to bear and say, 
 ' His will be done.' She has gone from all trouble, care, 
 and sorrow, to a holy immortality, there to rejoice and 
 praise forever the God and Saviour she so long and truly 
 served. Let that be our comfort and that our consola- 
 tion. May our death be like hers, and may we meet in 
 happiness in heaven." And later, on the loth of May, 
 he says : " She was to me all that a mother could be, 
 and I yield to none in admiration for her character, love 
 for her virtues, and veneration for her memory." 
 
'CHAPTER III. 
 
 A CAVALRY OFFICER OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 His term of office at West Point terminated by his 
 assignment to cavalry. The great civilizing arms of the 
 United States had been extended so as to embrace large 
 extents of territory, and more cavalry was required. 
 An expenditure of one hundred and sixty millions of 
 dollars, thirty victories in Mexico, and the capture of 
 ten fortified places, including the capital city of the 
 enemy, resulted in adding to the Republic New Mexico, 
 Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California. The increase 
 in population made it necessary to increase the army in 
 order to give full protection to all citizens within the 
 new boundary lines. After the United States had secured 
 independence, cavalry was not at first recognized as a 
 component part of the regular army. The first mounted 
 regiment, called the First Dragoons, was not organized 
 until 1833. Then foUov^^ed the Second Dragoons in 
 1836, and in 1846 another regiment was added, desig- 
 nated as " Mounted Riflemen." With a vast extent of 
 territory and a population of whites numbering about 
 twenty millions in 1855, the cavalry arm of the service 
 consisted of but three regiments. General Scott, in his 
 report of the operations of the army for 1853, first urged 
 that the army be increased by two regiments of dragoons 
 and two regiments of infantry. The following year 
 Hon. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, renewed 
 the commander in chief's recommendation, and Presi- 
 dent Pierce asked its favorable consideration by Con- 
 gress, stating that the army was of " inestimable im- 
 portance as the nucleus around which the volunteer 
 force of the nation can promptly gather in the hour of 
 
 (52) 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 53 
 
 danger." And that he thought it ''wise to maintain a 
 military peace establishment." Mr. R. M. T. Hunter, 
 at that time a distinguished senator in Congress from 
 the State of Virginia, offered an amendment to the Army 
 Appropriation Bill which had passed the House in 1854, 
 authorizing the increase of the army by two regiments 
 of cavalry and five hundred mounted volunteers, who 
 were to serve for twelve months. James Shields, an 
 Irishman by birth, who had served conspicuously in the 
 Mexican War as a brigadier general, and who was then 
 a senator from the State of Illinois, offered a substitute 
 to Hunter's amendment, embodying the views of his 
 former commander in chief, Scott. A protracted de- 
 bate resulted. Sam Houston, of Texas, and Thomas 
 H. Benton, of Missouri, led the opposition to the meas- 
 ure, the former saying that in the Texas Republic, be- 
 fore its annexation to the United States, the expenses 
 of the Indian War had not exceeded ten thousand dol- 
 lars a year, and that the settlers had better protection 
 against hostile tribes of Indians than they had received 
 from regiments of the regular army, while the latter in- 
 dulged in a tirade of abuse against the army generally, 
 calling them '' schoolhouse officers and pothouse sol- 
 diers " ; that he did not believe the aim of the Adminis- 
 tration was to relieve the frontier settlements, but to fur- 
 nish places for graduates of West Point and the friends 
 of the Secretary of War, stating that the object of 
 Mr. Pierce and Jefferson Davis was the ultimate con- 
 quest of the island of Cuba. 
 
 These views seem to have made an impression upon 
 some sections of the country. The Comte de Paris 
 adopted them in his History of the Civil War in Amer- 
 ica. He says: "In 1855 Congress passed a law au- 
 thorizing the formation of two new regiments of cav- 
 alry, and Mr. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, 
 took advantage of the fact that they had not been des- 
 ignated by the title of dragoons to treat them as a dif- 
 ferent arm, and to fill them with his creatures, to the 
 exclusion of regular officers, whom he disliked." It is 
 hardly necessary to say that the comte was writing with 
 limited knowledge. His epithet was applied to such 
 officers as Sumner, Sedgwick, McClellan, Emory, Thomas, 
 5 
 
54 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Stoneman, Stanley, Carr, etc., who served with much 
 distinction on the Union side of the war from 1861 to 
 1865; as well as to Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. 
 Johnston, Lee, Hardee, Kirby Smith, Field, Hood, J. E. 
 B. Stuart, and a number of others who espoused the 
 cause of the South in the late war — "names the world 
 will not willingly let die." Edwin Sumner was promoted 
 by Mr. Davis from major of Second Dragoons to colo- 
 nel of First Cavalry, and Joseph E. Johnston, a captain 
 in the Topographical Engineers, was made its lieuten- 
 ant colonel. The colonelcy of the Second Cavalry was 
 tendered to Albert Sidney Johnston, then a major m the 
 Paymaster's Department of the army. This officer, who 
 afterward became so distinguished, graduated at West 
 Point in 1826, and w^as assigned as a lieutenant to the 
 Second Infantry. His subsequent career in Texas and 
 in the Mexican campaign is well known to the whole 
 country. Zachary Taylor said of him that " he was the 
 best soldier he had ever commanded," while Scott re- 
 marked that his appointment as colonel of the Second 
 Cavalry "was a Godsend to the army and country." 
 
 Captain and Brevet-Colonel R. E. Lee, of the engi- 
 neers, was promoted to be lieutenant colonel of this 
 regiment, and William J. Hardee and William H. Emory 
 to be its majors. The latter was soon transferred to the 
 First Cavalry, and the vacancy offered to Braxton Bragg, 
 of the artillery, who declined it because he did not want 
 to remain in the service, and recommended George H. 
 Thomas, of the Third Artillery, who was appointed. 
 Van Dorn, Kirby Smith, James Oakes, Innis Palmer, 
 Stoneman, O'Hara, Bradfute, Travis, Brackett, and 
 Whiting were its captains, and Nathan G. Evans, Rich- 
 ard W. Johnson, Charles Field, and John B. Hood were 
 among its first lieutenants. 
 
 Secretary of War Davis graduated at West Point 
 in 1828, two years after Albert Sidney Johnston and one 
 year before Robert E. Lee. He possessed an accurate 
 knowledge of the individual merits of army officers, 
 and time and history have indorsed his selection of offi- 
 cers for these new regiments ; for on their respective 
 sides in the late war nearly every one became cele- 
 brated. Mr. Davis said to the writer that when he car- 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 
 
 55 
 
 ried the list to the President, the latter remarked that 
 he thought too many of the officers were from the 
 Southern States, and that for the first time his attention 
 was directed to the section from w-hich many of these 
 officers came. In their appointment he had only con- 
 sidered that past services richly entitled them to promo- 
 tion. At the date of the organization of the two new 
 cavalry regiments seventy officers were appointed by 
 Secretary Davis, but only twenty-nine of them came 
 from States which seceded from the Union in i86t. It 
 is, however, a '' historical fact that the officers thus se- 
 lected were superb soldiers, and that they were from the 
 best to be found in the army and in civil life." 
 
 Brevet-Colonel Lee left the Engineer Corps with 
 great regret ; he had thoroughly mastered its scientific 
 details, and, with a national reputation, stood in the 
 front rank of military engineers. At West Point he had 
 been instructed in cavalry, artillery, and infantry tactics, 
 and, like all cadets at the date of graduation, was sup- 
 posed to be equally well informed as to the drill and 
 duties of each arm of service ; but twenty-six years had 
 rolled around since graduation, during which his atten- 
 tion had been entirely absorbed in the profession of 
 engineer, and it was necessary that he should again study 
 cavalry tactics. Promotion was slow in the United 
 States Army, and in a long official life he had only 
 reached the lineal rank of captain. By sudden transi- 
 tion, in a single bound he had been promoted to a 
 lieutenant colonelcy, a position he possibly would not 
 have reached in the ordinary course of promotion for 
 many years ; his duty to all concerned demanded that 
 he should accept the position. It was an unwritten law 
 in the army that if promotion was offered and declined, 
 the reputation of the officer suffered ; it was regarded 
 as a confession on his part that he had not capacity to 
 perform the duties of a higher grade. 
 
 Next to the engineer, the cavalry service was the 
 most agreeable to Lee. He was fond of horses, and 
 liked to see them cleaned, fed, and well taken care of; 
 he had a firm seat in the saddle, and rode gracefully and 
 well. He might never become, in the language of the 
 cavalry song, 
 
56 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 A bold dragoon, who scorns all care 
 
 As he stalks around with his uncropped hair. 
 
 And indeed it is difficult to picture him in short jacket, 
 long boots coming above his knees, jingling spurs, clank- 
 ing saber, and slouched hat, upon whose looped-up side 
 gay feathers danced. Or can we imagine him with 
 the devil-may-care look and jaunty bearing generally 
 ascribed as attributes of the " rough rider"? We can 
 not fancy him charging the French columns with the 
 fury of a Ponsonby at Waterloo ; or riding boot to boot 
 v/ith dashing Cardigan and his " death or glory " squad- 
 rons " into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell " at 
 Balaklava; or side by side with fearless Murat and his 
 twelve thousand cavalry at Jena; or as fast and furious 
 as Stuart, or Sheridan, Forrest, or Custer. And yet it is 
 safe to say, had the opportunity offered, this new cav- 
 alry officer would have been found equal to the emer- 
 gency. The cavalry genius of Cromwell is readily ad- 
 mitted, in spite of the fact that he was forty-four years 
 of age when he first drew his sword, and Lee was now 
 forty-six. General Foy, in his history of the Peninsular 
 War, writes : " Apres les qualites necessaire \i\ ? au com- 
 mandant en chef, le talent de guerre plus sublime est celui 
 du general de cavalrie." Lee was endowed with youth, 
 health, strength, and "talent for war"; he had been 
 shaken well into the saddle by his Mexican campaign, 
 and was buoyant and brave. A fearless and graceful 
 rider, he could have manoeuvred squadrons, and when 
 the bugle sounded the charge, reins loosened, and sabers 
 flashed in the air, lead them to victory. 
 
 The headquarters of the Second Cavalry were estab- 
 lished at Louisville, Ky., where Lieutenant-Colonel Lee 
 assumed command on the 20th of April, 1855. After- 
 ward he was transferred to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, 
 where the companies were to be organized and instruct- 
 ed, and which was then the temporary regimental head- 
 quarters. He writes Mrs. Lee from that post, July i, 
 1855 : "The chaplain of the post, a Mr. Fish, is now 
 absent ; he is an Episcopal clergyman and well spoken 
 of; we have therefore not had service since I have 
 been here. The church stands out in the trees, gro- 
 tesque in its form and ancient in its appearance. I 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 
 
 57 
 
 have not been in it, but am content to read the Bible 
 and prayers alone, and draw much comfort from their 
 holy precepts and merciful promises. Though feeling 
 unable to follow the one, and truly unworthy of the 
 other, I must still pray to that glorious God without 
 whom there is no help, and with whom there is no dan- 
 ger. That he may guard and protect you all, and 
 more than supply to you my absence, is my daily and 
 constant prayer. I have been busy all the week super- 
 intending and drilling recruits. Not a stitch of cloth- 
 ing has as yet arrived for them, though I made the 
 necessary requisition for it to be sent here more than 
 two months ago in Louisville. Yesterday, at muster, 
 I found one of the late arrivals in a dirty, tattered shirt 
 and pants, with a white hat and shoes, with other gar- 
 ments to match. I asked him why he did not. put on 
 clean clothes. He said he had none. I asked him if 
 he could not wash and mend those. He said he had 
 nothing else to put on. I then told him immediately 
 after muster to go down to the river, wash his clothes, 
 and sit on the bank and watch the passing steamboats 
 till they dried, and then mend them. This morning at 
 inspection he looked as proud as possible, stood in the 
 position of a soldier with his little fingers on the seams 
 of his pants, his beaver cocked back, and his toes stick- 
 ing through his shoes, but his skin and solitary two gar- 
 ments clean. He grinned very happily at my compli- 
 ments. I have got a fine puss, which was left me by 
 Colonel Sumner. He was educated by his daughter, 
 Mrs. Jenkins, but is too fond of getting up on my lap 
 and on my bed; he follows me all about the house and 
 stands at the door in an attitude of defiance at all pass- 
 ing dogs." 
 
 In the November following he was in Kansas, having 
 been temporarily detached from his regiment and detailed 
 to serve as a member of a court-martial ordered to con- 
 vene to try an assistant surgeon of the army for leaving 
 his station in the midst of a fatal epidemic, and wrote 
 Mrs. Lee, from Fort Riley, November 5, 1855: "The 
 court progresses slowly. A good deal was told in the 
 evidence of Saturday ; Mrs. Woods, wife of Brevet-Major 
 Woods, Sixth Infantry, whose husband had left on the 
 
58 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Sioux expedition, was taken ill at 9 p. m. on the 2d of 
 August. Her youngest child, a boy of three years, was 
 taken that night at twelve, and about six next morning 
 her eldest, a girl of five years. The mother, when told 
 that her end was approaching, asked her only attend- 
 ant, a niece of the chaplain, to take down the last re- 
 quest to her children and absent husband. The sick- 
 ness of her children had kindly been concealed from her 
 by this young lady, who managed, by the aid of a sol- 
 dier, to attend to them all. They all died that morning, 
 the 3d of August. The boy preceded, and the girl fol- 
 lowed the mother by about an hour. Their bodies rest 
 in the same grave. I pray their spirits may be united in 
 heaven. The husband, stripped of all he loved, is still 
 absent; and the same day Major Ogden, Mrs. Woods's 
 nurse, a soldier and his wife, died — making seven corpses 
 in the house in one day. Major Ogden was a valuable 
 soldier and much beloved by his men. They have 
 erected to his memory, on an adjacent hill overlooking 
 the fort and the beautiful valley of the Kansas and its 
 branches, a stone monument, their own design and 
 workmanship. The epitaph on it relates in touching 
 simplicity his services and death. He died as he had 
 lived — a soldier and a Christian, and repeated the Lord's 
 Prayer with his last breath. There were fifty-nine 
 deaths during the epidemic. Mrs. Armistead, wife of 
 Major Armistead (General Lewis Armistead, killed at 
 Gettysburg), died in six hours after she was taken. 
 Her husband had marched with his company, but only 
 proceeded thirty miles when overtaken by an express. 
 He returned in the night, found his wife dead, and after 
 her funeral in the morning — this same fatal 3d of Au- 
 gust — started for his camp, carrying his two little chil- 
 dren with him. A soldier has a hard life and but little 
 consideration." 
 
 The Second Cavalry, under the command of Colonel 
 Johnston, on the 27th of October following began its 
 long march from Jefferson Barracks to western Texas. 
 It numbered seven hundred and fifty men and eight hun- 
 dred horses. It marched under the command of its colo- 
 nel, Major Hardee being the only other field officer who 
 accompanied it, Lee and Thomas being on court-martial 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY, ^g 
 
 detail. The regiment was destined for the next few 
 years to be stationed at the various posts of western 
 Texas, and its duty was to protect the scalp of the set- 
 tler from the tomahawk of the savage. Texas has an 
 area of two hundred and seventy-four thousand square 
 miles, or one hundred and fifty million acres of land, and 
 is two and a half times the area of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land. In order to watch over such a stretch of frontier 
 it was necessary to divide the regiment up so that only 
 a few companies occupied the same post. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Lee arrived in Texas in March, 
 1856 : To Mrs. Lee he writes from San Antonio on March 
 20, 1856: "To-morrow I leave for Fort Mason, where 
 Colonel Johnston and six companies of the regiment are 
 stationed. Major Hardee and four companies are in 
 camp on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, about forty miles 
 from Belknap. I presume I shall go there. I have left it 
 with Mr. Radiminski (a native of Poland and a lieutenant 
 in the Second Cavalry) to make provision for the jour- 
 ney, and have merely indicated that I should be content 
 with a boiled ham, hard bread, a bottle of molasses, and 
 one of extract of coffee — all of which have been pro- 
 vided." Lee was afterward stationed at Camp Cooper, 
 on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, so named in honor of 
 Samuel Cooper, then adjutant general of the army ; and 
 from that point in June, 1856, he was dispatched with 
 four companies of his regiment on an expedition against 
 the Comanches, but was unsuccessful in finding them. 
 It is mentioned because it was his first service of this 
 nature, and the largest command he had ever exercised 
 in the field up to that period. The Indians of western 
 Texas in those days roved over the prairies in small 
 bodies, and would descend suddenly upon the frontier 
 settlements, scalping and killing the settlers and driving 
 off their horses and cattle. They were fine specimens of 
 irregular cavalry, were splendid riders, and when com- 
 pelled to fight, used the open or individual method of 
 warfare, after the manner of the Cossacks. 
 
 From Camp Cooper, Texas, August 4, 1856, remem- 
 bering that Mr. Custis always celebrated his country's 
 birth by a patriotic speech of welcome to the many who 
 visited him on such occasions, he says to Mrs. Lee : "i 
 
6o GENERAL LEE. 
 
 hope your father continued well and enjoyed his usual 
 celebration of the Fourth of July ; mine was spent, 
 after a march of thirty miles on one of the branches of 
 the Brazos, under my blanket, elevated on four sticks 
 driven in the ground, as a sunshade. The sun was fiery 
 hot, the atmosphere like the blast from a hot-air fur- 
 nace, the water salt, still my feelings for my country 
 were as ardent, my faith in her future as true, and my 
 hopes for her advancement as unabated as they would 
 have been under better circumstances." 
 
 A week later, having received intelligence of the 
 death of his youngest sister, Mildred, who, having mar- 
 ried a Mr. Childe, had removed to and was a resident of 
 Paris, France, he writes: ^^ The news came to me very 
 unexpectedly, and in the course of nature I might never 
 have anticipated it, as indeed I had never realized that 
 she could have preceded me on the unexplored journey 
 upon which we are all hastening. Though parted from 
 her for years, with little expectation but of a transient 
 reunion in this life, this terrible and sudden separation 
 has not been the less distressing because it was distant 
 and unlooked for. It has put an end to all hope of our 
 meeting in this world. It has cut short my early wishes 
 and daily yearnings, and so vividly does she live in my 
 imagination and affection that I can not realize she only 
 exists in my memory. I pray that her life has but just 
 begun, and I trust that our merciful God only so suddenly 
 and early snatched her away because he then saw that it 
 was the fittest moment to take her to himself. May a 
 pure and eternal life now be hers, and may we all live 
 so that when we die it may be open to us." On the 25th 
 of the same month he tells Mrs. Lee : *' I shall leave 
 here on the ist proximo for the Rio Grande, and shall 
 be absent from two and a half to three months; will 
 go from here to Fort Mason and pick up Major Thom- 
 as * and take him on with me, and thus have him as 
 a traveling companion all the way, which will be a 
 great comfort to me." And then mentioning the Co- 
 manche raids on the settlers of Texas, he says : " These 
 people give a world of trouble to man and horse, and, 
 poor creatures, they are not worth it." 
 
 * General George H. Thomas. 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 6 1 
 
 Whenever a vacancy occurred in the army in a grade 
 above lieutenant colonel, his chances for promotion were 
 always discussed. His reply to a letter from his wife, 
 informing him that his name was frequently mentioned 
 for a brigadier generalcy, was written the day he set out 
 for Ringgold Barracks to serve as a member of the court- 
 martial ordered to try Major Giles Porter, of the rifles, 
 and is very characteristic : 
 
 Camp Cooper, Texas, September i, 1856, 
 
 We are all in the hands of a kind God, who will do for us 
 what is best, and more than we deserve, and we have only to en- 
 deavor to deserve more, and to do our duty to him and ourselves. 
 May we all deserve his mercy, his care, and protection. Do not 
 give yourself any anxiety about the appointment of the brigadier. 
 If it is on my account that you feel an interest in it, I beg you will 
 discard it from your thoughts. You will be sure to be disappointed ; 
 nor is it right to indulge improper and useless hopes. It besides 
 looks like presumption to expect it. 
 
 The journey to the Rio Cxrande is best told in his own 
 words : 
 
 Ringgold Barracks, Texas, October 3, 1856. 
 
 I arrived here on the 28th, after twenty-seven consecutive days 
 of travel. The distance was greater than I had anticipated, being 
 seven hundred and thirty miles. I was detained one day on the 
 road by high water — had to swim my mules and get the wagon 
 over by hand. My mare took me veiy comfortably, but all my 
 wardrobe, from my socks up to my plume, was immersed in the 
 muddy water — epaulets, sash, etc. They are, however, all dry 
 now. Major Thomas traveled with me from Fort Mason. We 
 aie in camp together. Captain Bradford, whom we knew at Old 
 Puint, is on the court. Colonel Chapman, of the infantry, from 
 (jeorgetown, Captain Marsey, Colonels Bainbridge, Bumford. 
 Ruggles, and Seawell, and Captain Sibley, an old classmate of 
 mine. Colonel Waite is president of the court and Captain Sam- 
 uel Jones, of the artillery, judge advocate. The latter brought 
 his wife and child with him in a six-mule road wagon from Sinda, 
 about one hundred and twenty miles up the river. All the court 
 are present and yesterday we commenced the trial of our old 
 friend, Giles Porter. I hope he will clear himself of the charges 
 against him. I am writing with much inconvenience from a stiff 
 finger, caused by a puncture from a Sjjanish bayonet, while pitch- 
 ing my tent on the road, which struck the joint. Every branch 
 and leaf in this country nearly are armed with a point, and some 
 seem to poison the flesh. What a blessed thing the children are 
 not here ! They would be ruined. 
 
62 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 The discomforts of army travel and army life were 
 very great in those days. Officers would scarcely get 
 within their assigned quarters at one post before they 
 would be ordered to another, and as transportation was 
 limited to a few Government wagons, the transfer would 
 always result in loss to the officers. Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Lee gives as a glimpse of this in a letter to Mrs. Lee, 
 dated : 
 
 Ringgold Barracks, Texas, October 24, 1856. 
 
 Major Porter had for his counsel two Texan lawyers, a Judge 
 Bigelow and a Colonel Bowers, very shrewd men, accustomed to 
 the tricks and stratagems of special pleadings, which, of no other 
 avail, absorb time and stave off the question. The movement of 
 troops to Florida will not take place, I presume, until the beginning 
 of November. They are packing up and getting ready. The offi- 
 cers are selling their surplus beds and chairs, cows, goats, and 
 chickens. I am sorry to see their little comforts going, for it is 
 difficult on the frontier to collect them again. Mrs. Sibley told 
 me her chairs and cow had gone, and Mrs. Waite her goats. The 
 pigeons and chickens are disposed of on the table. General 
 Vidaun, in his attack on Camargo, seems to \>rogrQss part passu 
 with the court. I am more interested in the state of health of my 
 man Johnson, who has fever. I hope it will prove a slight case 
 for his sake and my own, for, though he is a poor cook, he is all 
 I have, and neither the major [George H. Thomas] nor I can 
 stand these long and interesting sessions of the court without 
 eating. I have read in a stray number of the New York Times, 
 that reached here somehow, a violent attack upon Secretary 
 Davis [Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War] for the removal 
 of Professor Sprole [West Point]. It makes out a severe charge 
 against the Secretary, the merits of which, though I am sorry 
 for the professor, I am too dull to see. The Secretary and Presi- 
 dent have surely the right to appoint whom they think best to 
 fill the station. I sincerely hope he will not suffer on account of 
 his losing his place. He has some strong friends in the city of 
 New York. At any rate you had better write to Miss Becky [his 
 daughter] to stay with you till her father is located. In the same 
 paper there are ill-natured strictures upon our regiment. The 
 writer is opposed to the new regiments, particularly the First and 
 Second Cavalry and the Ninth and Tenth Infantry, and calls for 
 their early disbandment. They may suit themselves in everything 
 relating to my services, and whenever they tell me they are no 
 longer required they will not be obtruded on them. 
 
 Two months later Lieutenant-Colonel Lee was at 
 Fort Brown, Texas, with thoughts filled with the ap- 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 63 
 
 preaching Christmas and his family's happiness. He 
 writes in December, 1856: "The time is approaching 
 when I trust many of you wnll be assembled around 
 the family hearth at dear Arlington another Christ- 
 mas. Though absent, my heart will be in the midst 
 of you, and I shall enjoy in imagination and memory 
 all that is going on. May nothing occur to mar or 
 cloud the family fireside, and may each be able to look 
 back with pride and pleasure at their deeds of the past 
 year, and with confidence and hope to that in prospect. 
 I can do nothing but hope and pray for you all. Last 
 Saturday I visited Matamoras, Mexico, for the first time. 
 The town looked neat, though much out at the elbow, 
 and nothing apparently going on of interest. I'he plaza 
 or square was inclosed and the trees and grass flourish- 
 ing, for which I am told the city is indebted to Major 
 William Chapman, of the Quartermaster's Department, 
 who made the improvement while it was in the occupa- 
 tion of the American army. The most attractive thing 
 to me in town were the orange trees loaded with unripe 
 fruit. The oleander was in full bloom, and there were 
 some large date, fig, and palm trees." 
 
 Two days after the great festival the following letter 
 to Mrs. Lee, giving in graphic words his views on slav- 
 ery, a- sly slap at the Pilgrim Fathers, and his personal 
 Christmas doings, was written : 
 
 Fort Brown, Texas, December 27, 1856. 
 The steamer has arrived from New Orleans, bringing full files 
 of papers and general intelligence from the " States," I have en- 
 joyed the former very much, and, in the absence of particular intel- 
 ligence, have perused with much interest the series of the Alexan- 
 dria Gazette from the 20th of November to the 8th of December 
 inclusive. Besides the usual good reading matter, I was interested 
 in the relation of local affairs, and inferred, from the quiet and 
 ordinary course of events, that all in the neighborhood was going 
 on well. 1 trust it may be so, and that you and particularly all 
 at Arlington and our friends elsewhere are well. The steamer 
 brought the President's message to Congress, and the reports of 
 the various heads of the departments, so that we are now assured 
 that the Government is in operation and the Union in existence. 
 Not that I had any fears to the contrary, but it is satisfactory al- 
 ways to have facts to go on ; they restrain supposition and con- 
 jecture, confirm faith, and bring contentment. 1 was much pleased 
 
64 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 with the President's message and the report of the Secretary of 
 War. The views of the President on the domestic institutions of 
 the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. In this en- 
 lightened age there are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that 
 slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any coun- 
 try. It isuseless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it, 
 however, a greater evil to the white than to the black race, and 
 while my feelings are strongly interested in behalf of the latter, 
 my sympathies are stronger for the former. The blacks are im- 
 measurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially, and 
 physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is neces- 
 sary for their instruction as a race, and, I hope, will prepare and 
 lead them to better things. How long their subjection may be 
 necessary is known and ordered by a wise and merciful Prov- 
 idence. Their emancipation will sooner result from a mild and 
 melting influence than the storms and contests of fiery contro- 
 versy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and 
 miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years 
 to convert but a small part of the human race, and even among 
 Christian nations what gross errors still exist ! While we see the 
 course of the final abolition of slavery is onward, and we give it 
 the aid of our prayers and all justifiable means in our power, we 
 must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands, who 
 sees the end and who chooses to work by slow things, and with 
 whom a thousand years are but as a single day ; although the 
 abolitionist must know this, and must see that he has neither the 
 right nor the power of operating except by moral means and sua- 
 sion ; and if he means well to the slave, he must not create angry 
 feelings in the master. That although he may not approve the 
 mode by which it pleases Providence to accomplish its purposes, 
 the result will never be the same ; that the reasons he gives for 
 interference in what he has no concern holds good for every kind 
 of interference with our neighbors when we disapprove their con- 
 duct. Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim 
 Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve the freedom of their 
 opinion have always proved themselves intolerant of the spiritual 
 liberty of others.^ I hope you had a joyous Christmas at Arling- 
 ton, and that it may be long and often repeated. I thought of 
 you all and wished to be with you. Mine was gratefully but 
 silently passed. I endeavored to find some little presents for the 
 children in the garrison to add to their amusement, and succeeded 
 better than I had anticipated. The stores are ver)- barren of such 
 things here, but by taking the week beforehand in my daily walks 
 I picked up little by little something for all. Tell Mildred I got 
 a beautiful Dutch doll for little Emma Jones — one of those cry- 
 ing babies that can open and shut their eyes, turn their head, etc. 
 For the two other little girls. Puss Shirley and Mary Sewell, 1 
 found handsome French tenpots to match cups given to them by 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 6$ 
 
 Mrs. Waite ; then by means of knives and books I satisfied the 
 boys. After dispensing- my presents I went to church ; the dis- 
 course was on the birth of our Saviour. It was not as simply or 
 touchingly told as it is in the Bible. By previous invitation I 
 dined with Major Thomas at 2 P. M. on roast turkey and plum 
 pudding. He and his wife were alone. I had provided a pretty 
 singing bird for the little girl, and passed the afternoon in my 
 room. God bless you all. 
 
 From the same place — Fort Brown, Texas, January 7, 
 1857 — writing to Mrs. Lee, whom he hears has been sick, 
 he says: "Systematically pursue the best course to re- 
 cover your lost health. I pray and trust your efforts 
 and the prayers of those who love you may be favorably 
 answered. Do not worry yourself about things you can 
 not help, but be content to do what you can for the 
 well-being of what belongs properly to you. Commit 
 the rest to those who are responsible, and though it is 
 the part of benevolence to aid all we can and sympathize 
 with all who are in need, it is the part of wisdom to at- 
 tend to our own affairs. Lay nothing too much to heart. 
 Desire nothing too eagerly, nor think that all things 
 can be perfectly accomplished according to our own 
 notions." 
 
 Mr. Custis, of Arlington, was very fond of cats, and 
 his large yellow " Tom " was his constant attendant. 
 Some of his household naturally grew fond of these 
 animals, his son-m-law being among them. Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Lee would not cut the skirt of his robe, as did 
 Mohammed, to prevent disturbing his cat, which was 
 sleeping on it, nor, like Cardinal Wolsey, give audience 
 with a cat seated beside him, nor let his cat rest among 
 his papers and books, as did Richelieu, nor wish a statue 
 with his right hand resting on his cat, as did Whitting- 
 ton, the famous Lord Mayor of London, but he liked to 
 see a well-fed puss, such as Gray described in his ode 
 ** On the Death of a Favorite Cat " : 
 
 Her conscious tail her joy disclosed, 
 The fair round face, the snowy beard, 
 
 The relish of her paws ; 
 Her coat that with the tortoise vies. 
 Her ears of jet and emerald eyes, 
 
 She saw and purr'5 applause. 
 
66 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 From Fort Brown, Texas, February i6, 1857, he tells 
 Mrs. Lee : '* Tell your father Mrs. Colonel Waite has a 
 fine large cat which she takes with her everywhere. He 
 is her companion by day, and sleeps on her bed at night. 
 In public conveyances she leads him in the leash, and 
 carries along a bottle of milk for his use. In her own 
 carriage he sits on her lap. I have been trying to per- 
 suade her to let me take him up to Camp Cooper, but 
 she says she can't part from him. He must go to Flori- 
 da. I have seen some fine cats in Brownsville in the 
 stores kept by Frenchmen, but no yellow ones ; the dark 
 brindle is the favorite color on the frontier. In my 
 walk the other evening I met a Mexican with a wild 
 kitten in his arms enveloped in his blanket ; it was a 
 noble specimen of the Rio Grande wildcat, spotted all 
 over with large spots like the leopard. I tried very 
 hard to buy him, but he said he was already sold. I 
 should prefer one of those at Camp Cooper. I fear, 
 though, I should have to keep him chained, for they are 
 very wild and savage." 
 
 And again from Indianola, Texas, March 27, 1857, 
 he writes to his youngest daughter: "It has been said 
 that our letters are good representatives of our minds. 
 They certainly present a good criterion for judging of 
 the character of the individual. You must be careful 
 that yours make as favorable an impression of you as I 
 hope you will deserve. I am truly sorry for the destruc- 
 tion of the Long Bridge. [Spans the Potomac between 
 Arlington and Washington.] It will be an injury to the 
 business of many and an inconvenience to you in taking 
 your music lessons. You must be a great personage 
 now — sixty pounds! I wish I had you here in all your 
 ponderosity. I want to see you so much. Can you not 
 pack up and come to the Comanche country ? I would 
 get you such a fine cat you would never look at ' Tom ' 
 again. Did I tell you Jim Nooks, Mrs. Waite's cat, was 
 dead ? He died of apoplexy. I foretold his end. Cof- 
 fee and cream for breakfast, pound cake for lunch, tur- 
 tle and oysters for dinner, buttered toast for tea, and 
 Mexican rats, taken raw, for supper. He grew enor- 
 mously and ended in a spasm. His beauty could not 
 save him. I saw in San Antonio a cat dressed up for 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 6/ 
 
 company: He had two holes bored in each ear, and in 
 each were two bows of pink and blue ribbon. His round 
 face, set in pink and blue, looked like a big owl in a full 
 blooming ivy bush. He was snow white, and wore the 
 golden fetters of his inamorata around his neck in the 
 form of a collar. His tail and feet were tipped with 
 black, and his eyes of green were truly catlike. But I 
 ' saw cats as is cats ' in Sarassa, while the stage was 
 changing mules. I stepped around to see Mr. and Mrs. 
 Monod, a French couple with whom I had passed the 
 night when I landed in Texas, in 1846, to join General 
 Wool's army. Mr. Monod received me with all the 
 shrugs of his nation, and the entrance of madame was 
 foreshadowed by the coming in of her stately cats, with 
 visages grave and tails erect, who preceded, surrounded, 
 and followed her. Her present favorite, Sodoiska, a 
 large mottled gray, was a magnificent creature, and in 
 her train she pointed out Aglai, her favorite eleven 
 years ago when I first visited her. They are of French 
 breed and education, and when the claret and water was 
 poured out for my refreshment they jumped on the table 
 for a sit-to. If I can persuade the mail stage to give 
 a place to one of that distinguished family, I will take 
 it to Camp Cooper, provided madame can trust her pet 
 into such a barbarous country and Indian society. I 
 left the wildcat on the Rio Grande; he was too savage; 
 had grown as large as a small-sized dog, had to be caged, 
 and would strike at anything that came within his reach. 
 His cage had to be strong, and consequently heavy, so 
 I could not bring it. He would pounce upon a kid as 
 Tom Tita [the cat at Arlington] would on a mouse, and 
 would whistle like a tiger when you approached him. 
 Be a good child and think always of your devoted 
 father." 
 
 From the same place on the next day he lets his wife 
 know how difficult it was for army ofificers to retain their 
 servants: 
 
 Indianola, -Texas, March 28, 1857. 
 
 Major Thomas, anticipating a long sojourn, brought down 
 Mrs. Thomas with him, who told me last evening of her troubles 
 in relation to her womenkind. She brought two sisters from New 
 Orleans under obligation to remain in her service two years. One 
 
es GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of them has become enamored of a soldier at Fort Mason, and 
 has engaged herself to marry him. Colonel Taylor informs me 
 that his two women servants married soldiers at Fort Brown with- 
 out his knowledge about a fortnight after his arrival. It seems 
 we have our troubles wherever we are and can not escape them. 
 
 The court-martials being over, Colonel Lee started 
 for his post, and at Fort Mason, e/t route, on the 4th of 
 April, 1857, writes: " I write to inform you of my prog- 
 ress thus far on my journey. I arrived here yesterday 
 in a cold norther, and though I pitched my tent in the 
 most sheltered place I could find, I was surprised to see 
 this morning, when getting up, my bucket of water, which 
 was sitting close by my bed, so hard frozen that I had 
 to break the ice before I could pour the w^ater into the 
 basin. On visiting the horses in the night they seemed 
 to suffer much with cold, notwithstanding I had stretched 
 their picket line under the lee of a dense thicket to pro- 
 tect them from the wind. This post has the advantage 
 of Camp Cooper in providing habitable though homely 
 quarters for officers and men. This is Easter Sunday. 
 1 hope you have been able to attend the services at 
 Church. My own have been performed alone in my 
 tent, I hope with a humble, grateful, and penitent -heart, 
 and will be acceptable to our Heavenly Father. May 
 he continue his mercies to us both and all our children, 
 relatives and friends, and in his own good time unite us 
 in his worship, if not on earth, forever in heaven." 
 
 And on his arrival writes : 
 
 Camp Cooper, Texas, April 19, 1857. 
 
 After an absence of over seven months I have returned to my 
 Texas home. I heard of Indians on the way but met none. I 
 feel always as safe in the wilderness as in the crowded city. I 
 know in whose powerful hands I am, and on Him I rely and feel 
 that in all our life we are upheld and sustained by Divine Provi- 
 dence, and that Providence requires us to use the means he has 
 put under our control. He designs no blessing to idle and in- 
 active wishes, and the only miracle he now exhibits to us is the 
 power he gives to Truth and Justice to work their way in this 
 wicked world. After so long an absence I found my valuables in 
 a better condition than I had anticipated. My tent had frequently 
 been prostrated by storms but always rose again. It was, of course, 
 attended by a natural crash not worth considering, could you re 
 place your crockery, buckets, etc., which is impossible. 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 69 
 
 The change of the weather in Texas is the sub- 
 ject of a letter dated April 26, 1857: "The changes 
 of the weather here are very rapid. Yesterday, for 
 instance, I was in my white linen coat and shirt all 
 the afternoon, and the thermometer in my tent, with 
 the walls raised and a fine breeze blowing through it, 
 stood at eighty-nine degrees. I could not bear the 
 blanket at night, but about twelve o'clock a 'norther' 
 came roaring down the valley of the Clear Fork and 
 made all my blankets necessary. This morning fires 
 and overcoats are in fashion again. A general court- 
 martial has been convened here for the trial of Lieuten- 
 ant Eagle, Second Cavalry. I am president of the 
 court, I am sorry to say. Colonel Bainbridge, Major 
 Thomas, Major Van Horn, Major Paul, Captain King, 
 and others are members. I have pitched a couple of 
 tents by the side of mine for the Major and Mrs. 
 Thomas, for she has accompanied him again, and they 
 are to take their meals with me. The major can fare as 
 I do, but I fear she will fare badly, for my man Kumer 
 is both awkward and unskilled. I can, however, give 
 them plenty of bread and beef, but, with the exception of 
 preserved vegetables, fruits, etc., I can give very little 
 else. I sent yesterday to the settlements below and got 
 a few eggs, some butter, and one old hen. I shall not 
 reflect upon he?'. The game is poor now and out of 
 season, and we are getting none of it. In my next I 
 shall be better able to tell you how I got on with my 
 entertainments." 
 
 In a letter dated Camp Cooper, June 9, 1857, he 
 mentions the sickness of the troops : " The great heat 
 has produced much sickness among the men. The little 
 children, too, have suffered. A bright little boy died a 
 few days since from it. He was the only child, and his 
 parents were much affected by his loss. They expressed 
 a great desire to have him buried with Christian rites, 
 and asked me to perform the ceremony; so for the first 
 time in my life I read the beautiful funeral service of 
 our Church over the grave to a large and attentive 
 audience of soldiers." 
 
 And on the 25th of June, 1857, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Lee, in advising his wife and one of his daughters to go 
 6 
 
70 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 to the Springs, suggested that they be escorted by his 
 youngest son, saying: "A young gentleman who has 
 read Virgil must surely be competent to take care of 
 two ladies, for before I had advanced that far I was my 
 mother's outdoor agent and confidential messenger. 
 Your father [G. W. P. Custis] must have a pleasant 
 time at Jamestown, judging from the newspaper report 
 of the celebration. Tell him I at last have a prospect 
 of getting a puss. I have heard of a batch of kittens 
 at a settler's town on the river, and have the promise 
 of one. I have stipulated if not entirely yellow, it must 
 at least have some yellow in the composition of the 
 color of its coat; but how I shall place it — when I get 
 it — and my mouse on amicable terms I do not know." 
 
 In a letter dated Camp Cooper, June 22, 1857, he 
 tells his wife again of the sickness of the troops and 
 of the death of a little boy, the son of a sergeant, about 
 one year old. " His father came to me," he writes, 
 " with the tears flowing down his cheeks, and asked me 
 to read the funeral services over his body, which 1 did 
 at the grave for the second time in my life. I hope I 
 will not be asked again ; for, though I must believe it 
 is far better for the child to be called by its heavenly 
 Creator into his presence in its purity and innocence, 
 unpolluted by sin and uncontaminated by the vices of 
 the world, still, it so wrings a parent's heart with anguish 
 that it is painful to see. Yet I know it was done in 
 mercy to both. The child has been saved from all 
 misery and sin here. The father has been given a 
 touching appeal and powerful inducement to prepare 
 for hereafter." 
 
 In the summer of 1857, Colonel Johnston being or- 
 dered to report to Washington for the purpose of taking 
 charge of the Utah expedition, Lieutenant-Colonel Lee 
 assumed command of his regiment. The d^ath of his 
 father-in-law, Mr. Custis, recalled him to Arlington in 
 the fall of that year ; but he returned as soon as pos- 
 sible to his regimental headquarters in Texas. The 
 death of the "adopted son of Washington," October 10, 
 1857, in his seventy-sixth year, was greatly deplored. 
 His unbounded hospitality was as broad as his acres, 
 and his vivid recollections of the Father of his Country, 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 
 
 T 
 
 though only eighteen when he died, and whose memory- 
 lie venerated, were most charmingly narrated. His 
 father, John Parke Custis, the son of Mrs. Washington 
 by her first husband, was Washington's aid-de-camp at 
 the siege of Yorktown, and died at the early age of 
 twenty-eight, 
 
 G. W. P. Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington, 
 was educated at Princeton. His early life was passed 
 at Mount Vernon, but after the death of his grand- 
 mother, in 1802, he built Arlington House, opposite the 
 city of Washington, on an estate left him by his father. 
 In his will he decreed that all of his slaves should be 
 set free after the expiration of five years. The time of 
 manumission came in 1863, when the flames of war were 
 fiercely raging ; but amid the exacting duties incident 
 to the position of army commander, Robert E. Lee, his 
 executor, summoned them together within his lines and 
 gave them their free papers, as well as passes through 
 the Confederate lines to go whither they would. 
 
 Mr. Custis in his will says : " 1 give and bequeath 
 to my dearly beloved daughter, Mary Custis Lee, my 
 Arlington House estate, containing seven hundred acres, 
 more or less, and my mill on Four Mile Run, in the 
 County of Alexandria, and the lands of mine adjacent 
 to said mill in the counties of Alexandria and Fairfax, 
 in the State of Virginia, the use and benefit of all just 
 mentioned during the term of her natural life. . . . My 
 daughter, Mary Custis Lee, has the privilege by this 
 will of dividing my family plate among my grandchil- 
 dren ; but the Mount Vernon plate, together with every 
 article I possess relating to Washington, and that came 
 from Mount Vernon, is to remain with my daughter at 
 Arlington House during said daughter's life, and at her 
 death to go to my eldest grandson, George Washington 
 Custis Lee, and to descend from him entire and un- 
 changed to my latest posterity." These articles were 
 taken from Arlington, General McClellan writes, and put 
 into the Patent Ofiice in Washington for safe-keeping 
 until such times as they should be restored to their 
 rightful owner, and that he [McClellan] would be willing 
 to testify to that fact in a court of justice, if it were 
 necessary. They were removed afterward from the 
 
1^ 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Patent Office and placed in the National Museum, where 
 they are now, and all applications for their restoration 
 have been refused. A decision of the Supreme Court 
 restored to General Custis Lee Arlington, and Congress 
 should return these articles of Washington, which had 
 been taken from his grandfather's house during the war. 
 
 Petty frontier war with savages was not congenial 
 to the tastes or in accord with the genius of such a sol- 
 dier as Lee. Army life there was not pleasant to offi- 
 cers of his rank ; the forts were surrounded on all sides 
 by long strips of dreary, uninhabited territory, and 
 in order to better protect this vast section of western 
 Texas, the ten companies constituting his regiment of 
 cavalry were divided up into garrisons of one or two 
 companies to each post. Prairie scouting was done 
 principally by subalterns with small detachments, a lieu- 
 tenant and twenty troopers being frequently detailed 
 for that purpose. The duties of a department or regi- 
 mental commander were for the most part supervisory. 
 
 No great continental lines of railroad bound in those 
 days ocean to ocean with bands of steel. No telegraphs 
 bore on electric wings communication from fort to fort; 
 the United States mail was carried by armed soldiers on 
 small mules, whose habitual gait was the gallop, while of- 
 ficers and their families were transported in ambulances 
 drawn by mules, and accompanied by armed escorts. 
 At the end of each day's journey the night was spent 
 in tents. Sibley, of the Second Dragoons, when travel- 
 ing in this way with his wife and daughter over Texas 
 prairies, first conceived the idea of the famous tent 
 called after him; he w^as caught in a "norther," and 
 made a fire in his wall tent during the night, hoping the 
 smoke would go out of the opening in front ; it did not do 
 so, and the next day he worked at the model of the tent, 
 in shape similar to the Indian tepee; the present army 
 Sibley tent is the result. Officers stationed at frontier 
 posts in those days could not communicate with the 
 headquarters of the Department at San Antonio for 
 many days, or hear from their homes in the States for 
 many weeks. 
 
 The Indians, too, were not foemen worthy of Lee's 
 steel ; the Comanches were then the largest and fiercest 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 73 
 
 tribe in Texas. Attaclied to Lee's first station, Camp 
 Cooper, was an '' Indian reserve." Tiie Government 
 was making its first experiment toward civilizing the 
 savage. The Indians were induced to come to such 
 reservation, where they were fed and tai^en care of at 
 Government expense; the great majority of them did 
 not deign to associate so famiHarly with the pale faces; 
 some, however, came, especially in the winter months; 
 but when the grass grew high in the spring, and the 
 game fat, they resumed their wandering life, and with 
 bent bow and a quiver full of arrows, lay in ambush to 
 kill those who had fed them. Catumseh, one of the Co- 
 manche chiefs, was at the reserve when Lee was at Camp 
 Cooper. With true official courtesy the lieutenant colonel, 
 as the commandant of the fort and the representative 
 of the Great Father at Washington, decided to visit him, 
 and told the interpreter to say to the chief that he would 
 treat him as a friend so long as his conduct and that of 
 the tribe deserved it, but would meet him as an enemy the 
 moment he failed to keep his word. Catumseh was not 
 much pleased with Lee's views, receiving them with an 
 emphatic grunt, relying principally upon producing a 
 profound impression upon his visitor by the information 
 that he was a "big Indian" and had six wives, and 
 would have more respect for Lee if he had followed his 
 example. The visit was not productive of results, and 
 failed to establish the desired ente?ite cordiale between the 
 two chiefs. They separated, mutually convinced that the 
 other was a cunning specimen who had to be watched. 
 During the interview Catumseh was in all probability 
 taking the measure of Lee's scalp, while Lee was in 
 turn disgusted with the paint and ornaments of the In- 
 dian, for we find him writing word that he " was ren- 
 dered more hideous than Nature made him." These 
 Indians were treacherous in disposition and filthy in 
 habit ; a nomadic life made them active, vigilant, and a 
 foe not to be despised. Their strength, however, was in- 
 ferior to that of the soldier, because their food, clothing, 
 and exposure were not conducive to its development. 
 For breakfast, dinner, and supper, they had the raw meat 
 of the antelope, deer, and buffalo. It was their habit to 
 cut it into long strips, put it over the backs of their ponies, 
 
74 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ride on it to keep it in place, and whenever hungry on 
 the march, cut off a piece and eat it. They were match- 
 less horsemen, and could crawl under or over the side 
 of a horse with the ease a squirrel could circumscribe a 
 tree. The bow and arrow was their principal weapon, 
 and the precision of their aim was wonderful. They 
 would draw rings a few feet in diameter on the ground, 
 and shooting an arrow to a surprising height in the air, 
 cause it to return and stick in a previously designated 
 circle. The green turf was the couch of the red man, 
 the blue sky his coverlet ; stoicism and courage were 
 the characteristics of the race, but combined with murder, 
 theft, and perfidy. Colonel Lee was doubtless glad to 
 get away from them. On that Sunday afternoon, Octo- 
 ber i6, 1859, when John Brown with a small force 
 marched into Harper's Ferry with the avowed purpose 
 of liberating slaves and inaugurating war between the 
 whites and blacks. Colonel Lee was enjoying the hospi- 
 tality of his Arlington home ; having asked for the sec- 
 ond furlough, in a long career, to settle up the estate of 
 Mr. Custis, being his sole executor, he was within range 
 of the Secretary of War when that officer decided to 
 take prompt measures to regain the United States Ar- 
 senal which Brown had captured. No one then knew 
 the limits of this aggressive action of Brown. An of- 
 ficer well equipped by experience, courage, and bal- 
 anced judgment was required to represent the Gov- 
 ernment. The needle in the Secretary of War's office 
 turned by mere force of instinct to Lee, and he prompt- 
 ly responded to the summons. A battalion of marines 
 from the navy yard at Washington was ordered to be 
 put at his service, and the troops of the regular army, 
 at Fort Monroe. The " John Brown raid," as it was 
 termed, was the natural outgrowth of the agitation by 
 the abolitionists of the slavery question on the mind of 
 a wild fanatic. The mad actor in the Harper's Ferry 
 tragedy was born in the State of Kentucky, and for the 
 greater part of fifty-nine years had been a monomaniac 
 on the subject of freedom for the negro. His mind had 
 become overexcited, and m his frenzy he had already 
 performed deeds which placed him close to the dangling 
 rope. At Springfield, Mass., where he once resided, he 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. ^75 
 
 formed an order called the " League of Gileadites," 
 pledged to rescue fugitive slaves. To this order he de- 
 livered addresses in manuscript, saying in one of them : 
 " Stand by one another and by your friends while a 
 drop of blood remains and by hanging, if you must." 
 Nme years afterward in Virginia the rope was placed 
 in uncomfortable proximity to his own neck. 
 
 Kansas when a Territory, and an applicant for ad- 
 mission to the American Union, was made the abolition 
 battlefield ; John Brown went there, of course, for agi- 
 tation was the business of his life. Acts of violence 
 were frequent. Excitement in the Territory grew, and 
 finally culminated in the Pottawattamie massacre, where 
 five unoffending citizens were called from their beds 
 and assassinated by Brown and his companions. The 
 commotion created by the carnage increased the noto- 
 riety of the butcher, and he was an abolition hero. 
 Eastern agitators placed on his head the crown of hero- 
 ism, and offers of arms and money were freely tendered. 
 His fanaticism grew, and his zeal knew no proper bounds. 
 Virginia was selected as the best point to carry out his 
 plans. There he would incite the negroes to rebellion 
 and furnish them with arms from the United States 
 Arsenal. In his madness he pictured a great and grow- 
 ing army of black recruits from all portions of the 
 Southern States. 
 
 War for the extermination of slavery should begin in 
 the State where the Dutch first landed the negro. The 
 choice was approved by New England supporters who lost 
 their money while Brown lost his life. Lee went to Har- 
 per's Ferry. The marines, under their gallant officers, 
 battered down the door of the engine-house into which 
 he had fled with a portion of his men for refuge from the 
 aroused citizens. Brown was captured, tried, convicted, 
 and hung on the 2d of December, 1859. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Lee, from Harper's Ferry, De- 
 cember I, 1859, says in a letter to his wife: "I arrived 
 here yesterday, about noon, with four companies from 
 Fort Monroe, and was busy all the evening getting ac- 
 commodations for the men and posting pickets to insure 
 timely notice of the approach of the enemy. The feel- 
 ings of the community seem to have calmed down, and 
 
^6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 I have been received with every kindness. I presume 
 we are fixed here until after the i6th. To-morrow will 
 probably see the last of Captain Brown (Old John 
 Brown). There will be less interest for the others, but 
 still I think the troops will not be withdrawn till they 
 are similarly disposed of. This morning I was intro- 
 duced to Mrs. Brown, who with a Mr. Tyndale and Mrs. 
 McKim, all from Philadelphia, has come on to have a 
 last interview with her husband. As it is a matter over 
 which I have no control, and wish to take none, I re- 
 ferred them to General William B. Taliaferro.* Tell 
 Smith [his brother in the navy] that no charming women 
 have insisted on taking charge of me, as they are always 
 doing of him. I am left to my own resources." 
 
 A committee of Congress was appointed to investi- 
 gate the matter, who reported that the invasion was an 
 act of lawless ruffians under the sanction of no public 
 or political authority, distinguished from ordinary vio- 
 lence only by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them 
 and by the fact that the money to maintain the expedi- 
 tion, and the large amounts they had brought with them, 
 had been contributed by other States of the Union. 
 
 Virginia, not knowing the extent of the insurrec- 
 tion, was preparing for war. Henry A. Wise, then 
 Governor, promptly took active measures to preserve 
 the peace of his State, and everywhere volunteers ten- 
 dered their service. When Colonel Lee was ordered to 
 Harper's Ferry, J. E. B. Stuart, a young lieutenant of the 
 First Cavalry, was in Washington on leave of absence, 
 and happened to be at Arlington on that day. Fond of 
 enterprise and indifferent to danger, he at once volun- 
 teered as aid-de-camp to Lee, asked and received per- 
 mission to accompany him, and was the first to recognize 
 Brown, having seen him in Kansas. Afterward he be- 
 came the great cavalry chieftain of the army Lee com- 
 manded. The prisoners at Harper's Ferry were at once 
 turned over to the United States District Attorney, Mr. 
 Robert Ould, and Lee returned to Washington and Ar- 
 lington, and in a short time was again on his way to 
 resume his official duties in Texas. We find him writing 
 
 * Commanding the Virginia troops. 
 
AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 
 
 77 
 
 from San Antonio, Texas, June 25, i860, to Mrs. Lee, his 
 impressions of one of the holidays there: "Yesterday," 
 he says, " was St. John's Day, and the principal, .or at 
 least visible, means of adoration or worship seemed to 
 consist in riding horses. So every Tvlexican, and indeed 
 others, who could procure a quadruped were cavorting 
 through the streets, with the thermometer over a hun- 
 dred degrees in the shade, a scorching sun, and dust 
 several inches thick. You can imagine the state of the 
 atmosphere and suffering of the horses, if not the pleas- 
 ure of the riders. As everything of the horse tribe had 
 to be brought into requisition to accommodate the bipeds, 
 unbroken colts and worn-out hacks were saddled for the 
 occasion. The plunging and kicking of the former pro- 
 cured excitement for, and the distress of the latter mer- 
 riment to the crowd. I did not know before that St. 
 John set so high a value upon equitation." 
 
 There he remained until summoned to Washington in 
 February, 1861, reaching that city on the ist of March. 
 Once more, and for the last time, he was with his family 
 under the roof of stately old Arlington. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 Robert E. Lee was now fifty-four years old, and the 
 wheel of time had recorded thirty-two years of honorable 
 service in the army of the United States. During that 
 time his country had grown in population and increased 
 in wealth and territory far exceeding the expectations 
 and hopes of her people. His profession had absorbed 
 his attention to such an extent that he had scarcely no- 
 ticed a gathering war cloud destined to discharge death 
 and destruction upon the American Republic, as well as 
 mark a most important epoch in his own life and career. 
 The Constitution adopted by the Convention at Phila- 
 delphia in 1787 was the result of a compromise of the 
 opinions of its members. The scope and extent of the 
 powers to be conferred on a government to be created 
 by the representatives of the States, the line marking 
 those powers, and the rights reserved by the States, was 
 a most difificult problem to solve. On the one hand, if 
 too little power were conferred on the legislative, execu- 
 tive, and judicial departments of the Federal Govern- 
 ment, its organization might at any moment be broken 
 to pieces, because not strong enough to enforce its legal 
 decrees. On the other hand, should too much power be 
 delegated, a strong central government might result, and 
 the creators — the States — might be crushed out of exist- 
 ence by an instrument of their own creation. The people 
 would in that case be returned to a form of government 
 they abhorred, and from whose tyrannical methods their 
 forefathers had breasted the waves of the Atlantic, and 
 incurred all dangers in settling a newly discovered coun- 
 try. The safety of the States was the safety of the peo- 
 ple, and only limited and defined powers must be con- 
 
 (78) 
 
WAR. 
 
 79 
 
 ferred upon the Government of the United States. The 
 Constitution, the supreme law of the land, must state in 
 writing exactly the rights delegated by the States for 
 their common government. The powers not so dele- 
 gated were reserved by the States to themselves. They 
 possessed them because they had never parted with them. 
 An attempt in the Philadelphia Convention to insert a 
 clause in the Constitution prohibiting a State's with- 
 drawal from the Union then being formed could not 
 have succeeded, while an express provision authorizing 
 such secession would have been regarded as unwise and 
 suggestive of disunion of States which were then trying to 
 form *' a more perfect union." If the framers of the Con- 
 stitution, when at work in the Quaker City, said nothing 
 upon this very important point, the States to be bound, 
 if they ratified it, said much. They did not purpose to 
 be blmdly gagged and bound to the wheels of the Fed- 
 eral chariot, for they possessed sovereign power. 
 
 In the Declaration of Independence the colonies 
 were not declared independent of Great Britain in a col- 
 lective capacity, but each separate colony was trans- 
 formed thereby into an independent State; and so his 
 Britannic Majesty treats them by name in a provisional 
 agreement in 1782. When George III withdrew the 
 scepter of his power from the Virginia colony it was an 
 empire in territory, and became absolutely a free, inde- 
 pendent, and sovereign State. The allegiance of her 
 citizens to her was undisputed and admitted. Before 
 the life-blood could circulate in the veins of the new 
 Government it must be stamped with the approbation 
 of the States; it had no power to act unless ratified by 
 nme of these States. If the other four did not ratify 
 the Constitution, the government so formed was not 
 binding on them. The State conventions called for this 
 purpose were for the most part cautious and exceedingly 
 slow of action. 
 
 To the State of Lee's nativity the independence of the 
 colonies and their union afterward as States was largely 
 due. One of her sons held the sword and another the 
 pen that accomplished this great work. The superb ora- 
 tory of another kept the camp fires of the Revolution 
 burning brightly, while in ringing tones still another of 
 
So GENERAL LEE. 
 
 her citizens moved " That these united colonies are, and 
 of right ought to be, free and independent States, and 
 that all political connection between these States and the 
 State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis- 
 solved." Nine States, a requisite number, had approved 
 the Constitution before Virginia acted. The debates in 
 her convention on this subject have no equal in intel- 
 lectual vigor. Mental giants, full-armed with wisdom, 
 fought on either side. In one rank — opposed to the 
 adoption of the Constitution as it came from the hands 
 of its framers — was Patrick Henry, George Mason, Rich- 
 ard Henry Lee, James Monroe, Benjamin Harrison, and 
 William Grayson. In the other were James Madison, 
 John Marshall, Edmund Randolph, Edmund Pendleton, 
 and General Henry Lee, and behind them, as a power- 
 ful reserve, was the great influence of Washington. On 
 the final vote friends of the measure secured a majority 
 of only ten votes. The next State to adopt it after 
 Virginia was New York, and she did so by on-ly three 
 votes. North Carolina did not join the Union immedi- 
 ately, and Rhode Island for fifteen months, after the new 
 Constitution had gone into operation. The delay in the 
 action of these States, and the close votes in so many 
 others, was the result of an undefined fear in the public 
 mind that as years rolled on the government they were 
 then creating might in turn destroy the autonomy of 
 the various States. 
 
 Massachusetts, South Carolina, and New York had 
 made, as the price of their ratifying the Constitution, 
 amendments to guard as far as possible against consoli- 
 dated powers. Robert Lee knew all this; he knew also 
 that his own State had been remarkably careful upon 
 this important point, for she had declared, upon consent- 
 ing to go into the Union then formed by the action of 
 nine States, "that the powers granted under the Con- 
 stitution, being truly derived from the people of the 
 United States, may be resumed by them whenever the 
 same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." 
 Without any act of his, face to face he was confronted 
 with the great question — loyalty to the General Govern- 
 ment or loyalty to Virginia. Would it be treason to 
 substitute for the E Fluribus Uiimn written upon the 
 
WAR. 
 
 scroll of the beak of the eagle Virginia's Sic Semper 
 Tyrannis ? He had been taught when a boy that his 
 first duty was to his mother Commonwealth. How, 
 then, could he be a traitor if he placed his hand in hers 
 and knelt at her feet when she called him lovingly to 
 her side ? His elevated character and conscientiousness 
 of purpose appealed to him to decide in an honorable 
 way this question. During those anxious moments how 
 his thoughts must have marched and countermarched 
 upon constitutional questions! At that very time he 
 might have heard a distinguished senator, who after- 
 ward became Vice-President and President of the 
 United States, declare from his seat that the Federal 
 Government possessed no sovereign power; that it 
 could not coerce a State; that under the Constitution 
 you can not apprehend any of the States as a party ; 
 and that all the powers of the General Government were 
 derived, and that it had no single primitive power. The 
 study of the early history of his country convinced Lee 
 that while the secession of a State from the Union might 
 not be a remedy, it was not a violation of the Consti- 
 tution so far as the original thirteen States were con- 
 cerned. .He probably found also, in the anxious study 
 he was then making to arrive at a proper solution of the 
 question, that this theory of constitutional government 
 was recognized by most of the States when the Union 
 was formed. 
 
 For instance, Massachusetts had declared in 1809, 
 when the Embargo Act was passed by Congress, that it 
 was not bmding upon her citizens; and in December, 
 1810, one of her members of Congress declared that if 
 Louisiana were admitted into the Union it would leacj 
 to its dissolution ; the New England States would 
 secede, "amicably if they mighc. forcibly if they must." 
 And he found similar instances in the history of Penn- 
 sylvania and Kentucky. In Pennsylvania he found 
 that that State had placed herself on record by an act 
 of her Legislature, as well as by her Governor, to pre- 
 vent a decree of a United States judge from being exe- 
 cuted, boldly asserting that it was her duty to protect 
 her citizens, and to her their allegiance must first be 
 given. In his examination of this perplexing subject 
 
 ^ hJ [J ^ 
 
82 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 he might have noticed that the Constitution of the 
 United States at that time made it mandatory on the 
 Governor of a State to give up a fugitive from justice 
 to the Governor of the State he had fled from, in order 
 that he might be tried by the laws of that State ; but 
 that, notwithstanding the Constitution, governors of 
 sovereign States did not give up offenders unless they 
 chose to do so. Indeed, in a rendition contest between 
 the States of Ohio and Kentucky, Mr. Taney, then Chief 
 Justice of the United States, delivering a decision of 
 the Court, said: "While admitting that the Constitu- 
 tion was mandatory on the governors, there was not a 
 line in it which gave power to the General Government 
 to compel a State to do anything." 
 
 Lee had probably read, too, that a convention com- 
 posed of the representatives of the New England States 
 had assembled in Hartford, Conn., in 1814, to protest 
 against the war with England because of the great dam- 
 age it was inflicting on the shipping interests of that 
 section. He might have seen that secession was advo- 
 cated as the remedy, w^hile the declaration was made 
 that " if the Union be destined to dissolution," some 
 new form of confederacy should be substituted among 
 those States which shall not need to maintain a federal 
 relation with each other. Fortunately, peace was de- 
 clared with Great Britam, or at that time there might have 
 been a secession of the New England States. It was an 
 interesting question to this lieutenant colonel of cavalry, 
 that if this action had been taken by the New England 
 States, and the States remaining in the Union had in- 
 vaded their territory for the purpose of coercion, upon 
 what side would the large majority of the citizens of the 
 New England States have been found fighting? 
 
 The more Robert E. Lee thought upon the subject 
 the more he became convinced, first, that Virginia in 
 seceding from the Union was exercising the right she 
 had reserved when she entered it. Second, that if war 
 must follow, his sword should be drawn in her defense, 
 and not be pointed against her. In the soil of old Vir- 
 ginia were buried those nearest and dearest to him. His 
 ancestors had first settled within her limits. She was to 
 be invaded because she exercised a right not denied her 
 
WAR. 83 
 
 by the Constitution, and her course had been determined 
 by a convention of the representatives of her people duly 
 called to consider the question ; and a convention voiced 
 the highest authority of a State. He may have deplored 
 her action, but he could not oppose his judgment to the 
 collective wisdom of her representatives whose action 
 had been solemnly indorsed by her people at the polls. 
 The irrepressible conflict had to be met in his own per- 
 son. He had seen, but could not prevent the sections 
 from drifting apart. If the interests of the manufactur- 
 ing and shipping States of the North and the agricul- 
 tural States of the South were not in entire harmony, he 
 had hoped that a possible remedy might be found. Mr. 
 Lincoln received only 1,857,000 of the popular vote, 
 while Breckinridge, Douglas, and Bell received 2,800,- 
 000 ; but that was not a sufficient reason in his opinion 
 to declare war. If he had much to do with John 
 Brown's body lying moldering in the ground, the fact 
 that his spirit was marching on down the abolition ranks 
 did not disturb him. His State when a colony was op- 
 posed to slavery. The first speech his eloquent rela- 
 tive, Richard Henry Lee, ever made was in favor of the 
 motion to lay so heavy a duty on the importation of 
 slaves as effectually to put an end to the iniquitous and 
 disgraceful traffic in the colony of Virginia. 
 
 Lee had read, too, Jefferson's indictment of Great 
 Britain for allowing the slave trade when he penned the 
 Declaration of Independence. He knew that slavery ex- 
 isted in the Northern States so long as it was profitable, 
 and was abolished when it was not, and that the May- 
 flower which landed the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth 
 Rock sailed on its very next voyage with a cargo of 
 slaves. He had found the negroes shucking corn and 
 hoeing potatoes. They had always been kindly treated 
 by him ; and no more happy, contented, well-clothed 
 and well-fed negroes ever existed than those at Arling- 
 ton. He would not have fought to preserve slavery; he 
 disapproved of it and had years before freed his own, 
 and Mr. Custis had freed by will all of his. He re- 
 gretted war, but did not regret as one of its results the 
 probable freedom of the slave, although he knew that 
 slavery had called a race of savages from superstition 
 
34 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and idolatry and imparted to them a general knowledge 
 of the precepts of religion. Indeed, he is recorded as 
 saying at that time that if he owned all the negroes of 
 the South he would gladly yield them up for the preser- 
 vation of the Union. In 1861 Lee hoped and prayed 
 that the Temple of American Liberty might still stand 
 in the majesty of its vast proportions, complete in all of 
 its parts, each pillar representing with equal strength an 
 American State. He sincerely hoped each State would 
 pursue the path designated for it by the Conslitution, 
 as the planets revolve in well-defined orbits around the 
 great central sun. He wTote from Texas in 1861 that 
 he could not anticipate a greater calamity for the coun- 
 try than the dissolution of the Union, and that he was 
 willing to sacrifice anything but honor for its preserva- 
 tion. And in another letter from Fort Mason, Texas, 
 January, 1861, to Mrs. Lee, he says : " You see by a for- 
 mer letter that I received from Major Nicholl, Everett's 
 Life of Washington you sent me, and enjoyed its peru- 
 sal very much. How his spirit would be grieved could 
 he see the wreck of his mighty labors! I will not, how- 
 ever, permit myself to believe, till all ground for hope is 
 gone, that the work of his noble deeds will be destroyed, 
 and that his precious advice and virtuous example will 
 soon be forgotten by his countrymen. As far as I can 
 judge from the papers, we are between a state of anarchy 
 and civil war. May God avert from us both. I fear 
 mankind for years will not be sufficiently Christianized 
 to bear the absence of restraint and force. I see that 
 four States have declared themselves out of the Union. 
 Four more apparently will follow their example. Then 
 if the border States are dragged into the gulf of revo- 
 lution, one half of the country will be arrayed against 
 the other, and I must try and be patient and wait the 
 end, for I can do nothing to hasten or retard it." 
 
 It was hard for Lee to give up his position in the 
 army and separate himself from his army comrades and 
 associations. He wrote in 1849, from Mobile, Ala.: 
 " I have met many offfcers of the garrison who were 
 with me in Mexico. You have often heard me say 
 the cordiality and friendship in the army was the great 
 attraction of the service. It is that, I believe, that lias 
 
WAR. 85 
 
 kept me in it so long, and it is that which now makes 
 me fear to leave it. I do not know where I should meet 
 with so much friendship out of it." 
 
 While he was wrestling with this disturbing question 
 at Arlington his old commander, Scott, just across the 
 river, was pleading for him to remain in the service of 
 the United States. The veteran general had impressed 
 the President with the distinguished services of Colonel 
 Lee, and urged that every effort should be made to 
 keep him on the side of the Union, going so far as to 
 say that he would be worth fifty thousand men to their 
 cause. Probably it was due to Scott that Mr. Lincoln 
 requested Mr. Francis Preston Blair to have an inter- 
 view with Lee, and secure him by the tempting offer 
 of the command of the active army of the United States. 
 Neither the President nor his officers knew the man. 
 Three years after the war, in a letter to the Honorable 
 Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, dated February 25, 
 1868, is found for the first time his account of this in- 
 terview : "After listening to Blair's remarks," writes 
 Lee, " I declined the offer he made me to take command 
 of the army that was to be brought into the field stat- 
 ing, as candidly and courteously as I could, that, though 
 opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take 
 no part in an invasion of the Southern States. 
 
 " I went directly from the interview with Mr. Blair to 
 the office of General Scott, told him of the proposition 
 that had been made me, and my decision. After reflection 
 upon returning home, I concluded that I ought no longer 
 to retain any commission 1 held in the United States 
 Army, and on the second morning thereafter I forwarded 
 my resignation to General Scott. At the time I hoped that 
 peace would have been preserved ; that some way would 
 be found to save the country from the calamities of war; 
 and I then had no other intention than to pass the re- 
 mainder of my life as a private citizen. Two days after- 
 ward, on the invitation of the Governor of Virginia, I 
 repaired to Richmond, found that the convention then 
 in session had passed an ordinance withdrawing the State 
 from the Union, and accepted the commission of com- 
 mander of its forces, which was tendered me." 
 
 "Since the Son of Man stood on the mount," said an 
 7 
 
86 * GENERAL LEE. 
 
 orator, "and saw all the kingdoms of the earth and the 
 glory thereof stretching before him, and turned away 
 from them to the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, 
 and to the Cross of Calvary beyond, no follower of the 
 meek and lowly Saviour can have undergone a more try- 
 ing ordeal, or met it with a more heroic spirit of sacrifice." 
 
 Two and a half months before Colonel Lee's resig- 
 nation the conventions of South Carolina, Mississippi, 
 Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had 
 respectively passed ordinances taking these States out 
 of the Union ; and their delegates had assembled at 
 Montgomery, Ala., and formed a new government, under 
 the name of the Confederate States of America. On 
 February 4th, the date of the birth of the new govern- 
 ment, at Virginia's request, a peace conference, com- 
 posed of delegates from twenty-one States, met in Wash- 
 ington. The Congress of the United States rejected 
 all terms of settlement proposed by it, and the rising 
 tide of sectional strife passed the high-water mark. 
 
 If the seven Southern States which first formed the 
 Confederacy were terribly in earnest, so equally were 
 the Northern and Eastern States in opposition to the 
 new government. The border States, upon whose breast 
 the storm of war must break, were still hoping for a 
 peaceable solution of the trouble ; the problem was 
 soon solved for them. In Charleston Harbor, South 
 Carolina, out of the waters rises a fortress of the 
 United States called Sumter. It is situated in the 
 middle of the harbor, and was erected on an artificial 
 island built on the shoals. Its walls were eight feet 
 thick and forty feet high. It was five-sided, inclosing 
 a space of about three hundred and fifty feet. On its 
 ramparts and in its casements one hundred and forty 
 guns could be mounted, and its full garrison was six 
 hundred men. This fort was originally occupied only 
 by an engineer, who was employing some workmen in 
 its repairs; but at Fort Moultrie, on a narrow neck 
 of land extending into the harbor, was a garrison of 
 sixty-nine soldiers and nine ofiicers under the com- 
 mand of Major Robert Anderson. This officer, hav- 
 ing every reason to apprehend an attack upon his 
 position, decided to abandon Moultrie and take pos- 
 
WAR. 
 
 87 
 
 session of Sumter, which he did on the night of De- 
 cember 26th. Robert Anderson was a Kentuckian, and 
 a West Point graduate of the class of 1827, whose sym- 
 pathies at the beginning of the war were rather on the 
 side of the South. He continued to occupy with his 
 little force this island fort, while Beauregard, who had 
 resigned from the United States Army and was already 
 commissioned by the seceding States, was building hos- 
 tile batteries on every side. A crisis in this harbor was 
 fast approaching. The Government of the United States 
 decided to make an attempt to throw men and provisions 
 into the fort, and when this became known, orders were 
 issued from Montgomery for Beauregard to open his 
 batteries. In the gray of the morning at half-past four 
 on a certain Friday, April 12, 1861, a single shot fired 
 from the Confederate batteries at Fort Johnson an- 
 nounced that the bombardment of a fort over whose 
 grim walls floated the Stars and Stripes was about to be- 
 gin. The report of the bursting of this shell startled 
 the country from center to circumference. The Angel 
 of Peace which for months had been hovering over the 
 republic plumed his wings for flight and the Demon of 
 War reigned supreme. President Lincoln followed this 
 act of war by issuing a proclamation calling for seventy- 
 five thousand troops. A prompt response was given to 
 him by the governors of the Northern States; but those 
 of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Vir- 
 ginia, and Missouri declined in terms more or less em- 
 phatic. The secession of all these States from the Union 
 followed, except Kentucky and Missouri, whose sym- 
 pathies were divided, and their union with the Govern- 
 ment formed at Montgomery, Ala., was speedily made. 
 On April 17, 1861, the Ordinance of Secession was passed 
 by the Virginia Convention, and the day following, Lee 
 had a long interview with his old commander. General 
 Scott. On the 20th the die was cast ; his Rubicon was 
 crossed, for the resignation * of his commission in the 
 
 * Arlington, Washington City P. O., April -zo^ 1861. 
 Honorable Simon Cameron, Secretary of War. 
 
 Sir : I have the honor to tender the resignation of my commission 
 as colonel of the first regiment of cavalry. 
 
 Very respectfully your obedient servant, 
 
 R. E. Lee, Colonel, First Cavalry. 
 
88 . GENERAL LEE. 
 
 army of the United States was respectfully tendered to 
 the War Department. His letter explanatory of his 
 position at that time, though familiar to the public, is 
 given here as the best expression of his feelings upon so 
 momentous a subject : 
 
 Arlington, Va., April 20, 1861. 
 General: Since my interview with you on the i8th inst. I 
 have felt that I ought no longer to retain my commission in the 
 army. 1 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 myselt 
 from a service to which I have devoted 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 a most cordial friendship from 
 my comrades. To no one, General, have I been as much in- 
 debted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration, and 
 it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approl)ation. 
 I shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your 
 kind consideration, and your name and fame shall always be dear 
 to me. Save in the defense 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, 
 
 (Signed) R. E. Lee. 
 
 To his sister in Baltimore, whose husband was a 
 strong Union man, Colonel Lee wrote the same day, 
 telling her that he had resigned ; that he had decided 
 the question whether he should take part for or against 
 his native State, saying: "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 know you will blame me, but you must 
 think as kindly of me as you can, and believe I have 
 endeavored to do what I thought right. May God 
 guard and protect you and yours, and pour upon you 
 every blessing, is the prayer of your devoted brother." 
 
 He wrote still a third letter, upon this eventful day, 
 to his brother, Sydney Smith Lee, at that time a com- 
 mander in the United States Navy : 
 
 Arlington, Va., April 20, 1S61. 
 
 My dear Brother Smith : The question which was the 
 subject of my earnest consultation with you on the i8th inst. has 
 
WAR. 
 
 89 
 
 in my own mind been decided. After the most anxious inquiry 
 as to the correct course for me to pursue, I concluded to resign, 
 and sent in my resignation this morning. I wished to wait till 
 the Ordinance of Secession should be acted on by the people of 
 Virginia ; but war seems to have commenced, and I am liable at 
 any time to be ordered on duty, which I could not conscientiously 
 perform. To save me from such a position, and to prevent the 
 necessity of resigning under orders, I had to act at once, and be- 
 fore I could see you again on the subject, as I had wished. I am 
 now a private citizen, and have no other ambition than to remain 
 at home. Save in the defense of my native State, I have no de- 
 sire ever again to draw my sword. I send you my warmest love. 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 (Signed) R. E. Lee. 
 
 It was necessary now to bid farewell to old Arlington, 
 where so many happy memories of the past had clustered. 
 He must say good-by to his army comrades, and his 
 sword must soon be crossed with many of them on the 
 bloody field of battle. With conflicting emotions he de- 
 parted from what had been the capital of his country so 
 long, and went immediately to Richmond, the capital of 
 his State. His coming had been anxiously looked for, 
 and his mother Commonwealth opened wide her arms to 
 embrace her distinguished son. He was at once nom- 
 inated by the Governor to the Virginia Convention still 
 in session there, to be a major general and commander 
 in chief of the Virginia forces. When the question of 
 his nomination was put to that body, there was an im- 
 mediate and ardent response, which attested the cordial 
 and unbounded confidence in the man to whom Virginia 
 committed her fortunes. The next day Major-General 
 Lee was invited to appear before the convention. The 
 invitation greatly disturbed him ; he was so modest, so 
 opposed to display, so little accustomed to be gazed at 
 by the public, and certainly never before had been placed 
 in such a trying position. But what could he do ? The 
 ceremony had been prepared ; he had accepted the com- 
 mand of the troops of Virginia after having declined the 
 command of the United States Army. Virginia, through 
 her convention, wanted to see him. A committee had 
 been appointed to transmit its invitation and conduct 
 him to its presence. " The hall was crowded," said the 
 historian, '' with an eager audience." All the members 
 
90 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of the convention stood as a mark of respect. On the 
 right of the presiding officer were Governor Letcher, of 
 Virginia, and Mr. Stevens, the Vice-President of the 
 Confederacy, and on the left members of the Advisory 
 Council of Virginia. Leaning on the arm of Mr. Mar- 
 maduke Johnson, of Richmond, chairman of the com- 
 mittee. General Lee entered the hall. Every spectator 
 admired the personal appearance of the man, his dignified 
 figure, his air of self-composure, his strength of feature, 
 in which shone the steady animation of a consciousness 
 of power, purpose, and decision. He was in the full and 
 hardy flush of ripe years and vigorous health. His form 
 was tall, its constituents well knit together ; his head, 
 well shaped and squarely built, gave indication of a 
 powerful intellect. The face, not yet interlined by age, 
 still remarkable for its personal beauty, was lighted up 
 by eyes black in the shade, but brown in the full light, 
 clear, benignant, but with a deep recess of light, a cur- 
 tained fire in them that blazed in moments of excite- 
 ment ; the countenance and natural expression were 
 gentle and benevolent, yet striking the beholder as mask- 
 ing an iron will. His manners were at once grave and 
 kindly without gayety or abandon. He was also with- 
 out any affectation of dignity. Such is the man whose 
 stately figure in the capital at Richmond brought to 
 mind the old race of- Virginians, and who was thereafter 
 to win a reputation not only as the first commander, 
 but also as a perfect and beautiful model of manhood. 
 
 When about half-way up the main aisle Mr. Johnson 
 stopped, and in ponderous tones said : " Mr. President, 
 I have the honor to present to you and to the conven- 
 tion Major-General Lee." The general's retreat was cut 
 off by the crowd of people who pressed up the hall in his 
 rear. The president of the convention, Mr. Janney, of 
 the County of Loudoun, was to voice the sentiments of 
 the body over which he had ably presided, and Lee must 
 face the music of Janney's eloquence, so he stood calmly 
 while the president of the convention said : 
 
 " Major-General Lee, in the name of the people of 
 our native State here represented, I bid you a cordial 
 and heartfelt w^elcome to this hall in which we may yet 
 almost hear the echo of the voices of the statesmen and 
 
WAR. 
 
 91 
 
 soldiers and sages of bygone days who have borne your 
 name, whose blood now flows in your veins. When the 
 necessity became apparent of having a leader for our 
 forces, all hearts and all eyes, with an instinct which is a 
 surer guide than reason itself, turned to the old county 
 of Westmoreland. We know how prolific she had been 
 in other days of heroes and statesmen. We know 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. 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 
 blood-stained fields, in all of which victory perched upon 
 our banners. We know of the unfading luster that was 
 shed on the American armies by that campaign, and we 
 know also what your modesty has always disclaimed — that 
 no small share of the glory of these achievements was 
 due to your valor and military genius. Sir, we have by 
 this unanimous vote expressed our convictions that you 
 are at this time among the living citizens of Virginia, 
 ^ first in 7var' We pray to God most fervently that you 
 may conduct the operations committed to your charge, 
 that it will soon be said of you that you are the ^ 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.' Wlien the Father of his Country 
 made his last will and testament he gave his swords to 
 his favorite nephews with the injunction that they should 
 never be drawn from their scabbards except in self-de- 
 fense, or in defense of the rights and principles of their 
 country, and that if drawn for the latter purpose, they 
 should fall with them in their hands rather than relin- 
 quish them. Yesterday your mother Virginia placed her 
 sword in your hand upon the implied condition that in 
 all things you will keep it to the letter and spirit, that 
 you will draw it only in defense, and that you will fall 
 with it in your hand rather than that the object for which 
 it is placed there should fail." 
 
 The reply of General Lee was simple and short, 
 
92 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Washington-like in modesty and touching in language. 
 His heart was filled with emotion as he heard the very 
 language his father had used in reference to the great 
 Washington, applied so many years afterward to himself. 
 The scene was solemn as well as new to the soldier. 
 
 " Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention," 
 said he in reply, " profoundly impressed with the so- 
 lemnity 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 the choice 
 fallen upon an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, 
 an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow-citi- 
 zens, I devote myself to the service of my native State, 
 in whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my sword." 
 It was his first and last speech, and under all the circum- 
 stances he could safely rest his oratorical reputation 
 upon this single effort. It is possible, had he selected a 
 public profession after the war, we could have said of 
 him as Pope said of Argyll : 
 
 The State's thunder born to wield, 
 
 And shake at once the Senate and the field. - 
 
 He had now entered upon the discharge of new duties 
 and assumed new responsibilities. The bridge over which 
 he had crossed from Colonel Lee, of the United States 
 Army, to Major-General Lee, of the Virginia forces, had 
 been burned behind him. He was enlisted for the war. 
 In the prime of manhood and physical vigor he held what 
 he considered the greatest honor — his State's highest com- 
 mission. He had sacrificed exalted rank, home, and for- 
 tune, and had followed only the conscientious voice of 
 duty. The words of his own father were ringing in his 
 ears as he once exclaimed, " No consideration on earth 
 could induce me to act a part, however gratifying, which 
 could be construed into a disregard or forgetfulness of 
 this Commonwealth." Therefore he would not join the 
 confederacy of States, but was waiting for the endorsation 
 by the people of Virginia of the action of her representa- 
 tives duly assembled in convention. One hundred and 
 twenty thousand votes were cast for the ratification of 
 the Ordinance ot Secession, some twenty thousand against 
 it. Before this popular decision was reached, the con- 
 
WAR. 
 
 93 
 
 vention gave to the Confederate Government the con- 
 trol of the military operations within her border, and 
 the Secretary of War, Mr. L. P. Walker, had, by an order 
 dated Montgomery, Ala., in May, 1861, placed under 
 General Lee's command all troops of the Confederate 
 States as soon as they arrived in Virginia. Previous to 
 this, his command was limited to the Virginia forces. 
 Virginia having united her fortune with her Southern sis- 
 ter States, the Confederate Congress in session at Mont- 
 gomery ten days afterward adjourned to meet in Rich- 
 mond, Va. A letter from General Lee to his wife, who 
 was still at Arlington, April 30, 1861, tells her that he 
 is "glad to hear all is well and as yet peaceful. I fear 
 the latter state will not continue long. I think, there- 
 fore, you had better prepare all things for removal from 
 Arlington — that is, plate, pictures, etc., and be pre- 
 pared at any moment. Where to go is the difficulty. 
 When the war commences no place will be exempt ; in 
 my opinion, indeed, all the avenues into the State will be 
 the scene of military operations. I wrote to Robert [his 
 son] that I could not consent to take boys from their 
 schools and young men from their colleges and put them 
 in the ranks at the beginning of the war when they are 
 not needed. The war may last ten years. Where are 
 our ranks to be filled from then ?" 
 
 And again he writes: "I am very anxious about 
 you. You have to move, and make arrangements to go 
 to some point of safety which you must select. The 
 Mount Vernon plate and pictures ought to be secured. 
 War is inevitable, and there is no telling when it will 
 burst around you. Virginia yesterday, I understand, 
 joined the Confederate States. W^hat policy they may 
 adopt I can not conjecture." And Mrs. Lee, from Arling- 
 ton, May 5, 1861, sent the following note to General Scott 
 in Washington : 
 
 My dear General : Hearing that you desire to see the 
 account of my husband's reception in Richmond, I have sent it 
 to you. No honors can reconcile us to this fratricidal war which 
 we would have laid down our lives freely to avert. Whatever 
 may happen, I feel that I may expect from your kindness all the 
 protection you can in honor afford. Nothing can ever make me 
 forget your kind appreciation of Mr. Lee. If you knew all you 
 
94 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 would not think so hardly ot me. Were it not that I would not 
 add one feather to his load of care, nothing would induce me to 
 abandon my home. Oh, that you could command peace to our 
 distracted country ! Yours in sadness and sorrow, 
 
 M. C. Lee. 
 
 Occasionally this wife and mother's heart would beat 
 with happiness at the stories of successful compromise 
 between the sections and then sink in despair at the 
 continued prospects of war. From Richmond, May 
 13, 1861, her husband wrote her : " Do not put faith in 
 rumors of adjustment. I see no prospect for it. It can 
 not be while passions on both sides are so infuriated. 
 Make your plans for several years of war. If Virginia 
 is invaded, w^hich appears to be designed, the main 
 routes through the country will, in all probability, be 
 infested and passage interrupted. I agree with you in 
 thinking that the inflammatory articles in the papers do 
 us much harm. I object particularly to those in the 
 Southern papers, as I wish them to take a firm, dignified 
 course, free from bravado and boasting. The times 
 are indeed calamitous. The brightness of God's coun- 
 tenance seems turned from us, and its mercy stopped in 
 its blissful current. It may not always be so dark, and 
 he may in time pardon our sins and take us under his 
 protection. Tell Custis* he must consult his own judg- 
 ment, reason, and conscience as to the course he may 
 take. 1 do not wish him to be guided by my wishes or 
 example. If I have done wrong, let him do better. 
 The present is a momentous question which every man 
 must settle for himself and upon principle. Our good 
 Bishop Meade has just come in to see me. He opens 
 the convention to morrow, and, I understood him to 
 say, would preach his fiftieth anniversary sermon. 
 God bless and guard you." A few days before he had 
 written : 
 
 Richmond, May 8, 1S61. 
 
 I received yesterday your letter of the 5th. I grieve at the 
 anxiety that drives you from your home. I can appreciate your 
 feelings on the occasion, and pray that you may receive comfort 
 and strength in the difficulties that surround you. When I re- 
 
 * His son, then a lieutenant in the Engineer Corps, U. S. Army. 
 
WAR. 
 
 95 
 
 fleet upon the calamity pending over the country my own sor- 
 rows sink into insignificance. 
 
 On the 2d of the same month he told her : " I have 
 just received Custis's letter of the 30th, inclosing the 
 acceptance of my resignation. It is stated it will take 
 effect on the 25th of April. I resigned on the 20th, and 
 wished it to take effect on that day. I can not con- 
 sent to its running on further, and he must receive no 
 pay if they tender it beyond that day, but return the 
 whole if need be." And again, in a letter May 16, 1861, 
 he writes: "I witnessed the opening of the convention 
 yesterday, and heard the good bishop's sermon for the 
 fiftieth anniversary of his ministry. It was most im- 
 pressive, and more than once I felt the tears coursing 
 down my cheeks. It was from the text: 'And Pharaoh 
 said unto Jacob, How old art thou ? ' It was full of 
 humility and self-reproach." 
 
 Mr. Jefferson Davis, the provisional President of the 
 new Government, reached Richmond on the 29th of 
 May. Virginia's capital then became the capital of the 
 Confederacy. The journey from Alabama by the South- 
 ern President was a triumphal march. At every station 
 crowds of people met and cheered him, and on his arri- 
 val in Richmond he received an ovation. He had gradu- 
 ated at West Point the year before General Lee, but was 
 one year and a half his junior in age. He had served 
 in the infantry, and later in the dragoons in the United 
 States Army, and then resigned his commission. When 
 the Mexican War broke out his soldierly instincts could 
 not be repressed. His services were greatly demanded, 
 and he entered Mexico as the colonel of a Mississippi 
 regiment. He had also held the highest positions in 
 civil life, as a member of the United States House of 
 Representatives, as a Senator of the United States, and 
 Secretary of War in Mr. Pierce's Cabinet. Distin- 
 guished in war and in peace, a statesman and a soldier, 
 he combined in his person the qualities necessary for 
 the head of a new government born amid the throes of 
 war, whose cradle had been lighted by the rifle's flash. 
 No stain had ever been found on the polished armor of 
 his career during a long term of public service. His 
 courage could not be assailed, his honor questioned, or 
 
96 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 his ability denied. He had been made on the secession 
 of Mississippi commander in chief of her forces, just as 
 General Lee had been commissioned in the Virginia 
 forces. Had he consulted his own wishes he would 
 have respectfully declined the position of President, and 
 upon the pages of history, from 1861 to 1865, might 
 have been found the record of his deeds as an army 
 commander. 
 
 The role assigned to him in the tragedy of war was a 
 most difficult one to discharge, and in the eyes of his 
 opponents he was " the villain of the play." When the 
 red curtain of war rolled up from the American stage, 
 to the world were revealed two presidential chairs. In 
 one was seated Mr. Abraham Lincoln, in the other 
 Mr. Jefferson Davis. These two chief magistrates were 
 both born in Kentucky. One, when a small child, was 
 carried by his parents to Mississippi ; the other, when 
 about eight years old, was taken to Indiana, and after- 
 ward to Illinois. Each absorbed the political theories 
 of their respective States. Had Davis been carried to 
 Illinois and Lincoln to Mississippi, in the war between 
 the States Lincoln might have been carrying a Missis- 
 sippi rifle, while Davis held aloft the star-spangled ban- 
 ner. Each represented, as powerful exponents, the con- 
 structions of the Constitution, referred to the sword for 
 decision, there being no common arbiter in such case. 
 Mr. Davis's office had none of the elements of popularity. 
 Upon it was showered the criticisms of the South, while 
 at the North every finger, every pen, every gun was 
 pointed at its occupant. Davis used every possible effort 
 to make two republics grow on this continent where 
 only one grew before ; and so likewise did Lee. 
 
 The former, as President, could not have written suc- 
 cess on the standards of the Confederacy ; it was not so 
 ordained — the contest was too unequal in men, money, 
 and means of war. The people of the whole South, who 
 stood behind their guns, or were left at their hearth- 
 stones, numbered only six million whites, while the pop- 
 ulation in the Northern States amounted to eighteen 
 million. The former were animated by the tie which 
 binds the heart to home, and which it is said " stretches 
 from the cradle to the grave, spans the heavens, and 
 
WAR. 
 
 97 
 
 is riveted tlirough eternity to the throne of God on 
 high." On the other hand, the Northern people de- 
 sired to see the great republic stretch from the waves 
 of the Atlantic to the golden sands of the Pacific, and 
 from the Northern lakes to where the Father of Wa- 
 ters rolls his tribute to the Gulf as an undivided coun- 
 try. The North was thickly populated, and the whole 
 machinery of its Government was in running order. 
 It had its regular army around which the volunteer 
 regiments could rally. Its navy rode undisputed the 
 adjoining seas ; its arsenals and forts were crammed 
 with weapons, and its Treasury filled with precious 
 metals, out of which could be manufactured all the 
 sinews of war. In a long struggle, under these circum- 
 stances, victory was to the strong. The deeds of a brave 
 soldier, even if unsuccessful, excite the admiration of 
 mankind. The civil ruler of the vanquished is not so 
 fortunate when the power to sustain his government de- 
 parts. Mr. Davis was not the demon of hate his ene- 
 mies have painted. He did not thirst for the blood of 
 his countrymen. His whole character has been misun- 
 derstood by the mass of the people who opposed his 
 public views. His heart was tender as a woman's ; he 
 was brave as a lion, and true as the needle to the pole 
 to his convictions; in disposition generous, in character 
 courteous and chivalric. 
 
 When his voice was heard for the last time in the 
 Senate Chamber of the United States it did not breathe 
 hatred to sections of the country other than his own, 
 but he spoke in affectionate terms of those with whom 
 he had to conscientiously differ upon great questions. 
 *' I am sure," said he, " that I feel no hostility to you 
 Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one 
 of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been 
 between us, to whom I can not say in the presence of 
 my God, I wish you well, and such is the feeling, I am 
 sure, of the people whom I represent and those whom 
 you represent. For whatever offense I have given, I 
 have. Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you 
 my apology." 
 
 General Lee found himself surrounded on all sides 
 by war. From Richmond, June 9, 1861, he wrote his 
 
gS GENERAL LEE. 
 
 wife : " You may be aware that the Confederate Govern- 
 ment is established here. Yesterday I turned over to it 
 the command of the military and naval forces of the 
 State, in accordance with the proclamation of the Gov- 
 ernor, under an agreement between the State and the 
 Confederate States. I do not know what my position 
 will be. I should like to retire to private life, so that I 
 could be with you and the children, but if I can be of 
 service to the State or her cause, I must continue. Mr. 
 Davis and all his Cabinet are here." And two days 
 afterward he tells her : *' I am sorry to learn that you are 
 anxious and uneasy about passmg events. We can not 
 change or hinder them, and it is not the part of wis- 
 dom to be annoyed by them. In this time of great suf- 
 fering to the State and country, our private distresses 
 we must bear with resignation, and not aggravate them 
 by repining, trusting to a kind and merciful God to 
 overrule them for our good." 
 
 Preparations were now being rapidly made for war, 
 which could be no longer prevented or postponed. The 
 firing upon and capture of Fort Sumter, the hostile re- 
 ception given the Massachusetts troops in Baltimore on 
 April 19th, the great excitement all through the country, 
 caused every one to speedily join the side he desired to 
 unite with. In the North every arsenal was put to work 
 on the manufacture of arms for their troops. It was the 
 first duty of the Federal Government to make Washing- 
 ton, the capital, secure. Then an army of invasion must 
 be organized and a plan of campaign mapped out, whose 
 objective point was the capture of Richmond, the capi- 
 tal of the Southern Confederacv. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 :nvasion of Virginia. 
 
 On the 24th of May the advance guard of the Fed- 
 eral army occupied the heights of Washington, with 
 Arlington, the former home of General Lee, as head- 
 quarters, as well as all the country stretching down the 
 Potomac eight miles below to Alexandria. On'y a few 
 persons understood the magnitude of the impending 
 contest. The " Rebellion " many thought was to be 
 crushed in ninety days, and most of the volunteer troops 
 were enlisted by the North for that period. 
 
 One hundred and fifteen miles away, at Richmond, 
 great activity prevailed also. The sagacity, skill, and 
 experience of Lee were taxed to the uttermost equip- 
 ping and sending to threatened points the troops rapidly 
 arriving from the South. There was no regular army to 
 serve as a nucleus, or navy, commissary, quartermaster's, 
 or ordnance departments. Everything had to be pro- 
 vided. General Gorgas, the Chief of Ordnance of the 
 Confederate States, reported that he found in all the 
 arsenals of the Confederate States but fifteen thousand 
 rifles and one hundred and twenty thousand inferior 
 muskets. In addition there were a few old flint mus- 
 kets at Richmond, and some Hall's rifles and carbines 
 at Baton Rouge. There was no powder, except some 
 which had been left over from the Mexican War and 
 had been stored at Baton Rouge Arsenal and at Mount 
 Vernon, Ala. There was but little artillery, and no 
 cavalry, arms, or equipments. Raw recruits had to be 
 drilled and disciplined, companies assigned to regiments, 
 regiments to brigades, brigades to divisions. With the 
 map of Virginia before him, Lee studied to make a suc- 
 cessful defensive campaign. He knew that the object 
 
 (99) 
 
100 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of the greatest importance to his enemy was the capture 
 of Richmond, and that the fall of that city early in the 
 contest might terminate the war. His genius for grand 
 tactics and strategy taught him at once that the most 
 natural advance to Richmond from Washington would 
 be along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, as it was 
 called then. It was the only railway running into the 
 State at that time from Washington, and troops moving 
 along its line could be so directed as not to uncover 
 their capital, while prompt facilities could be obtained 
 for transportation of supplies from the base established 
 at Alexandria or Washington. Another route lay up 
 the peninsula lying between the James and York Rivers, 
 with Fort Monroe and its vicinity as a base for opera- 
 tions. Another way to enter the State was by crossing 
 the upper Potomac at Harper's Ferry and Williamsport, 
 and then on through the great valley of Virginia be- 
 tween the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Mountains; and 
 still another entrance might be effected through the 
 mountain ranges of West Virginia. Norfolk, too, by 
 the sea, had to be watched' and protected. Troops, 
 therefore, as fast as they arrived in Richmond and 
 could be prepared for the campaign, were sent princi- 
 pally to these points. It was necessary that organized 
 forces should be in such position as to check any for- 
 ward movements by any of these routes. General Lee 
 early had predicted the march of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, as the Washington army was called, and pointed out 
 what would in all probability be the battlefield. He 
 ordered the largest number of troops to Manassas Junc- 
 tion, that being the point of union of the railroad com- 
 ing into Virginia from Washington with a branch road 
 leading into the Valley of Virginia. It was a strategic 
 point, because an army in position there would be able 
 to resist the further progress of the opposing hosts, 
 and could, if necessary, re-enforce the troops in the 
 valley. Competent and experienced officers were at 
 an early date placed in command of the important 
 stations. For Manassas, General P. G. T. Beauregard 
 was selected. This officer, having been the first em- 
 ployed in active operations, and having compelled the 
 surrender of Fort Sumter, was the military hero of the 
 
INVASION OF VIRGINIA. lOi 
 
 hour. He was a graduate of West Point, and had served 
 in tlie Engineer Corps with marked distinction. His skill 
 in that branch of the service was admirably displayed 
 in the selection of positions for the batteries erected 
 to defend Charleston Harbor, and his vigilance, ac- 
 tivity, and military knowledge were rewarded by the 
 prompt reduction of the fort. He assumed command 
 of the troops at and in the vicinity of Manassas about 
 the ist of June, and possessed the entire confidence of 
 his army. 
 
 Harper's Ferry received also the prompt attention of 
 the Confederate authorities. To this important post 
 General Joseph E. Johnston was ordered, superseding 
 in the command there Colonel T. J. Jackson. General 
 Johnston assumed command of the Army of the Shenan- 
 doah on May 23, 1861. He was a classmate of Lee's at 
 West Point. On being graduated he was assigned to 
 the artillery, and then to the topographical engineers. 
 He became distinguished before his beard grew. In 
 the Indian wars in Florida and in Mexico his coolness, 
 address, soldierly bearing, daring deeds, and his many 
 wounds made him famous. General Scott is reported 
 to have said ''Johnston is a great soldier, but was un- 
 fortunate enough to get shot in nearly every engage- 
 ment." In 1861 he was at the head of the Quarter- 
 master's Department of the United States Army, with 
 the rank of brigadier general. Upon the resignation of 
 his commission he was commissioned a general officer m 
 the Virgmia service by Governor Letcher. Later he 
 was given a brigadier general's commission in the Con- 
 federate service in the regular army, then the highest 
 grade in it. The resignation of his commission and his 
 decision to fight under the flag of the South was hailed 
 with delight by the Southern people, who felt they were 
 securing the services of an army commander of un- 
 doubted merit. General Benjamin Huger, another dis- 
 tinguished officer of the army of the United States, 
 who had also resigned, was charged with watching 
 over Norfolk. General John Bankhead Magruder, who 
 had acquired distinction in the Federal army but had 
 joined his fortunes to the South, was ordered to York- 
 town to defend the peninsular route. General Holmes, 
 8 
 
I02 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 who had rendered conspicuous service in the army of 
 the United States, was sent to command at Acquia 
 Creek, some twelve miles east of Fredericksburg. Rob- 
 ert Garnett, also an officer of the United States Army, 
 of tested ability, was ordered to West Virginia to take 
 charge of the department and of the forces assembling 
 in that region. All of these officers had been selected 
 with great care, and had been more or less distinguished 
 in the army, but not one of them had ever before been 
 in command of large numbers of men. 
 
 The regular army of the United States previous to 
 1861 was a small organization of fifteen thousand sol- 
 diers. Including the quartermaster general, there were 
 only five general officers in it — Scott, Wool, Harney, 
 Twiggs, and Joe Johnston. A few only of the officers, 
 to whom was assigned on either side the command of 
 armies, corps, and divisions, had ever previous to the 
 war commanded a regiment, the great majority of them 
 not more than one company. 
 
 In these operations of defense General Lee's whole 
 time was employed. The larger number of troops were 
 sent to Beauregard and Johnston, it being evident that 
 one or both of the points occupied by their armies would 
 be the scene of the earliest conflicts. His services were 
 great and indispensable, but it can be readily seen that 
 after supplying the threatened points with troops, and 
 after providing commanding officers for the different 
 armies when the battles of the war began, there would 
 be no place for him in the field, but that the active op- 
 erations there would be intrusted to others at first. 
 
 To Mrs. Lee, from Richmond, June 24, 1861, he 
 wrote : " My movements are very uncertain, and I wish 
 to take the field as soon as certain arrangements can be 
 made. I may go at any moment to any point where it 
 may be necessary. Custis is engaged on the works 
 around this city, and many of our old friends are drop- 
 ping in. E. P. Alexander is here. Jimmy Hill, Alston, 
 Jenifer, etc., and I hear that my old colonel, A. S. John- 
 ston, is crossing the plains from California." 
 
 Preparations for the advance of the Federal army 
 of the Potomac on Manassas were rapidly nearing com- 
 pletion. Everything needed was bountifully provided 
 
INVASION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 103 
 
 from an overflowing Treasury. General Scott was still 
 Commander in Chief of the United States Army, and 
 still the possessor of the entire confidence of his coun- 
 try. Mr. Simon Cameron, Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of War, 
 wrote to Mr. John Sherman, then in the field as a volun- 
 teer aid-de-camp to General Patterson, that the whole 
 administration has but one safe course in this emergency, 
 and that is to be guided by the counsels of the general 
 in chief in all that relates to the plans, movements, and 
 commands of the campaign. He has superior knowl- 
 edge^ wisdom, and patriotism over any other member 
 of the administration, said Cameron, and enjoys the un- 
 limited confidence of the people, as well as that of the 
 President and his advisers. 
 
 The day after General Scott's last interview with 
 General Lee he published General Order No. 3, which 
 created the Department of Washington, embracing 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District 
 of Columbia,- and Major-General Robert Patterson, of 
 Pennsylvania, was placed in command. On June 3, 
 1861, the headquarters of this officer. were at Chambers- 
 burg, Pa., where he was busy organizing and equipping 
 the army whose objective point was Harper's Ferry, at 
 that time occupied by a small number of the Southern 
 troops. It was General Scott's original plan to make 
 Patterson fight the first great battle in the war, giving 
 him all the troops he could possibly spare from the de- 
 fense of Washington. It was his first purpose to make 
 a feint on Beauregard at Manassas, while making a real 
 attack upon Joe Johnston in the Valley of Virginia. 
 With the defeat of Johnston the victorious army could 
 march on Beauregard at Manassas, re-enforced by the 
 troops around the Federal capital. Soldiers of high 
 reputation and great merit were ordered to report to 
 Patterson. Fitz John Porter was his adjutant general, 
 Amos Beckwith commissary of subsistence, Crosman 
 quartermaster, Sampson topographical engineer, New- 
 ton engineer; while such men as A. E. Burnside, 
 George H. Thomas, Miles, Abercrombie, Cadwalader, 
 Stone, and Negley commanded troops; and then, the 
 laws being silent m the midst of arms, Senator John 
 Sherman, of Ohio, was his aid-de-camp. From Patter- 
 
I04 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 son's position two routes led to the Valley of Virginia, 
 one via Frederick, Md,, across the Potomac at Har- 
 per's Ferry, the other by Hagerstown, Md., crossing 
 at Williamsport and thence to Martinsburg. Patterson 
 wisely selected the latter route, because it was a flank 
 movement on his enemy at Harper's Ferry, who could 
 present no obstacle to a successful passage to the Poto- 
 mac. He therefore marched his army to Hagerstown, 
 where, on the 15th of June, he had ten thousand men. 
 On that day General Johnston evacuated Harper's Ferry, 
 and two days later, with a force of sixty-five hundred 
 men, was at Bunker Hill, a point twelve miles from 
 Winchester and between that city and Martinsburg. 
 
 This was wise on the part of Johnston. His inten- 
 tion to do so was accelerated from a well-authen- 
 ticated rumor that had reached him of the advance 
 of the Federal forces in the direction of Winchester 
 from Romney, some forty - three miles west of that 
 place. Indeed, he had detached two regiments under 
 Colonels A. P. Hill and Gibbons, and sent them to 
 Winchester with orders to proceed out on the road 
 toward Romney for the purpose of checking any 
 march of hostile troops from that direction. These 
 troops were thought to be the advance of a force under 
 General McClellan, which had been organized in that 
 section of western Virginia. When Patterson crossed 
 the Potomac Johnston very properly moved to Bunker 
 Hill, so as to be in position to prevent the junction of 
 McClellan and Patterson, by fighting a battle with Pat- 
 terson before McClellan could reach Winchester, if in- 
 deed the force reported to be advancing from the direc- 
 tion of Romney were McClellan's troops. He soon 
 became convinced that no considerable body of United 
 States troops was approaching Winchester from the 
 direction of Romney, and so the two regiments sent 
 there were recalled to Winchester. If the action of 
 Johnston had not been guided by the reports received, 
 he would have evacuated Harper's Ferry at once upon 
 the passage of the Potomac by Patterson. Harper's 
 Ferry was not a defensible point. It was a cul-de-sac 
 commanded thoroughly by Maryland Heights. Later 
 in the war a large force of Federal troops was easily 
 
INVASION OF VIRGINIA. I05 
 
 forced to capitulate by a portion of the Confederate 
 army approaching from the direction of Maryland. 
 
 Patterson commenced to cross the Potomac with the 
 avowed purpose of fighting a battle with the army under 
 Johnston, but when about two thirds of his troops had 
 crossed he received a telegram from General Scott order- 
 ing him to send to Washington at once all the regular 
 troops he had, horse and foot, as well as the Rhode 
 Island regiment under Burnside, which was a very fine 
 one. If this telegram had not been received, and Pat- 
 terson had continued the march of his troops into Vir- 
 ginia, he would have reached Martinsburg on the 17th 
 of June, and on the i8th could have attacked the Con- 
 federate troops then in line of battle awaiting him at 
 Bunker Hill, eleven miles distant, and there might have 
 been on the pages of American history a second battle 
 of that name. The explanation of General Scott's tele- 
 gram is to be found in the fact that he had changed his 
 plan of offensive operations. He had reversed his for- 
 mer purposes and now proposed to fight the first battle 
 with the army around Washington, while the army of 
 Patterson should make the feint, to prevent a junction 
 of Johnston's army with that of Beauregard's at Ma- 
 nassas. General Sanford, who commanded the State 
 troops of New York, was the senior officer at that time 
 on duty in Washington ; and at two o'clock on the 
 morning of May 21, 1861, with eleven thousand men 
 first invaded Virginia and took possession of Arlington 
 Heights and the adjacent section as far as Alexandria. 
 The Department of Virginia was created, and General 
 Irvin McDowell was selected by the Washington Cabi- 
 net to command it. 
 
 Up to that time it is said General Scott did not 
 want anything done on the Virginia side of the Poto- 
 mac except to fortify Arlington Heights. He was 
 " piqued and irritated " that the Cabinet should have 
 sent McDowell into Virginia, and sent him two messages 
 by his aid-de-camp asking him to make a personal re- 
 quest not to be sent on the other side of the river, and 
 took occasion to say to the Cabinet that he was never 
 in favor of going over into Virginia. He did not be- 
 lieve in a little war by piecemeal, but he believed in a 
 
Io6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 war of large bodies. He was in favor of moving down 
 the Mississippi River with eighty thousand men, fight all 
 the battles that were necessary, take all the positions 
 he could find and garrison them, fight a battle at New 
 Orleans, win it, and thus end the war. His marvelous 
 plan met with serious objections from the powers at 
 Washington. Could it have been submitted to those in 
 Richmond it would have been unanimously adopted. 
 
 Irvin McDowell, the commander selected to lead the 
 Federal army against its opponent at Manassas, was a 
 native of Ohio, and graduated at the Military Academy 
 at West Point in 1838. He was assigned to the First 
 Artillery, served in the Mexican War, and was brevetted 
 major for gallant and meritorious conduct at Buena 
 Vista. He was afterward transferred to the Adjutant 
 General's Department, and served there till he was 
 promoted brigadier general in 1861. At this period 
 McDowell was about forty-three years of age, a capable 
 soldier, and a gallant and courteous gentleman. He 
 was kind-hearted, considerate, and tender of the feel- 
 ings of others. His letter to Mrs. Lee, in reply to one 
 received from her, addressed to the commander of the 
 Federal forces at Arlington, has the ring of the pure 
 metal, and is as follows: 
 
 Headquarters, Departments Northeastern Virginia, 
 
 Arlington, May 30, 1861. 
 Mrs. R. E. Lee. 
 
 Madam : Having been ordered by the Government to relieve 
 Major-General Sanford in command of this Department, I had 
 the honor to receive this morning your letter of to-day addressed 
 to him at this place. With respect to the occupation of Arlington 
 by the United States troops I beg to say it has been done by my 
 predecessor with every regard for the preservation of the place. 
 I am here temporarily in camp on the grounds, preferring this to 
 sleeping in the house under the circumstances which the painful 
 state of the country places me with respect to these properties. 
 I assure you it will be my earnest endeavor to have all things so 
 ordered that on your return you will find things as little dis* 
 turbed as possible. In this I have the hearty concurrence of the 
 courteous, kind-hearted gentleman in the immediate command 
 of the troops quartered here, and who lives in the lower part 
 of the house to insure its being respected. Everything has been 
 done as you desire with respect to your servants, and your wishes, 
 so far as they have been known or could have been understood, 
 
INVASION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 07 
 
 have been complied with. When you desire to return every 
 facility will be given you for doing so. I trust, Madam, you will 
 not consider it an intrusion when 1 say I l.ave the most sincere 
 sympathy for your distress, and, so far as compatible with my 
 duty, 1 shall always be ready to do whatever may alleviate it. I 
 have the honor to be, very respectlully. 
 
 Your most obedient servant, I. McDowell. 
 
 P. S. — I am informed it was the order of the general in chief 
 if the troops on coming here should have found the family in the 
 house, that no one should enter it, but that a guard should be 
 placed for its protection. 
 
 Generals Scott and Lee were organizing their re- 
 spective armies with the same celerity apparently, for 
 on the 24th of June McDowell had twenty regiments of 
 infantry, aggregating less than fourteen thousand men, 
 two hundred and fifty cavalry, two batteries of light artil- 
 lery, and three other batteries in the earthworks. His 
 field return, dated June 26th, makes his aggregate forces 
 sixteen thousand six hundred and eleven. At that time 
 the Confederate army, under Beauregard, had nineteen 
 regiments of infantry. The Federal commander esti- 
 mated Beauregard's force at twenty thousand, and a 
 statement upon which he said he relied, told him that 
 the South Carolina regiments were the best armed and 
 equipped, had negroes with them as servants, were in 
 high spirits, and though the month was June, wert freez- 
 ing for a fight. 
 
 It was fully determined now that the Federal army 
 should move against Manassas, and General McDowell 
 was requested to submit a plan of operations and an 
 estimate of the force necessary to carry it out. He 
 did so, and the plan was approved by General Scott, the 
 Cabinet, and Generals Sanford, Tyler, Mansfield, and 
 Meigs, who were present. It was then given to the en- 
 gineer officers to discuss, and finally was fully adopted. 
 The Federal army was to move out from the vicinity 
 of Washington and Alexandria in four columns and 
 give battle to the enemy by turning their right flank. 
 McDowell exacted two conditions : One that he should 
 be provided with thirty thousand troops; the other that 
 he should not be required to fight any of the Confed- 
 erate forces then opposed to General Patterson in the 
 Valley of Virginia. The first condition was pledged, 
 
I08 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and he was told by General Scott that if Johnston 
 joined Beauregard he should have Patterson at his 
 heels. 
 
 General Lee had worked incessantly, leaving no 
 stone unturned to give Beauregard a sufficient force to 
 cope successfully with McDowell. He put away per- 
 sonal ambition, and had no thought except to do all in 
 his power to enable others to win victories. From Rich- 
 mond, July 12, 1861, he wrote Mrs. Lee : '' You know that 
 Rob has been made captain of Company A of the Uni- 
 versity. He has written for a sword and sash, which I 
 have not yet been able to get for him. I shall send him 
 a sword of mine, but can not procure him a sash. I am 
 very anxious to get into the field, but am detained by 
 matters beyond my control. I have never heard of the 
 assignment to which you allude — of commander in chief 
 of the Southern army — nor have I any expectation or 
 wish for it. President Davis holds that position. I have 
 been laboring to prepare and get into the field the Vir- 
 ginia troops to strengthen those from other States, and 
 the threatened commands of Johnston, Beauregard, Hu- 
 ger, Garnett, etc. Where I shall go I do not know, as 
 that will depend upon President Davis." 
 
 The press on both sides. North and South alike, ex- 
 cited by the probability of a battle, began to severely 
 criticise the delay in decisive movements. They did 
 not understand that armies composed almost exclu- 
 sively of citizen soldiers had to be organized with great 
 care. Regiments had to be placed in brigades, and 
 they in turn formed into divisions; ammunition, the 
 means of subsistence, and the requisite amount of trans- 
 portation had to be provided. General Lee resisted 
 public clamor in his usual calm and dignified way. Mc- 
 Dowell too, like a seasoned soldier, stood the pressure 
 against him as long as he could, but at last it became so 
 great he could wait no longer. So he issued General 
 Order No. 17, dated Arlington Heights, July i6th, which 
 started from camp and put on the march thousands of 
 armed men, as a vast engine is put in motion by pressure 
 on a button. Some thirty miles away, behind a small 
 stream called Bull Run, Beauregard waited the arrival 
 of McDowell. The two army commanders were class- 
 
INVASION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 109 
 
 mates at West Point, and had studied and marched side 
 by side for four years. It was a strange sight to see 
 them now manoeuvring hostile armies. 
 
 The capture of Washington should have been the 
 legitimate military result of the Southern victory at 
 Manassas. A great part of Beauregard's army had not 
 fired a gun on the 21st; the brigades of Ewell, D. R. 
 Jones, Longstreet, Bonham, and Holmes had been 
 quietly resting all day, if we except a small skirmish by 
 Jones. Ewell moved to the battlefield in the afternoon, 
 but was not engaged. If these fresh troops had been 
 led direct on Centreville by the roads crossing the fords 
 they were guarding, they could easily have reached that 
 point, four or five miles distant, before the fugitives of 
 the Federal army, who for the most part were returning 
 by the circuitous route over which they marched in the 
 morning, and which was the only road they knew. The 
 six thousand Federal reserve at Centreville, under 
 Miles, certainly, in view of the demoralization of the rest 
 of the army, could not have made a successful resist- 
 ance. Bonham and Longstreet crossed Bull Run in pur- 
 suit, but were stopped by three regiments of General 
 Blenker's brigade. Three hours and a half of daylight 
 still remained. 
 
 The Confederates had nineteen companies of cav- 
 alry, McDowell seventeen. In neither army at that 
 time was the employment of cavalry understood. It 
 was not massed, but distributed around among the 
 various infantry brigades where the troopers were prin- 
 cipally used for couriers. If the whole of the Southern 
 cavalry had been ordered forward under an enterprising 
 soldier like Stuart, supported by the troops that had 
 not been engaged, Centreville might have easily been 
 reached that night. The next day, while Stuart was 
 moving in the direction of Alexandria and Washington, 
 with some of the freshest infantry as supports, the head 
 of the Confederate army might have been turned toward 
 White's Ford, on the upper Potomac, some twenty-five 
 or thirty miles away. Patterson's army was disintegrat- 
 ing by the expiration of enlistments ; Banks, his suc- 
 cessor, had at Harper's Ferry about six thousand men 
 and was fearing an attack. Dix, at Fort McHenry and 
 
no GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Baltimore, with a small force, was uncomfortable ; and 
 Butler, at Fort Monroe, was protesting against Scott's 
 order to send to Washington his Illinois volunteers. All 
 conditions were favorable to a march through Maryland 
 by the Southern army, and either capture the Federal 
 capital or occupy the strategic point at the junction 
 of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad with the Wash- 
 mgton and Baltimore Railroad at the Relay House. 
 Thousands of Marylanders whose sympathies were with 
 the South would have increased the numbers of the 
 Confederate army. Fairfax and Loudoun counties in 
 Virginia, and Howard and Montgomery counties in 
 Maryland, were teeming with food for men and horses. 
 Half a million rounds of ammunition for small arms had 
 "been captured. Gorgas, chief of ordnance, had many 
 rounds also in Richmond, for on July 14th General Lee 
 ordered him to send a full supply to General Wise in 
 West Virginia. Besides ammunition, large quantities of 
 muskets, pistols, knapsacks, swords, cannons, blankets, 
 wagons, ambulances, hospital and subsistence stores, 
 and camp and garrison equipment were captured. 
 
 On July 22, 1861, there were no troops in Baltimore 
 with which any defense of that city could have been 
 made. There were a few regiments for provost duty, but 
 no available fighting force. Banks was ninety-five miles 
 from Baltimore by the nearest road. White's Ford, on 
 the Potomac, where Johnston and Beauregard could 
 have crossed, is about forty-five miles from Baltimore. 
 The occupation of the Relay House might have pro- 
 duced the immediate evacuation of Washmgton by the 
 Federals, the transfer of the seat of war to Pennsyl- 
 vania, the accession of Maryland to the Confederacy, 
 and fifty thousand more men as recruits as fast as they 
 could have been armed, for Baltimore would have clothed 
 and equipped them. Next year, when the second battle 
 of Manassas was fought. General Lee crossed the Poto- 
 mac and entered Maryland without difficulty under much 
 less favorable conditions. His inferiority of numbers to 
 those of his antagonists were greater, and his ammuni- 
 tion, supplies, and transportation less in proportion to 
 the strength of his army. 
 
 The extent of the Southern victory was not known 
 
INVASION OF VIRGINIA. m 
 
 on that hot afternoon of July 21, 1861, because the pur- 
 suit had been feeble. Later in the evening, when the 
 Federals were in full retreat, the report reached the Con- 
 federate commanders that a strong body of Union troops 
 was advancing via Union Mills on Manassas, and orders 
 were issued in consequence for the rapid march of some 
 troops back to this position, infantry being mounted be- 
 hind cavalry in order to get there at the earliest possi- 
 ble moment, and Beauregard started in that direction in 
 person with the understanding that Johnston should 
 send him re-enforcements. 
 
 The defeat of McDowell's army not being fully util- 
 ized by the Confederates caused the victory to be re- 
 garded by some at the South as unfortunate, for it was 
 followed by a period of fancied security, while the op- 
 posite effect was produced at the North. So great was 
 the confidence in the power to establish another republic 
 on this continent that politicians at the South already 
 began to plot for the Presidential succession. Beaure- 
 gard was one of those named for office, and he wrote a 
 letter to the public press, dated "within the hearing of 
 the enemy's guns," declaring that he was not a candidate. 
 On the other hand, the day that Washington was crowd- 
 ed with fugitives from the Federal army the House of 
 Representatives passed a resolution pledging to the 
 country and to the world " the employment of every 
 resource, national and individual, for the suppression 
 and punishment of armed rebels." While the South 
 rested on the laurels of Manassas the North went vigor- 
 ously to work to repair its fortunes. Congress author- 
 ized an army of half a million of men to be enlisted for 
 three years, an increase of the navy, and a large loan. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 General Lee was in Richmond during the opera- 
 tions at Manassas, and contributed his humble part by 
 the organization and equipment of the army, as well as 
 in the selection of the battlefields. He was not dazzled 
 by the blaze of victory which glistened from the tips 
 of the Southern bayonets, or filled with undue elation. 
 He was one among the very few in the South who 
 always felt the contest would be obstinate and pro- 
 longed. No one knew better than he the great re- 
 sources of one of the combatants, as well as the de- 
 termination and courage of both. Six days after the 
 battle he writes Mrs. Lee from Richmond, July 27, 1861 : 
 "That, indeed, was a glorious victory, and has light- 
 ened the pressure upon us amazingly. Do not grieve 
 for the brave dead, but sorrow for those they left be- 
 hind — friends, relatives, and families. The former are 
 at rest; the latter must suffer. The battle will be re- 
 peated there in greater force. I hope God will again 
 smile on us and strengthen our hearts and arms. I 
 wished to partake in the former struggle, and am morti- 
 fied at my absence. But the President thought it more 
 important that I should be here. I could not have done 
 as well as has been done, but I could have helped and 
 taken part in a struggle for my home and neighborhood. 
 So the work is done, I care not by whom it is done. I 
 leave to-morrow for the army in western Virginia." 
 
 As no immediate hostile advance now threatened 
 the Federal or Confederate capitals, other sections be- 
 gan to receive attention. Northwest Virginia lies be- 
 tween the Alleghany Mountains and the Ohio River. It 
 is a rough, mountainous district, with only a few passable 
 
 (I12i 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 113 
 
 roads connecting it with the remainder of the State. The 
 iron horse had never penetrated its soil or watered in its 
 mountain streams. There was not that touch and feel- 
 ing of interest that is derived from personal contact be- 
 tween the citizens of northwest Virginia and other por- 
 tions of the Old Dominion. On the question of seces- 
 sion the majority of them differed widely from the great 
 mass of Virginians. It was doubtful territory, and both 
 the Governments at Washington and at Richmond rec- 
 ognized the importance at an early date of sending 
 troops there, the one to protect and nourish the Union 
 sentiment, the other to aid and encourage those who 
 sympathized with the South. Henry A. Wise, once 
 their governor, was made a brigadier general and as- 
 sembled a force with which he advanced to Charleston, 
 on the Kanawha River, but afterward returned to Lew- 
 isburg, on the Greenbrier. It was thought by his pres- 
 ence and eloquence that the resident population might 
 be made confederate in feelmg and his army largely re- 
 cruited. General John B. Floyd, who had been Presi- 
 dent Buchanan's Secretary of War, had been commis- 
 sioned at Richmond as brigadier general, and had re- 
 cruited and organized a brigade in southwest Virginia, 
 and in July led it over to the region of the Kanawha. 
 This was the first field assigned to George B. McClellan 
 by the Federal War Department, an officer of great 
 promise, who, graduating at West Point in 1846, had for 
 his classmates, among others, Burnside and Stonewall 
 Jackson. He served first in the Engineer Corps, and in 
 1855 was appointed a captain in the First Cavalry. His 
 previous military experience had been much the same as 
 Lee's. In 1857 he resigned, to take up railroad work, 
 and when war commenced he was made a major general 
 of Ohio volunteers. He crossed into northwest Vir- 
 ginia on the 26th of May, he says, of his own volition 
 and without orders. A portion of his command was 
 under General Cox on the Kanawha. In McClellan's 
 immediate front was a Confederate force under General 
 Robert S. Garnett, who had been ordered to defend that 
 portion of northwest Virginia. 
 
 Garnett was a Virginian, who had graduated at the 
 Military Academy five years before McClellan. He had 
 
114 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 won his laurels in the Mexican campaign and after- 
 ward against the Indians. Upon resigning from the 
 United States Army his first service in the South was 
 as adjutant general of the Virginia forces. He was con- 
 sidered an excellent officer, a rigid disciplinarian, and, 
 in consequence of many soldierly traits, had at one time 
 been appointed commandant of the Cadet Corps at West 
 Point. In June this officer occupied, with a force of 
 about five thousand men. Laurel Hill, thirteen miles 
 south of Philippi, on the turnpike leading to Beverly, in 
 Randolph County. McClellan reached Grafton on the 
 23d of the same month, and on the same day issued a 
 proclamation to the inhabitants of West Virgmia, and 
 on the following day another to the " soldiers of the 
 Army of the West," both in the bombastic, inflated 
 style followed by officers on each side in the early 
 days of the war. He called his enemies hard names 
 and charged them with grave offenses, and in many ways 
 differed from the same McClellan who afterward com- 
 manded the Army of the Potomac. " Soldiers," said he, 
 " I have heard there was danger here. I have come to 
 place myself at your head and share it with you. I fear 
 now but one thing — that you will not find foemen worthy 
 of your steel." He had evidently been reading some 
 of the proclamations of a "great master of war," and 
 attempted to follow his style. The attention of the 
 public was drawn to this Napoleonic imitation, for about 
 that time he received the appellation of the ''Young 
 Napoleon," and was so called after he had been brought 
 from West Virginia to the command of the Army of 
 the Potomac. The headquarters of the Department of 
 the Ohio were established at Buckhannon, and from 
 this point McClellan determined to attack the force on 
 Rich Mountain, and advanced and deployed in front of 
 the opposing army, which he found strongly intrenched. 
 He promptly resorted to the only method left in mili- 
 tary operations in the mountains, and decided to turn 
 their flank and rear, which General Rosecrans success- 
 fully did with four regiments. The troops at this point 
 were a portion of Garnett's force under Lieutenant- 
 Colonel John Pegram. Beverly was occupied by the Fed- 
 eral troops the next day, and General Garnett with the 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 115 
 
 remainder of his army, finding that retreat had been cut 
 off in that direction, abandoned his intrenchments on 
 Laurel Hill and made a hasty retreat in the night over 
 a rough country road in the direction of St. George, in 
 Tucker County, He was rapidly followed and his rear 
 overtaken at Carrick's Ford, on the Shafer Fork of the 
 main branch of Cheat River. In the engagement which 
 followed Garnett was killed. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Pegram, who had escaped with a 
 force of some five hundred men from Laurel Hill, not 
 being able to join General Garnett in consequence of 
 the latter's retreat, determined to surrender his little 
 force, which had been without food for two days, as 
 prisoners of war, and on July 12th surrendered to Gen- 
 eral McClellan five hundred and sixty men and thirty- 
 three commissioned officers. Four days afterward Mc- 
 Clellan issued another address to his troops : " Sol- 
 diers of the Army of the West,"' said he, " I am more 
 than satisfied with you ; you have annihilated two armies 
 commanded by educated and experienced soldiers." 
 The two armies here referred to were the four thou- 
 sand men under Garnett, and Pegram's small force. In 
 his dispatch of July 12th to the adjutant general at 
 Washington he estimated Garnett's force at ten thou- 
 sand, beginning at this time a habit of multiplying the 
 number of his enemy by two, which he never afterward 
 abandoned. The success of the campaign, however, 
 had a marked effect upon his future. General Scott tele- 
 graphed : " The General in Chief, the Cabinet, the Presi- 
 dent, are charmed with your activity and valor. We do 
 not doubt that you will in due time sweep the rebels 
 from western Virginia, but we do not mean to precipitate 
 you, as you are fast enough." After McDowell's defeat 
 at Manassas, McClellan was selected to command the 
 defenses at Washington, and the day after that battle, 
 while at Beverly, was informed by Adjutant-General 
 Thomas, at Washington, that his presence there with- 
 out delay was necessary. General William S. Rosecrans 
 succeeded him. 
 
 On July 28th McClellan assumed command of the 
 Department of Northeastern Virginia and of Washing- 
 ton. Being necessary to select another commanding 
 
Il6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 officer for the Southern troops in Northwest Virginia, 
 General Lee designated Brigadier-General Loring, who 
 had been a distinguished officer in the United States 
 service, to be Garnett's successor. Loring left Rich- 
 mond July 22d and proceeded at once to Monterey, in 
 Highland County, and thence to Huntersville, where a 
 force was being organized for the purpose of securing 
 the Cheat Mountain pass, a strategic point of great 
 value over which the Staunton and Parkersburg turn- 
 pike crossed. The Confederate authorities — having been 
 informed of the advance of the Federal General Cox in 
 the Kanawha Valley and that there would probably be 
 two armies operating in northwest Virginia, and also 
 being disappointed in what had been accomplished in 
 that section — determined to send out there an officer of 
 high rank and reputation. Mr. Davis offered the com- 
 mand of that department, therefore, to General Joseph 
 E. Johnston first, as there was no necessity for Johnston 
 and Beauregard both to remain at Manassas. Gen- 
 eral Johnston declined the offer, because he thought 
 the most important battles would be fought between 
 Washington and Richmond. It was then determined 
 that General Lee should assume command in person of 
 that department, for his duties of organizing and as- 
 signing troops to the different sections had nearly ter- 
 minated. The Secretary of War and the adjutant general, 
 under the direction of the President, were the proper 
 persons to direct army movements now. General Lee 
 proceeded at once to West Virginia, and for the first 
 time assumed active command of the troops in the field. 
 He went at first to Huntersville, where he found Loring, 
 then to Valley Mountain, where Colonel Gilliam had 
 been stationed. From the former point he wrote to his 
 wife, August 4, 1861 : 
 
 " I reached here yesterday to visit this portion of the 
 army. The points from which we can be attacked are 
 numerous, and the enemy's means unlimited, so we must 
 always be on the alert ; it is so difficult to get our peo- 
 ple, unaccustomed to the necessities of war, to compre- 
 hend and promptly execute the measures required for 
 the occasion. General Johnson, of Georgia, commands 
 on the Monterey line, General Loring on this line, and 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 117 
 
 General Wise, supported by General Floyd, on the 
 Kanawha line. The soldiers everywhere are sick. The 
 measles are prevalent throughout the whole army. You 
 know that disease leaves unpleasant results and at- 
 tacks the lungs, etc., especially in camp, where the ac- 
 commodations for the sick are poor. I traveled from 
 Staunton on horseback. A part of the road I traveled 
 over in the summer of 1840 on my return to St. Louis 
 after bringing you home. If any one had told me that 
 the next time I traveled that road would have been 
 my present errand, I should have supposed him insane. 
 I enjoyed the mountains as I rode along. The views 
 were magnificent. The valleys so peaceful, the scen- 
 ery so beautiful ! What a glorious world Almighty 
 God has given us ! How thankless and ungrateful we 
 are!" 
 
 And from Valley Mountain, August 9, 1861, he writes : 
 *' I have been three days coming from Monterey to 
 Huntersville. The mountains are beautiful, fertile to 
 the tops, covered with the richest sward and blue grass 
 and white clover. The inclosed fields wave with a natu- 
 ral growth of timothy. This is a magnificent grazing 
 country, and all it wants is labor to clear the mountain- 
 sides of timber. It has rained, I believe, some portion 
 of every day since I left Staunton. Now it is pouring. 
 Colonel Washington, Captain Taliaferro, and myself are 
 in one tent, which as yet protects us. I have enjoyed 
 the company of our son while 1 have been here. He is 
 very well and very active, and as yet the war has not 
 reduced him much. He dined with me yesterday and 
 preserves his fine appetite. To-day he is out recon- 
 noitering, and has the full benefit of this fine rain. I 
 fear he is without his overcoat, as I do not recollect 
 seeing it on his saddle. I told you he had been pro- 
 moted to a major in the cavalry, and he is the com- 
 manding cavalry officer on this line at present. He is 
 sanguine, cheerful, and hearty as ever. I sent him some 
 corn meal this morning, and he sent me some butter — a 
 mutual exchange of good things. The men are suffer- 
 ing from measles and so on, as elsewhere, but are cheer- 
 ful and light-hearted. The nights are cool and the water 
 delicious. Send word to Miss Lou Washington that her 
 9 
 
Il8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 father* is sitting on his blanket sewing a strap on his 
 haversack. I think she ought to be here to do it." 
 
 And on September ist, from the same place, he tells 
 her: "We have had a great deal of sickness among the 
 soldiers, and those now on the sick list would form an 
 army. The measles is still among them, but I hope is 
 dying out. The constant cold rains, mud, etc., with no 
 shelter or tents, have aggravated it. AH these drawbacks, 
 with impassable roads, have paralyzed our efforts." 
 
 It was Loring's purpose to attempt a movement on 
 Reynolds's rear. This officer occupied, with two thou- 
 sand men. Cheat Mountain pass, through which the 
 Staunton and Parkersburg pike passed, and had three 
 thousand men in Tygart's Valley on the road to Hut- 
 tonsville, with a reserve at Huttonsville, so he could 
 re-enforce his troops on the Staunton road, or on the 
 Valley Mountain road, as necessary. Loring, with thirty- 
 five hundred effective troops, was in front of him on the 
 latter, while General H. R. Jackson, with twenty-five 
 hundred men, opposed him on the Staunton road. The 
 natural topographical features, supplemented by arti- 
 ficial means, rendered his position very strong on both. 
 General Lee promptly took the offensive by threatening 
 his front, while a column should proceed, if possible, 
 around one of his flanks and assault his rear — a plan 
 similar to that adopted by McClellan at Rich Mountain. 
 
 The greatest difficulty in a campaign of this descrip- 
 tion is to discover suitable routes or paths over the 
 rocks and precipitous mountain sides for the troops of 
 the turning column. General Lee's experience as an en- 
 gineer in Mexico had taught him the duties of a recon- 
 noitering officer. He therefore not only availed him- 
 self of the information derived from others, but would 
 personally proceed daily long distances for that purpose. 
 
 At this time Rosecrans was in the Kanawha Valley 
 with Cox's column, and was opposed by the troops of 
 the Confederate Generals Floyd and Wise, and was not 
 with the force in General Lee's front. He and Lee com- 
 manded the whole department on their respective sides. 
 The army whose movements General Lee was about to 
 
 * His aid-de-camp, Colonel John Augustine Washington. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. ng 
 
 superintend in person consisted, as stated, of about six 
 thousand men, including a few companies of cavalry, as 
 well as a fine battalion of the same arm under General 
 Lee's son, Major W. H. F. Lee. Reynolds's force was 
 estimated at about ten thousand. 
 
 After Floyd's clever defeat of Tyler at Cross Lane, 
 on the 26th of August, he and General Wise seem to have 
 kept on different sides of the Gauley River, and there 
 did not seem to be that concert of action between them 
 necessary to win success. General Rosecrans, an able 
 and sagacious officer, was not slow to recognize the de- 
 tached positions of these commands, and determined to 
 re-enforce Cox and attempt the defeat of one or both 
 of them. He advanced rapidly and assaulted Floyd's 
 position, but was repulsed. Floyd then crossed the 
 Gauley, followed by Rosecrans, and with Wise fell back 
 to Sewell Mountain, the latter remaining on its eastern 
 front, while the former fell still farther back to Meadow 
 Bluff, eighteen miles west of Lewisburg. 
 
 Leaving the operations in this section for the present 
 to the immediate commanders of the troops. General 
 Lee proposed first to wdn a victory, if possible, over 
 Reynolds. He was combative, anxious to strike, but 
 many difficulties confronted him. He fully realized he 
 had been sent to West Virginia to retrieve Confederate 
 disasters, and that he had a most difficult task to per- 
 form. The Federal commander held the center summit 
 of Cheat Mountain pass, the mountain having three 
 well-defined summits. The center one was selected 
 by the Federals as the best one to defend, and there a 
 block fort was constructed with flanking outworks con- 
 sisting of intrenchments of earth and logs, the whole 
 line of defense being protected by dense abatis. The 
 position chosen was inaccessible in many directions by the 
 steep, rugged walls of the mountain. It was necessary 
 first to carry this well-selected position of the Federal 
 troops. A citizen surveyor, in sympathy with the South 
 and familiar with the mountain paths, had made a 
 trip to an elevated point where he could clearly see 
 the Federal position, and reported his observations to 
 General Lee. Afterward he made a second reconnois- 
 sance, accompanied by Colonel Albert Rust, of the Third 
 
20 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Arkansas Regiment, who was anxious to see the nature 
 of the ground and the strength of the position for him- 
 self. They reported to General Lee that in their opinion 
 the enemy's position could be assailed with success with 
 troops which could be guided to the point they had 
 reached. General Lee decided to make the attack, and 
 gave to Rust a column of twelve hundred infantry, with 
 such capable officers as Taliaferro and Fulkerson. Gen- 
 eral Jackson was to advance via the turnpike to confront 
 the enemy from that direction, while another column, 
 under Brigadier-General Anderson, was to advance to 
 the third or west top of Cheat Mountain, where they 
 could secure possession of the turnpike and be in the 
 rear of the enemy. The rest of the army was to move 
 down the Tygart's River valley upon the forces of the 
 enemy stationed there. The attack on these troops, 
 however, was to depend on the successful assault of the 
 fortified position on Cheat Mountain. It was an admi- 
 rably conceived plan. The key point was first to be 
 carried ; the report of the guns of the troops engaged 
 there was the signal for an assault in front, while a 
 force was thrown in the rear of both positions to cut 
 off retreat. General Loring issued his order of attack 
 on September 8, 1861. General Lee issued an order 
 approving it on the same date, telling his troops that 
 the safety of their lives and the lives of all they held 
 dear depended upon their courage and exertions. " Let 
 each man," said he, *' resolve to be victorious, and that 
 the right of self-government, liberty, and peace shall in 
 him find a defender." The movement was to begin at 
 night, which happened to be a very rainy one. All the 
 troops, however, got in the positions assigned to them 
 without the knowledge of the enemy, where they waited, 
 every moment expecting to hear the rattle of Rust's 
 muskets, who had been charged with the capture of the 
 pass on Cheat Mountain; but hour after hour passed, 
 and no sounds were heard. After a delay of many 
 hours, and the enemy had divined the nature of the at- 
 tack, the troops were ordered back to their former posi- 
 tion. There had been only a small conflict between 
 cavalry, in which Colonel John A. Washington, General 
 Lee's aid-de-camp, who had been sent with Major W. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 121 
 
 H. F. Lee to reconnoiter the enemy, was killed from an 
 ambuscade. Colonel Rust did not report to General 
 Lee until the next day — September 13, 1861 ; he admits 
 that he got to the designated place at the appointed 
 time, notwithstanding the rain ; that he seized a number 
 of pickets and scouts, and learned from them that the 
 enemy in front of him was between four and five thou- 
 sand strong and was strongly fortified. He made a re- 
 connoissance and found these representations were fully 
 corroborated. Rust claims in his reports that spies had 
 communicated the movements of the Confederate troops 
 to the enemy. This officer evidently did not attack, be- 
 cause he found, on getting close to the Federal position, 
 that it was much stronger than he thought it was from 
 the preliminary reconnoissances he had made. As the 
 attack of the whole depended on the assault of this force, 
 the failure to attack caused a corresponding failure of 
 the whole movement. The plan of operations was well 
 devised, and, under ordinary circumstances, might have 
 proved successful. 
 
 Military operations are often like a vast piece of 
 machinery : with one part out of gear, the successful 
 operation of the whole machine is not possible. In a 
 letter to Mrs. Lee, dated Valley Mountain, September 
 17, 1861, the general writes: "I had hoped to have sur- 
 prised the enemy's works on the morning of the 12th, 
 both at Cheat Mountain and on Valley River. All the 
 attacking parties with great labor had reached their 
 destination over mountains considered impassable to 
 bodies of troops, notwithstanding the heavy storm that 
 had set in the day before and raged all night, in which 
 they had to stand till daylight ; their arms were then 
 unserviceable, and they in poor condition for a fierce 
 assault. After waiting till ten o'clock for the assault 
 on Cheat Mountain, which did not take place, and which 
 was to be the signal for the rest, they were withdrawn, 
 and after waiting three days in front of the enemy, hop- 
 ing he would come out of his trenches, we returned to 
 our position at this place. I can not tell you my regret 
 and mortification at the untoward events that caused 
 the failure of the plan. I had taken every precaution 
 to insure success, and counted on it ; but the Ruler of 
 
122 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 the Universe willed otherwise, and sent a storm to dis- 
 concert the well-laid plan. We are no worse off now 
 than before, except the disclosure of our plan, against 
 which they will guard. We met with one heavy loss 
 which grieves me deeply : Colonel Washington, accom- 
 panied Fitzhugh [his son] on a reconnoitering expedi- 
 tion. I fear they were carried away by their zeal and 
 approached within the enemy's pickets. The first they 
 knew there was a volley from a concealed party within 
 a few yards of them. Three balls passed through the 
 colonel's body, three struck his horse, and the horse of 
 one of the men was killed. Fitzhugh mounted the colo- 
 nel's horse and brought him off. I am much grieved. 
 He was always anxious to go on these expeditions. 
 This was the first day I assented. Since I had been 
 thrown in such immediate relations with him, I had 
 learned to appreciate him very highly. Morning and 
 evening have I seen him on his knees praying to his 
 Maker. ' The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth 
 it to heart; the merciful men are taken away, none con- 
 sidering that the righteous are taken away from the evil 
 to come.' May God have mercy on us all ! " 
 
 And on the 26th of the same month he writes from 
 his camp on Sewell Mountain: "I told you of the 
 death of Colonel Washington. I grieve for his loss, 
 though I trust him to the mercy of our heavenly Father. 
 It is raining heavily. The men are all exposed on the 
 mountains, with the enemy opposite to us. We are 
 without tents, and for two nights I have lain buttoned 
 up in my overcoat. To-day my tent came up and I am 
 in it, yet I fear I shall not sleep for thinking of the poor 
 men. I have no doubt the socks you mentioned will be 
 very acceptable to the men here and elsewhere. If you 
 can send them here I will distribute to the most needy." 
 
 This movement having failed, and knowing that 
 the enemy would be prepared for any second attempt 
 which, from the nature of the country, would have to 
 be similar to the one already tried, General Lee de- 
 cided to turn his attention to the commands of Wise 
 and Floyd in front of Rosecrans, leaving General H. R. 
 Jackson in Reynolds's front. He proceeded at once 
 to Floyd's command, w^hich he reached on September 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 23 
 
 20th, and then to Wise's camp, closely inspecting both. 
 He at once perceived that Wise's position was the strong- 
 est and offered the best means for successful defense, 
 and promptly concentrated his forces at that 'point. 
 
 General Lee expressed regret at not finding the 
 commands of Floyd and Wise united, and said it would 
 be the height of imprudence to submit them separately 
 to the attack of Rosecrans. He desired the troops to 
 be massed at once, so that "We conquer or die to- 
 gether," a most extravagant and unusual form of speech 
 for him to adopt. *' You have spoken," said he to Wise, 
 " of want of consultation and concert. Let that pass 
 till the enemy is driven back. I expect this of your 
 magnanimity. Consult that and the interest of your 
 cause, and all will go well." " Just say, then," replied 
 Wise, " where we are to ' unite and conquer or die to- 
 gether,' and I will delight to obey you." 
 
 Rosecrans had advanced to the top of Big Sewell 
 Mountain and had placed his army in a strong position. 
 General Lee, with the troops of Wise, Floyd, and Loring 
 — about eight thousand men — occupied a position on a 
 parallel range. The two armies were now in close prox- 
 imity to each other, both occupying strong defensive 
 positions. Lee and Rosecrans, having been officers of 
 the engineers, were fully aware of the great disadvan- 
 tage an attacking army would have, and each waited, 
 hoping the other would attack. After occupying these 
 positions for twelve days, Rosecrans, on the night of 
 October 6th, retreated. The condition of the roads, the 
 mud, the swollen streams, the large numbers of men 
 with typhoid fever and measles, the condition of the 
 horses, of the artillery, and transportation, were such 
 that Lee decided not to pursue. It is possible that had 
 he known Rosecrans would not attack he would have 
 given battle himself, notwithstanding the great advan- 
 tage Rosecrans would have possessed by accepting it in 
 his strong defensive position. The rapid approach of 
 winter and the rainy season terminated the campaign 
 in this section. 
 
 In a letter dated Sewell Mountain, October 7, 1861, 
 General Lee tells Mrs. Lee that at the time of the recep- 
 tion of her letter " the enemy was threatening an at- 
 
124 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 tack, which was continued till Saturday night, when, 
 under cover of darkness and our usual mountain mist, 
 he suddenly withdrew. Your letter, with the socks, was 
 handed to me when I was preparing to follow. I could 
 not at the time attend to either, but I have since ; and 
 as 1 found Perry [his colored servant from Arlington] 
 in desperate need, I bestowed a couple of pairs on him 
 as a present from you ; the others I have put in my 
 trunk, and suppose they will fall to the lot of Meredith 
 [a colored servant from the White House], into the state 
 of whose hose I have not yet inquired. Should any sick 
 man require them first he shall have them, but Meredith 
 will have no one near to supply him but me, and will nat- 
 urally expect that attention. The water is almost as bad 
 here as in the mountains I left. There was a drenching 
 rain yesterday, and as I left my overcoat in camp, I was 
 thoroughly wet from head to foot. It has been raining 
 ever since, and is now coming down with a will ; but I 
 have my clothes out on the bushes, and they will be well 
 washed. The force of the enemy, estimated by prison- 
 ers captured, is put down at from seventeen to twenty 
 thousand — General Floyd thinks eighteen thousand. I 
 do not think it exceeds nine or ten thousand, but it 
 exceeds ours. I wish he had attacked, as I believe he 
 would have been repulsed with great loss. The rum- 
 blmg of his wheels, etc., were heard by our pickets ; but 
 as that was customary at night in moving and placing 
 his cannon, the officer of the day, to whom it was re- 
 ported, paid no particular attention to it, supposing it to 
 be a preparation for an attack in the morning. When 
 day appeared the bird had flown, and the misfortune 
 was that the reduced condition of our horses for want 
 of provender, exposure to cold rains in these mountains, 
 and want of provisions for the men, prevented the vigor- 
 ous pursuit of following up that had been prepared. We 
 can only get up provisions from day to day, which para- 
 lyzes our operations. I am sorry, as you say, that the 
 movements of the armies can not keep pace with the 
 expectations of the editors of papers. I know they can 
 regulate matters satisfactory to themselves on paper. I 
 wish they could do so in the field. No one wishes them 
 more success than I do, and would be happy to see them 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 125 
 
 have full swing. General Floyd has three editors on his 
 staff. I hope something will be done to please them." 
 
 It is true West Virginia, as it is called, w^ould have 
 been a desirable accession to either side. Both Govern- 
 ments were actuated in its occupation by a desire to pro- 
 tect the citizens who adhered respectively to their cause. 
 The country abounded in vast forests, coal, and iron, 
 presenting fields of wealth and enterprise. The advan- 
 tage, however, in a campaign there was in favor of the 
 Federals. The proximity of their railroads on the one 
 side made it easier for them to concentrate troops rapidly 
 and furnish them with supplies, while on the other hand 
 the Southern lines of communication from Staunton and 
 other portions of eastern Virginia were necessarily long 
 and difficult. 
 
 At the termination of this campaign of General Lee's 
 the Confederate Government did not bestow much at- 
 tention upon this section. The majority of the people 
 seemed inclmed to support the Federal side ; indeed, 
 most of the counties sent representatives to a conven- 
 tion which passed an ordinance creating them into a 
 new State, which the Government at Washington recog- 
 nized as the State of Virginia. 
 
 It must be admitted that General Tee retired from 
 West Virginia with diminished military reputation. Great 
 results had been expected from his presence there. Gar- 
 nett's defeat and death were to be avenged, and the 
 whole of that portion of Virginia speedily wrested from 
 the Federal arms. The public did not understand the 
 difficulties of the situation, or comprehend why he did 
 not defeat Reynolds, or the failure to attack Rose- 
 crans. The news of the expected great victories did 
 not reach Richmond. Men apparently wise shook their 
 heads and said he had been overrated as a soldier ; 
 that he relied upon a "showy presence" and a "his- 
 toric name," and that he was "too tender of blood" 
 and leaned too much to the engineer side of a mili- 
 tary question, preferring rather to dig intrenchments 
 than to fight. There were two men, however, who 
 stood by him faithfully in this doubtful period of his 
 career. One of them was the President of the Con- 
 federate States, the other the Governor of Virginia. 
 
126 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 They knew him well, and that the failure of the West 
 Virginia campaign could not be fairly attributed to him. 
 General Lee remained quiet under the occasional attacks 
 of the public press. He knew that his duty had been 
 discharged conscientiously. He was not aware that he 
 had a "showy presence." On the contrary, he was mod- 
 est, unassuming and simple. He conducted the campaign 
 in the most unostentatious manner. He had only two 
 aid-de-camps, Colonels Washington and Taylor. The 
 former was killed; the remaining aid-de-camp shared 
 the same tent with him. The mess furniture was of 
 the plainest kind — tin cups, tin plates, tin dishes, which 
 Colonel Taylor says were carried all through the war. 
 In the full ze'nith of his fame as a great army com- 
 mander, any one who accepted his hospitality would 
 be obliged to eat from this same old tinware with 
 which he commenced the war in West Virginia. It is 
 not known that General Lee ever attempted in any 
 way to make explanation or defense of these attacks. 
 In a private letter to Governor Letcher, dated Sep- 
 tember 17, 1861, he simply states that "he was san- 
 guine of success in attacking the enemy's works on Rich 
 Mountain " ; that "the troops intended for the surprise 
 had reached their destination, having traversed twenty 
 miles of steep and rugged mountain paths, and the last 
 day through a terrible storm, which had lasted all night, 
 in which they had to stand, drenched to the skin, in a 
 cold rain " ; that he " waited for an attack on Cheat 
 Mountain, which was to be the signal, till 10 a. m., but 
 the signal did not come. The chance for surprise was 
 gone. The provisions of the men had been destroyed 
 the preceding day by the storm. They had nothing to 
 eat that morning and could not hold out another day, 
 and were obliged to be withdrawn. This, Governor," 
 he writes, " is for your own eye. Please do not speak 
 of it; we must try again. Our greatest loss is the 
 death of my dear friend. Colonel Washington. He and 
 my son were reconnoitering the front of the enemy. 
 They came aftefward upon a concealed party who fired 
 upon them within twenty yards, and the colonel fell, 
 pierced by three balls. My son's horse received three 
 shots, but he escaped on the colonel's horse. His zeal 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 127 
 
 for the cause to which he had devoted himself carried 
 him too far." 
 
 General Lee, in obedience to instructions, returned to 
 Richmond, but not amid the shouts of the populace. The 
 bands did not play, " See the Conquering Hero Come " ; 
 the chaplet of victory was missing from his brow, the 
 scalps of Rosecrans and Reynolds from his belt. The 
 public looked at the cold facts, and were interested in 
 actual results. The difference between war in the moun- 
 tains and war amid the hills and valleys and green fields 
 was never for a moment considered. Four hundred and 
 eighty-four years before the birth of our Saviour, his- 
 tory tells us that Xerxes marched with over one million 
 men and twelve hundred war ships to invade Greece. 
 And that Leonidas, with three hundred Spartans and 
 about four thousand men from the other parts of Greece, 
 defied the King of Persia and for two days held the defile 
 in the mountains known as the Pass of Thermopylae. 
 
 In 1861 there were still passes among the mountains, 
 and a few men could hold them against an army, and 
 could only be dislodged by flank and rear attacks over 
 long, steep, circuitous paths. Lee made the attempt 
 when in front of Reynolds. Had his well-laid plans 
 been carried out, possibly he might have defeated the 
 Federal general. In an offensive movement against 
 Rosecrans the elements of success were against him. 
 The naturally strong, elevated position on Sewell 
 Mountain, made still stronger by the methods of an 
 engineer of such great ability as Rosecrans, could not 
 have been easily carried. When it was abandoned, the 
 Federal rear guard, every few miles, could have found 
 other strong positions where Lee's army could have 
 been detained for days had the condition of his troops 
 and the roads permitted pursuit. On General Lee's re- 
 turn to Richmond his duties as military adviser at the 
 side of the chief executive officer of the Confederacy 
 were resumed. No response was ever made to public 
 criticisms. His vision swept the future, his vindication 
 would come if opportunity offered. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. — ASSIGNED TO DUTY IN 
 RICHMOND AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF UNDER THE 
 DIRECTION OF THE SOUTHERN PRESIDENT. 
 
 The defenseless condition of the States south of 
 Virginia bordering on the Atlantic coast was an ob- 
 ject of solicitude to the Confederate War Department. 
 Important seaports and the sections adjoining them 
 were at the mercy of combined Federal fleets and 
 armies. Their proper defense was most difficult, the 
 means most inadequate. It was a good field for a 
 capable engineer. Lee was available, and the emer- 
 gency demanded his services. Reluctantly he was or- 
 dered from Richmond, cheerfully he obeyed, and on 
 November 6th proceeded to South Carolina, where he 
 at once commenced to erect a line of defense along the 
 Atlantic coasts of that State, Georgia, and Florida. 
 
 His four months' labors in this department brought 
 prominently into view his skill. Exposed points were no 
 longer in danger. Well-conceived defensive works rose 
 rapidly. Public confidence in that department was per- 
 manently restored, and with it came to Lee a new acces- 
 sion of popularity and esteem. His headquarters was 
 wisely established at Coosawhatchie on the railroad, a 
 point midway between Charleston, S. C, and Savannah, 
 Ga., and from which he could give close supervision to 
 the defenses of these important cities. From this point, 
 referring to the union of his family on Christmas day, 
 he writes : 
 
 Coosawhatchie, S. C, December 22, 1S61. 
 I shall think of you on that holy day more intensely than 
 usual, and shall pray to the great God of heaven to shower his 
 blessings upon you in this world and to unite you all in his 
 
 (128) 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 129 
 
 courts in the world to come. With a grateful heart I thank him 
 for his preservation of you thus far, and trust to his mercy and 
 kindness for the future. Oh, that I were more worthy and more 
 thankful for all that he has done and continues to do for me ! 
 
 And again on Christmas day he wrote : 
 
 I can not let this day of grateful rejoicing pass without some 
 communion with you. I am thankful for the many among the 
 past that I have passed with you, and the remembrance of them 
 fills me with pleasure. As to our old home, if not destroyed it 
 will be difficult ever to be recognized. Even if the enemy had 
 wished to preserve it, it would almost have been impossible. 
 With the number of troops encamped around it, the change of 
 officers, the want of fuel, shelter, etc., and all the dire necessities 
 of war, it is vain to think of its being in a habitable condition. I 
 fear, too, the books, furniture, and relics of Mount Vernon will 
 be gone. It is better to make up our minds to a general loss. 
 They can not take away the remembrances of the spot, and the 
 memories of those that to us rendered it sacred. That will re- 
 main to us as long as life will last and that we can preserve. In 
 the absence of a home I wish I could purchase Stratford. It 
 IS the only other place I could go to now acceptable to us, that 
 would inspire me with pleasure and local love. You and the 
 girls could remain there in quiet. It is a poor place, but we 
 could make enough corn-bread and bacon for our support, and 
 the girls could weave us clothes. You must not build your hopes 
 on peace on account of the United States going to war with Eng- 
 land. Our rulers are not entirely mad, and if they find England 
 is in earnest, and that war or a restitution of the captives * must 
 be the consequence, they will adopt the latter. We must make 
 up our minds to fight our battles and win our independence alone. 
 No one will help us. 
 
 In still another letter from the same place the gen- 
 eral writes Mrs. Lee : 
 
 I am truly grateful for all the mercies we enjoy, notwithstand- 
 ing the miseries of war, and join heartily in the wish that the 
 next year may find us in peace with all the world. I am de- 
 lighted to hear that our little grandson is improving so fast and 
 is becoming such a perfect gentleman. May his path be strewn 
 with flowers and his life with happiness. I am very glad to hear 
 also that his dear papa is promoted. It will be gratifying to him, 
 I hope, and increase his means of usefulness. While at Fernandina 
 I went over to Cumberland Island and walked up to Dungeness, 
 the former residence of General Greene. It was my first visit to 
 
 * Mason and Slidell. 
 
I30 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 the house, and I had the gratification at length of visiting my 
 father's grave. He died there, you may recollect, on his way 
 from the West Indies, and was interred in one corner of the 
 family cemetery. The spot is marked by a plain marble slab, 
 with his name. age. and date of his death. Mrs. Greene is also 
 buried there, and her daughter, Mrs. Shaw, and her husband. 
 The place is at present owned by Mr. Nightingale, nephew of 
 Mrs. Shaw, who married a daughter of Mrs. James King. The 
 family have moved into the interior of Georgia, leaving only a 
 few servants and a white gardener on the place. The garden 
 was beautifully inclosed by the finest hedge of wild olive I have 
 ever seen. 
 
 The harbor of Charleston, S. C, was now greatly 
 strengthened. Floating batteries were constructed and 
 earthworks at proper places erected. At Savannah forts 
 were built opposite Hilton Head, and at the best points 
 to cover the river approaches. Lee watched every de- 
 tail, and his eye, with a soldier's glance, overlooked 
 the whole Department. His lines were admirably lo- 
 cated, and his dispositions for the general defense of 
 the department were so skillfully planned that it was not 
 until near the close of the four years' war that his enemy 
 could surmount the difficulties they presented. These 
 cities were the cherished objective points of the adminis- 
 tration at Washington, and large numbers of soldiers and 
 sailors were at various times during the war employed 
 to secure their capture. Their safety for so long a pe- 
 riod from impending dangers upon every side was due 
 to the military skill of Lee, as well as to the efforts of 
 the accomplished officers who were in immediate com- 
 mand — General Ripley at Charleston and General Law- 
 ton at Savannah. Well might a prophetic tongue utter 
 at this period that the " time would come when Lee's 
 superior abilities would be vindicated, both to his own 
 renown and the glory of his country." 
 
 On February 8, 1862, he writes his wife from Sa- 
 vannah : " I wrote you the day I left Coosawhatchie. 
 I have been here ever since endeavoring to push for- 
 ward the works for the defense of the city. Guns are 
 scarce as well as ammunition. I shall have to bring up 
 batteries from the coast, I fear, to provide for this city. 
 Our enemies are trying to work their way through 
 the creeks and soft marshes along the interior of the 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 131 
 
 coast, which communicate with the sounds and sea, 
 through which the Savannah flows, and thus avoid the 
 entrance to the river, commanded by Fort Pulaski. 
 Their boats require only seven feet of water to float 
 them, and the tide rises seven feet, so that at high water 
 they can work their way and rest on the mud at low, I 
 hope, however, we shall be able to stop them, and my 
 daily prayer to the Giver of all victory is to enable us 
 to do so. We must make up our minds to meet with re- 
 verses and overcome them. But the contest must be 
 long, and the whole country has to go through much 
 suffering. It is necessary we should be humble and 
 taught to be less boastful, less selfish, and more devoted 
 to right and justice to all the world." 
 
 And again from the same place, he says on Feb- 
 ruary 23d : " The news from Tennessee and North 
 Carolina is not at all cheering. Disasters seem to be 
 thickening around us. It calls for renewed energies 
 and redoubled strength on our part. I fear our soldiers 
 have not realized the necessity of endurance and labor, 
 and that it is better to sacrifice themselves for our 
 cause. God, I hope, will shield us and give us success. 
 I hear the enemy is progressing slowly in his designs. 
 His gunboats are pushing up all the creeks and marshes 
 to the Savannah, and have obtained a position so near 
 the river as to shell the steamers navigating it. I am 
 engaged in constructing a line of defense at Fort Jack- 
 son, which, if time permits and guns can be obtained, 
 I hope will keep them out." 
 
 Spring was now rapidly approaching, and active mili- 
 tary operations would soon be resumed in many quar- 
 ters. Richmond, the dual capital city, was menaced by 
 an army from the North large in numbers and splendid- 
 ly equipped. Forts Henry and Donelson had fallen in 
 February before the combined attacks by land and 
 water of the Federals, opening the Cumberland and 
 Tennessee Rivers, and resulting in the capitulation of 
 Nashville, the capital of Tennessee. The outlook was 
 a serious one from a Southern standpoint, and de- 
 manded the counsel of the wisest, coolest, and most 
 courageous leaders. The great interests at stake in- 
 duced the President to summon General Lee from the 
 
132 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Southern Department to Richmond, and on March 13th 
 he was assigned to the position of commander of the 
 armies of the Confederacy and charged with the duty of 
 conducting all the military operations of the Southern 
 armies under the direction of the President. A few 
 months previous to this his name had been mentioned 
 in connection with the position of Secretary of War. 
 The appointment, however, was not made, possibly be- 
 cause it was considered unwise to confine such great 
 military talent within the bureau of a cabinet officer. 
 
 General Lee's youngest son, Robert, eighteen years 
 old at this time, made up his mind to leave the Univer- 
 sity of Virginia and go mto the army. His father gave 
 him permission, saying in a letter to his wife : 
 
 Richmond, March 16, 1862. 
 I went with him to get his overcoat, blankets, etc. There is 
 great difficulty in getting what is good. They have all to be 
 made, and he has gone to the adjutant general's office of Vir- 
 ginia to engage in the service. God grant it may be for his 
 good. I told him of the exemption granted by the Secretary of 
 War to the professors and students of the University, but he ex- 
 pressed no desire to take advantage of it. As I have done all in 
 the matter that seems proper, I must now leave the resi in the 
 hands of our merciful God. I hope our son will make a good 
 soldier. 
 
 During that month the Federal commanders dis- 
 played great activity. McClellan's large and well-or- 
 ganized army was being transferred to the Peninsula. 
 General Lee wrote to his wife from Richmond, March 
 22, 1862: "Our enemies are pressing us everywhere 
 and our army is in the fermentation of reorganization. 
 I pray that the great God may aid us, and am endeavor- 
 ing by every means in my power to bring out the troops 
 and hasten them to their destination." 
 
 Much had happened during his absence from Virginia. 
 The campaign was subjected to new conditions, and the 
 location of the two principal armies in that State had 
 been changed. The next battlefield was to be much 
 closer to Richmond. Johnston and Beauregard after 
 the battle of Manassas contmued to occupy that section, 
 extending their outposts, however, closer to Washington, 
 while partially blockading the Potomac River by some 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 133 
 
 heavy guns at a point near the mouth of Quantico Creek, 
 where the channel runs on the Virginia side. 
 
 The inactivity of this army during the remainder of 
 the summer and the fall months convinced the Fed- 
 eral authorities that no offensive campaign would be 
 undertaken by it. About the latter part of September 
 the Southern President visited the army and held a con- 
 ference with Generals Johnston, Beauregard, and G. W. 
 Smith in reference to active operations. These officers 
 proposed, General Johnston states, a plan to cross the 
 upper Potomac and place their army in the rear of Wash- 
 ington and fight the battle there. They demanded that 
 the army should be increased for that purpose by troops 
 drawn from all parts of the Confederacy, so as to num- 
 ber sixty thousand effectives. These conditions the 
 President was unable to comply with, so all hope of 
 any advance was abandoned, and the army prepared 
 to go into winter quarters. Mr. Davis frankly told 
 them that the whole country was applying for arms and 
 troops, and that he could do no more to mcrease the 
 strength of the army at that point than to send it as 
 many recruits as there were arms in the ordnance stores 
 at Richmond — namely, twenty-five hundred. Many ad- 
 vantageous changes were now made in the organization 
 of the army. Brigades were put into divisions and placed 
 under such commanding officers as Van Dorn, G. W. 
 Smith, Longstreet, T. J. Jackson, and Holmes. The 
 northern frontier of Virginia was formed into a new 
 military department, and General Johnston's command 
 was extended to the Alleghany Mountains on one side, 
 Chesapeake Bay on the other, and divided into three 
 districts : the Valley, to be commanded by T. J. Jackson ; 
 the District of the Potomac, under the immediate charge 
 of Beauregard ; and that section lying around the mouth 
 of Acquia Creek was placed under the immediate charge 
 of Major-General Holmes. On August 31st the Presi- 
 dent nominated to the Senate five persons to be gen- 
 erals in the Confederate army ; First, Samuel Cooper, 
 from May 15, 1861 ; second, A. S. Johnston, May 28th; 
 third, R. E. Lee, June 14th; fourth, J. E. Johnston, 
 July 4th; fifth, G. T. Beauregard, July 21st. Officers 
 who resigned from the United States Army had been 
 10 
 
134 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 promised by the Confederate Government when it was 
 first established at Montgomery, Ala., that they should 
 hold the same relative rank to each other when commis- 
 sioned in the army of the Confederate States. Cooper, 
 who had been the adjutant general of the United States 
 Army, was the senior colonel. Albert Sidney Johnston 
 resigned a colonelcy, General Lee a colonelcy, which he 
 had only held a short time, and Beauregard a captaincy. 
 General Joseph E. Johnston but a short time previous 
 to the outbreak of the war had been a lieutenant colonel 
 of the First Cavalry, United States Army, and was ranked 
 in that army by all the officers named except Beauregard. 
 Upon the death of General Jesup, the quartermaster gen- 
 eral shortly before the war, General Scott was asked to 
 recommend an officer to fill the vacancy, and he is re- 
 ported to have said that if the Secretary of War would 
 put into a hat the names of A. S. Johnston, R. E. Lee, 
 and J. E. Johnston, and one of said names be taken out, 
 a good quartermaster general would be secured. Mr. 
 John B. Floyd, w4io was the Secretary of War at the 
 time, naturally threw his influence in favor of J. E. 
 Johnston, as he came from his section of Virginia and 
 was a relative, and he received the appointment. In 
 those days the quartermaster general had the rank of 
 brigadier general. When the writer once asked Mr. 
 Davis if J. E. Johnston was not entitled to be the rank- 
 ing senior general in the Southern army, he replied, " No, 
 because the quartermaster general was not considered 
 in the line of promotion or eligible to active work in the 
 field. It was a staff position, and by law he could not 
 command troops except by special assignment, and that 
 therefore I went back to General Johnston's old rank 
 in determining the relative rank of the five generals." 
 
 As the Confederate army showed no disposition to 
 enter upon an offensive campaign, it soon became an 
 interesting problem to the Washington authorities how- 
 to defeat Johnston's army and capture Richmond. This 
 indisposition to attack gave McClellan ample time to 
 arrange his plans, and he took it. His deliberate meth- 
 ods were very provoking to his own Government, and 
 a matter of much suspense to the one opposed to him 
 He leisurely organized and equipped his army. The 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 135 
 
 North liberally and rapidly responded to the demand for 
 more men. For the three months succeedmg the battle 
 of Manassas troops were poured into the Department at 
 Washington at the rate of 40,000 per month, so that at 
 the end of that period McClellan officially reported that 
 he had 147,695 men present for duty. In December fol- 
 lowing, his report shows 175,854 present for duty, and 
 in March, 1862, 171,602, while the army of his opponent 
 in February had only 47,306 present for duty, including 
 the force under Jackson in the valley and a small num- 
 ber under Holmes at Acquia Creek, and in March about 
 50,000. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive why, with these immense 
 odds in his favor, McClellan did not advance in the early 
 spring against Johnston's position. This plan was dis- 
 cussed as well as two or three others. McClellan at last, 
 it seems, told the Federal President in positive language 
 that he did not approve the movement on Johnston's 
 position at Centreville, but preferred to take his army 
 down the Potomac River into Chesapeake Bay, up the 
 Rappahannock River, and form a base of operations at 
 a place called Urbana; or, better still, continue down 
 Chesapeake Bay and around to Fort Monroe, using that 
 formidable fort as a base, and advance on Richmond 
 from that direction up the Peninsula formed by the 
 James and York Rivers, upon whose surfaces the gun- 
 boats of his navy could be floated, and thus a thorough 
 protection be given to his flanks. A solemn conclave 
 of twelve general officers of the Federal army consid- 
 ered these various propositions, and, by a vote of eight 
 to four, agreed to approve McClellan's plan of the pen- 
 insular route as opposed to Mr. Lincoln's proposition 
 for a movement similar to the one made by McDowell. 
 The difficulties in the way at the time for a change of 
 base to the lower Peninsula were the fact that the 
 proximity of Johnston's army to Washington seriously 
 threatened the safety of that city. In March, however. 
 General Johnston solved the problem by a retrograde 
 movement to the line of the Rappahannock, trebling 
 his distance from the Federal capital. While this re- 
 treat gave up a great deal of valuable country and 
 raised the blockade of the Potomac, its strategic ad- 
 
136 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 vantages were great. His army could then be in a 
 position to better receive a direct advance from the 
 Federal troops, or could by a rapid march prevent any 
 army which should be transported by water and landed 
 at points closer to Richmond from reaching that city 
 before he could. 
 
 As soon as Johnston had retreated McClellan ad- 
 vanced his troops to the position Johnston had occupied 
 during the winter. They were then countermarched 
 and brought back to Alexandria, a Virginia city a few 
 miles below Washmgton, where arrangements were made 
 as rapidly as possible to transport them to the Penm- 
 sula, Mr. Lincoln stipulating that at least fifty thousand 
 men should be left in and around Washington for its 
 immediate defense. He did not propose to " exchange 
 queens," because the capture of Washington by John- 
 ston would be attended with much greater results than 
 the capture of Richmond by McClellan. 
 
 At that time the Southern forces on the Peninsula 
 were under the command of Major-General J. Bankhead 
 Magruder, an accomplished and well-known officer, who 
 had formerly distinguished himself in the service of the 
 United States. " Prince John," as he was called, occu- 
 pied a strong position from river to river. The em- 
 barkation of McClellan's troops began on March 17th, 
 and he left in person on April ist, reaching Fortress 
 Monroe on the afternoon of the 2d. When he ar- 
 rived fifty-eight thousand men and one hundred guns 
 had preceded him. Magruder was a short distance in 
 his front with eleven thousand men. His left was at 
 Yorktown, on York River, and his line of battle ex- 
 tended along the Warwick River to Mulberry Island, on 
 the James, where his right rested. Gloucester Point, 
 opposite Yorktown, projects well out into the river. 
 Fortifications had been constructed there, and it was 
 expected that the guns at that point as well as those at 
 Yorktown by crossfire could prevent the passage of the 
 Federals up York River in any attempt to reach the 
 Confederate rear. 
 
 It will be remembered that when the British held 
 Yorktown over a century ago they also fortified and 
 held Gloucester Point, and to it, at one time, Corn- 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 137 
 
 wallis attempted to retreat when the troops of Wash- 
 ington were closing around him. IMagruder's front was 
 twelve miles long and in many respects strong. In a 
 portion of it the ground was swampy, while dams had 
 been constructed by which the water could be backed 
 up, rendering the passage of the stream impracticable 
 for artillery and infantry nearly three fourths of its 
 distance. McClellan stopped in front of this line on 
 April 5th, having left Fort Monroe the day before. 
 Until he reached it he was ignorant of its existence. In 
 addition to the large army which McClellan proposed 
 should accompany him up the Peninsula, was a separate 
 or detached corps under McDowell, over forty thousand 
 strong, which was intended to operate upon either bank 
 of York River in order to turn the Confederate posi- 
 tion, should much resistance be offered to McClellan's 
 advance on Richmond. After McClellan left Washing- 
 ton, the military governor. General Wadsworth, reported 
 to President Lincoln that he had left only twenty thou- 
 sand troops for its defense. This report, and General 
 Jackson's movements in the Valley of Virginia, alarmed 
 the Federal authorities, and they immediately ordered 
 McDowell's corps to return to Washington. With the 
 corps of McDowell's added to McClellan's great army 
 the fall of Richmond might have been accomplished. 
 
 These movements of the Federal troops were of 
 course speedily communicated to General Johnston on 
 the Rappahannock, and D. H. Hill's, D. R. Jones's, 
 and Early's divisions were put in march to re-enforce 
 Magruder. General Beauregard had been detached from 
 Johnston and sent to Kentucky. When later it was 
 evident the Penmsula would be the route selected for 
 the Federal advance, Johnston at once proceeded to that 
 point with the remainder of his army, except General 
 Ewell's division, which with a regiment of cavalry was 
 left on the line of the Rappahannock, and Jackson's 
 division, in the Valley of Virginia. Had McClellan as- 
 sailed Magruder's lines at once his largely superior 
 numbers would have won a victory in all probability, 
 though the defensive line was a strong one. General 
 Johnston arrived in person April 14th, and assumed com- 
 mand on the 17th. His advance did not arrive at York- 
 
138 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 town till the loth, the other divisions following a few 
 days later. For six days McClellan was in front of 
 Magruder before Johnston's arrival, but instead of as- 
 saulting, he commenced arrangements for a dilatory 
 siege. Johnston, upon the arrival of all of his troops, 
 had, together with Magruder's forces, fifty-three thou- 
 sand men ; McClellan one hundred and thirty-three thou- 
 sand, including twelve thousand of Franklin's division 
 on board of transports in readiness to move up York 
 River. He sat down in front of Magruder's position to 
 await the arrival of his siege trains, and began the con- 
 struction of scaling ladders, which might be useful to 
 assault permanent works, and the erection of batteries 
 for his heavy guns, much to the annoyance of the Wash- 
 ington authorities, for the falling back of his opponents 
 to new intrenched lines in rear would render useless 
 his great guns and his great labor in getting them in 
 position. 
 
 On Johnston's arrival in the Peninsula he closely 
 examined the defensive lines of Magruder, but did not 
 like them, and returned at once to Richmond to lay 
 his views before his President. " McClellan's army," 
 said he, "should be encountered in front of Richmond 
 by uniting there all the available forces of the Confed- 
 eracy ; the grand army thus formed, surprising that of 
 the United States by an attack, when it was expecting 
 to besiege Richmond, would be almost certain to win." 
 Mr. Davis declined to decide so important a question 
 hastily, and asked General Johnston to call upon him at 
 a stated hour, when he would have Randolph, his Secre- 
 tary of War, and General Lee both present, Johnston 
 suggested that he invite Generals G. W. Smith and 
 Longstreet also, and the conference was duly held. 
 The Secretary of War objected to Johnston's plan be- 
 cause it involved the evacuation of Norfolk and the 
 destruction of the famous Merrimac, or Virginia, as she 
 was last named. General Lee could not vote m favor 
 of General Johnston's proposition because the with- 
 drawal of troops from South Carolina and Georgia 
 would expose the important seaports of Charleston and 
 Savannah to danger and capture. He thought that the 
 Peninsula had excellent battlefields for a small army 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 139 
 
 contending with a great one, and for that reason ar- 
 gued that the contest with McClellan's army should be 
 made there. General G. W. Smith agreed with General 
 Johnston's views, while Longstreet took but little part, 
 which Johnston attributed to his deafness. Mr. Davis 
 announced his decision in favor of the opinion of Gen- 
 eral Lee, and ordered Johnston to concentrate his army 
 on the Peninsula as soon as possible, giving him in 
 addition the command of the Department of Norfolk. 
 McClellan threw up an immense amount of earth in 
 front of the Confederate position. Batteries were 
 erected for one hundred of the heaviest Parrott guns 
 and thirty mortars, the range of some of the former 
 being over four miles. His big gun batteries were out 
 of the reach of any guns in Johnston's army, and there- 
 fore would be unmolested while delivering their fire. As- 
 certaining that these batteries would be ready for action 
 in a few days, General Johnston gave orders to General 
 Huger, in command at Norfolk, and to General Lee's 
 brother, Captam Sydney Smith Lee, of the navy, who 
 was in command of the Gosport navy yard, to evacuate 
 these places and to remove to a safe place as much of 
 the valuable public property as possible. 
 
 On May 3d General Johnston issued his orders for 
 the withdrawal of his army from the Yorktown lines. 
 He had delayed McClellan's advance for a month, which 
 gave time to greatly strengthen the works around Rich- 
 mond, as well as to advance the preparations for the 
 great battle which now was inevitable. The Confed- 
 erate army marched out of its lines at midnight. The 
 rear guard of cavalry followed at daylight. 
 
 This retreat of Johnston's was a surprise to Mc- 
 Clellan. He did not anticipate a retrograde move- 
 ment on the part of the Confederates till they should 
 have been hammered out of their lines by his big 
 guns. His pursuit was not commenced for six hours 
 after the departure of the Southern rear guard. At 
 noon on the 4th Johnston's army had only reached 
 Williamsburg and its vicinity. At this point the Federal 
 advance encountered his rear guard. Some fighting took 
 place in the afternoon, and on the next day a heavy con- 
 flict ensued between portions of the two armies, result- 
 
I40 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ing in the loss to the Federals of twenty-two hundred 
 and twenty-eight men, and to the Confederates of twelve 
 hundred. Johnston then leisurely continued his retreat. 
 A force under Franklin was sent up York River by Mc- 
 Clellan to make an attempt to get on his flank and rear. 
 When they landed they were attacked and driven back 
 to their boats, and held m that position till the whole of 
 Johnston's force had passed the threatened point. His 
 army was now composed of four divisions under G. W. 
 Smith, Magruder, D. H. Hill, and Longstreet. Jackson 
 was in the Shenandoah Valley, while Ewell, who had 
 been left on the Rappahannock, had retired to Gordons- 
 ville. He could not depend, therefore, upon these two 
 commands for immediate re-enforcement. 
 
 It can not be denied that a battle fought at Rich- 
 mond would liberate troops from other points and thus 
 give additional re-enforcements to Johnston ; but the 
 evacuation of Norfolk and the destruction of the Vir- 
 ginia — which had been such a protection to James 
 River — as well as the moral effect of a retreat which 
 allowed a vast hostile army to knock at the very gates 
 of Richmond, were undesirable. 
 
 McClellan, with his five corps under Sumner, Frank- 
 lin, Porter, Heintzelman, and Keyes, slowly follow^ed 
 the Confederate army as it fell back on Richmond. As 
 he arrived in its immediate vicinity he began to deploy 
 his legions, taking care to extend well his right so that 
 it might reach out for McDowell's junction. This offi- 
 cer, with an army nearly equal to Johnston's whole force, 
 was directly charged with the protection of Washington, 
 and was specially instructed in any manoeuvres he should 
 attempt, that the safety of the Federal capital must be 
 steadily kept in view. f>om the vicinity of Washington 
 he moved out on the line of railroad beyond Manassas 
 to Culpeper Court House. Ewell, who had been on the 
 Rappahannock w^th his division, was then at Gordons- 
 ville, and later went over into the Shenandoah Valley 
 to join Jackson. There being no enemy directly threat- 
 ening Washington then, McDowell wisely marched to 
 Fredericksburg. He was well located there, being about 
 fifty miles from his capital and about the same distance 
 from McClellan's right flank. He could therefore easily 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 141 
 
 return to Washington, if necessary, or re-enforce McClel- 
 lan in his attack on Richmond. 
 
 In order to watch this movement of McDowell's, 
 General Joseph R. Anderson, with nine thousand men, 
 had taken up a position between Fredericksburg and 
 Richmond, with the object of holding McDowell in 
 check as well as he could wath such an inferior force, 
 while General Johnston attacked McClellan's army. 
 Both commanders knew well that if these forty-one 
 thousand men could be added to the Federal army, the 
 capture of Richmond would follow. McClellan at last 
 succeeded in getting orders issued from Washington for 
 McDowell to advance to his support. General Johnston 
 promptly decided, upon this information reaching him, 
 to try at once the fortunes of battle; but was greatly 
 relieved, when he received word from Stuart's cavalry 
 that McDowell, after starting from Fredericksburg, had 
 countermarched and was proceeding in the direction of 
 Washington. A Confederate commander in the Valley 
 of Virginia was responsible for McDowell's change of 
 direction. 
 
 Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born at Clarksburg, 
 Harrison County, then in Virginia, now West Virginia. 
 Thirty-seven years afterward he was born again on 
 the field of Manassas, and, amid the rifle's flash an*d 
 cannon's roar, christened "Stonewall." Neither of the 
 two Governments lost sight of the great importance of 
 the "Valley District" — one, because Washington could 
 be easily reached by hostile troops from that section ; 
 the other, because the force there was a part of Gen- 
 eral Johnston's army, and might' enter into future mili- 
 tary combinations as an important factor. It was most 
 fortunate for the South that Stonewall Jackson was 
 selected to command this department. He was com- 
 bative; his facial characteristics, " including a massive 
 iron-bound jaw," have been compared to those of Julius 
 Caesar and William of Normandy. Activity, vigilance, 
 and restlessness were marked traits of his character. 
 His thoughts were with God and his cause. In camp 
 he organized prayer meetings among his soldiers, and 
 when the meeting began, the hymn raised, and the pro- 
 ceedings evidently a success, he often went to sleep. 
 
142 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 "If silence be golden, he was a bonanza." It was said 
 of him at that time that he sucked lemons, ate hard- 
 tack and drank water — and praying and fighting ap- 
 peared to him to be the whole duty of man. General 
 Ewell, it is related, once said he admired Jackson's ge- 
 nius, but he never " saw one of his couriers approach him 
 without expecting an order to assault the North Pole." 
 
 From a humble professor in the Virginia Military 
 Institute he rapidly grew into a giant of war. He be- 
 lieved in a short, sharp, decisive contest. When first 
 appointed a professor he occupied a room on one of the 
 upper floors of barracks. Some of the cadets, in a mis- 
 chievous spirit, took away a portion of the steps below 
 his room during the night. The next morning, having 
 an appointment to fill, he came out at an early hour, 
 and, seeing what had been done, without a moment's 
 hesitation seized one of the supporting posts and low- 
 ered himself hand over hand. " In civil war," said he, 
 in i860, " when the swords are drawn the scabbards 
 should be thrown away " ; and he would have fought 
 under the "black flag" with as pleasant a smile as his 
 countenance could assume. Earnestly and conscien- 
 tiously believing the South was right, in the spring of 
 1861 he was strongly inclined to war. 
 
 In some respects he resembled Blucher ; like him he 
 was bold, bluff, and energetic, and, as with Blucher, his 
 loyalty to the cause he adopted was a passion. The 
 grim old soldier whom Wellington welcomed at Water- 
 loo smoked, swore, and drank at seventy, and just there 
 the resemblance ceased. Above others, on either side, 
 Jackson understood the great value of celerity in mili- 
 tary movements, and his infantry was termed "foot 
 cavalry." To be under heavy fire, he said, filled him 
 with a " delicious excitement." His death afterward, 
 at Chancellorsville, lost the South Gettysburg; for Gen- 
 eral Lee has said, " Had I Stonewall Jackson at Gettys- 
 burg I would have won a great victory." 
 
 He was a blazing meteor of battle ; his enterprising 
 and aggressive spirit sought relief in motion — always 
 motion. To such a commander the defense of the beau- 
 tiful Valley of Virginia was intrusted. 
 
 After his return from Romney he was at Winchester, 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 143 
 
 then Woodstock, some forty miles below, then following 
 Shields from Strasburg, and on March 23d attacked 
 him at Kernstown and was repulsed; Banks, who was 
 on his way from the Valley to Manassas, was ordered 
 back to destroy this bold soldier; and Blenker, with 
 ten thousand men on his way to Fremont, was instruct- 
 ed to report to him as he followed Jackson up the Val- 
 ley, where later the latter took up position at Swift Run 
 Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Shenandoah River 
 being in his front, his flanks protected by the mountain 
 sides, while Ewell was not far away across the moun- 
 tams in his rear at Gordonsville. " Stonewall " did not 
 like to be cooped up in the mountains, and wrote Gen- 
 eral Lee at Richmond, asking him to re-enforce him with 
 five thousand men, intimating that he would then be glad 
 to get reports from him. On April 29th Lee replied that 
 his request could not be complied with, but suggested 
 his union with General Edward Johnson, who had some 
 thirty-five hundred men near Staunton. Lee was anx- 
 ious to gain success in the Valley, because it would re- 
 tard the offensive campaign against Richmond, and in- 
 formed Jackson that if he was strong enough to hold 
 Banks in check, Ewell might, by uniting with Anderson's 
 force between Fredericksburg and Richmond, attack 
 and possibly destroy McDowell, then at Fredericksburg. 
 Banks had some twenty thousand men at Harrison- 
 burg watching General Edward Johnson, and six thou- 
 sand men, under Milroy and Schenck, had moved west of 
 the mountains, and were in front of Johnson, while Fre- 
 mont was marching with ten thousand men to join them. 
 Evading Banks at Harrisonburg, Jackson moved to 
 Staunton, joined his force with Johnson's, and defeated 
 Milroy and Schenck ; Ewell marched then from Gor- 
 donsville to the Valley, and Banks fell back to Stras- 
 burg. Jackson, having disposed of the two Federal 
 commanders, returned with great swiftness, united with 
 Ewell, defeated the Federal forces at Front Royal, and 
 then pushed on with great rapidity to attack Banks, 
 who, hearing of his approach, fell back to Winchester, 
 where he was defeated and followed to the Potomac 
 River. The defeat of the Federal troops in the Valley, 
 and Jackson's presence on the Potomac, produced con- 
 
144 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 sternation at the Federal capital. General McDowell, 
 who had commenced his march from Fredericksburg to 
 join McClellan, was turned back toward Washington, 
 being directed to send twenty thousand men of his com- 
 mand at once to the Shenandoah Valley to reinforce 
 Fremont, who had moved down the Valley to get in 
 Jackson's rear and capture him. McClellan wanted 
 McDowell badly, and McDowell desired to go to his 
 support, and both generals practically intimated to the 
 Washington authorities that they were scared; that they 
 did not think Washington was in danger of capture by 
 Jackson, and that moving a part of McDowell's troops 
 to the Shenandoah Valley would not succeed in destroy- 
 ing Jackson's forces. 
 
 Jackson in the mean time, having disposed of Banks, 
 determined to prevent the union of Shields (who had ar- 
 rived from McDowell's army) with Fremont, and by a 
 series of brilliant manoeuvres fought the battles of Cross 
 Keys and Port Republic, holding one commander at 
 arm's length while he hammered the other. By this ad- 
 mirable campaign, in which his great military genius 
 was displayed, McClellan was deprived of the co-opera- 
 tion of McDowell's army, while Jackson contributed 
 largely to the success of the battles around Richmond. 
 
 His splendid work in the Valley is summed up by one 
 of his biographers : " In three months he had marched six 
 hundred miles, fought four pitched battles, seven minor 
 engagements, daily skirmishes, defeated four armies, 
 captured seven pieces of artillery, ten thousand stand 
 of arms, four thousand prisoners, and a very great 
 amount of stores." His movements produced a panic 
 at the Federal capital. The Secretary of War issued 
 a call to the governors of the loyal States for militia 
 to defend the city. On May 25th, to the Governor 
 of Massachusetts he declared that '' intelligence from 
 various quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in 
 great force are marching on Washington. You will 
 please organize and forward immediately all the militia 
 and volunteer forces in your State." John A. Andrew, 
 the Governor of Massachusetts, issued a proclamation : 
 '' Men of Massachusetts, the wily and barbarous horde 
 of traitors menaces again the national capital." Todd, 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 145 
 
 Ohio's Governor, following suit, said : " To the gallant 
 men of Ohio: I have the astounding intelligence that 
 the city of our beloved Government is threatened with 
 invasion, and am called upon by the Secretary of War 
 for troops to repel the overwhelming and ruthless in- 
 vaders." 
 
 Richmond was probably saved at that period by 
 Jackson. McClellan determined to clear the way for 
 McDowell's march by attacking a brigade of North 
 Carolinians under Branch, which was then at Hanover 
 Court House, some fourteen miles from Richmond, 
 guarding and watching the country in front of John- 
 ston's left. To make this attack certain. General Fitz 
 John Porter was given twelve thousand men, and par- 
 tially accomplished the object of the expedition by 
 defeating Branch and destroying the bridges and rail- 
 roads in the vicinity of Ashland. Slowly but surely 
 McClellan was diminishing the distance between the 
 lines of his army and the Southern capital, and his big 
 Parrott guns were now nearly in a position to throw shot 
 within the walls of the city. On May 23d the Fourth 
 Corps, under Keyes, crossed the Chickahominy at Bot- 
 tom's Bridge and took position at a place called Seven 
 Pines, some five miles from the city ; the Third Corps, 
 under Heintzelman, followed. The Chickahominy now 
 divided McClellan's army into two parts. Two of his 
 corps were on the south, and three — Sumner's, Frank- 
 lin's, and Porter's — on the north side, McClellan's head- 
 quarters being at Gaines Mill. The Chickahominy 
 River rises some twelve miles northwest of Richmond, 
 flows in an easterly direction at first, and then takes a 
 southeasterly course, till it empties into the James, some 
 thirty miles below Richmond. It was directly inter- 
 posed between McClellan and Richmond, being in some 
 places not more than four or five miles from the city, 
 and the numerous roads leading out from Richmond to 
 the Peninsula and adjacent sections of country cross it 
 on bridges. North of Richmond was Meadow Bridge ; 
 a little farther down, and opposite to Gaines Mill, New 
 Bridge; still farther down, where the Williamsburg road 
 crosses the Chickahominy, Bottom's Bridge ; while lower 
 down still is Long: Bridge. 
 
146 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 McClellan spent two weeks in traversing the forty 
 miles from Williamsburg to the Chickahominy at Bot- 
 tom's and New Bridges. His base of supplies was 
 established at West Point ; his stores could be safely 
 transported by water, and from West Point the railroad 
 running to Richmond had been put in good order in his 
 rear, so that his supplies could be easily brought within 
 reach for distribution. The Chickahominy proper af- 
 forded no greater obstacle to the advance of an army 
 than an ordinary small river, the obstruction being the 
 swamps and bottom lands. The stream flowed through 
 a belt of heavy timbered swamp, which averaged three 
 hundred or four hundred yards wide, sometimes in a 
 single channel and sometimes in two or three, and the 
 water when high overflowed the land. 
 
 The Federal army having large pontoon trains, as 
 well as facilities for making trestle bridges, surmounted 
 these difficulties. After two of McClellan's corps crossed 
 this stream and took position nearer to Richmond, it 
 w^as evident the battle could be no longer postponed. 
 General Johnston therefore decided to attack these ad- 
 vance corps, and if possible overwhelm them before 
 they could be re-enforced by any portion of the three 
 corps upon the other side of the Chickahominy. The 
 heavy rains had swept away the communicating bridges 
 between the two wings of McClellan's army, but the 
 railroad bridge, which had been repaired, was not affect- 
 ed by the swollen condition of the stream. On it planks 
 were laid, and in that way the left wing supplied. 
 
 The battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, was well 
 planned, and had the Southern attack been made in the 
 forenoon instead of the afternoon, Johnston would have 
 had greater success. " It can never be too often re- 
 peated that war, however adorned by splendid strokes 
 of skill, is commonly a series of errors and accidents." 
 Sumner succeeded in crossing his corps over the 
 bridges trembling with the current's rush, and over 
 causeways on each side covered with mud and water. 
 His guns had to be unlimbered and prolonges used, 
 while the men who were tugging at the ropes were 
 nearly waist deep in some places in the water. It can 
 not be said that this battle was a complete success for 
 
ATLANTIC COAST DEFENSES. 
 
 147 
 
 the Southern arms. Sumner's arrival enabled the other 
 two Federal corps to maintain their ground until the 
 curtain of night lowered on the scene. Ten pieces of 
 artillery, sixty-seven hundred rifles and muskets, and 
 quantities of stores and tents were, however, secured by 
 the Confederates. The two corps of the Federals num- 
 bered thirty-eight thousand, and after Sumner's re-en- 
 forcements arrived, fifty-six thousand. The former lost 
 some six thousand men, the latter fifty-seven hundred 
 and thirty-nine; and McClellan had received a check to 
 his " On to Richmond ! " 
 
 Johnston, after giving orders to his troops to sleep 
 on the ground they occupied when the contest for the 
 night ceased, and to renew the battle at dawn the next 
 morning, was wounded, at first slightly m the shoulder 
 by a musket ball, and a few moments afterward was 
 struck on the breast by a heavy fragment of shell, 
 knocked from his horse, and had to be carried from the 
 field in an ambulance. General Gustavus W. Smith, the 
 next officer in rank, immediately assumed command of 
 the army. He determined to carry out Johnston's plans 
 and continue the attack on the next day, and so informed 
 General Lee, asking for all the assistance he could give 
 him. In a note dated Richmond, June ist, 5 a. m., 
 General Lee replies: 
 
 Ripley will be ordered, and such forces from General Holmes 
 as can be got up will be sent ; your determination to strike the 
 enemy is right. Try and ascertain his position and how best he 
 can be hit. It will be a glorious thing if you can gain a com- 
 plete victory. Our success on the whole, yesterday, was good, 
 but not complete. 
 
 Truly, R. E. Lee, General. 
 
 To General G. W. Smith, Commander of the Army of Northern 
 Virgitiia. 
 
 When that note was penned. General Lee knew he 
 had been directed to take command of the army on that 
 day ; he did not reach Smith's headquarters until 2 p. m., 
 and was magnanimous enough to wish that Smith should 
 gain and get the credit for a great victory. 
 
 The attack on June ist was not made as contem- 
 plated by General Johnston first and Smith afterward, 
 because it was apparent that the destruction of a portion 
 
1^8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of McClellan's army before it could be succored was no 
 longer a possibility. There was no demoralization in 
 the Confederate ranks anywhere, and the assertion that 
 the Federal army could have gone into Richmond on the 
 second day — June ist — can not be maintained. General 
 G. W. Smith, commanding, sums up the fighting on that 
 day by saying : " The Federals, in position, were at- 
 tacked on the first day of June by but two Confederate 
 brigades. That attack was repulsed. Four Federal 
 regiments then advanced and attacked the position held 
 by one Confederate brigade. I'hese four regiments 
 were withdrawn from the front of that brigade." Only 
 small portions of either army were engaged on the first 
 of June. 
 
 The battle on the Williamsburg road on the day be- 
 fore was fought by D. H. Hill with four of his brigades 
 and one of General Longstreet's. The other five of 
 Longstreet's and the whole of Huger's division, which 
 General Longstreet was expected to employ, were not 
 put into the fight, while the troops charged with the 
 duty of attacking the Federal right were advanced too 
 late to be of service. Napier has well said that "he 
 who wars walks in a mist through which the keenest 
 eye can not always discern the right path." If the in- 
 complete battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks did not 
 add to the military fame of the Union commander or 
 to that of the officer charged with the details of the 
 attack on the Confederate side, it was nevertheless of 
 benefit to the Southern commander, for it kept McClel- 
 lan quiet for a month, and enabled him to complete his 
 preparations to beat him. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND, AND 
 SEVEN DAYS BATTLES. 
 
 General Lee and Mr. Davis were on the field on 
 May 31st, and the latter was at once informed of Gen- 
 eral Johnston's being wounded. Riding back with 
 General Lee to Richmond that night, Mr. Davis told 
 him he proposed to assign him at once to the command 
 of the Confederate army defending Richmond, and 
 would make out the order as soon as he reached the 
 city. Accordingly, very early the next morning Gen- 
 eral Lee received the following: 
 
 Richmond, Va., June i, 1862. 
 General R. E. Lee. 
 
 Sir: The unfortunate casualty which has deprived the army 
 in front of Richmond of its immediate commander, General 
 Johnston, renders it necessary to interfere temporarily with the 
 duties to which you were assigned in connection with the general 
 service, but only so far as to make you available for command in 
 the field of a particular army. You will assume command of the 
 army in eastern Virginia and in North Carolina, and give such 
 orders as may be needful and proper. 
 
 Very respectfully, Jefferson Davis. • 
 
 On the reception of this note, General Lee pub- 
 lished 
 
 Special Orders No. 22. 
 
 Headquarters, Richmond, Va., June i, 1862. 
 In pursuance of the orders of the President, General R. E. Lee 
 assumes command of the armies of eastern Virginia and North 
 Carolina. The unfortunate casualty that has deprived the army 
 in front of Richmond of the valuable services of its able general 
 is not more deeply deplored by any member of the command 
 than by its present commander. He hopes his absence will be 
 
 II (149) 
 
150 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 but temporary, and while he will endeavor to the best of his 
 ability to perform his duties, he feels he will be totally inadequate 
 to the task unless he shall receive the cordial support of every 
 officer and man. 
 
 By order of General Lee. 
 
 W. H. Taylor, Assistant Adjutant General. 
 
 On June 2d Special Orders No. 126 were issued from 
 the Adjutant and Inspector General's office. 
 
 Special Orders No. 126. 
 
 Richmond, Va., June 2, 1862. 
 By direction of the President, General Robert E. Lee, Confed- 
 erate States army, will assume the immediate command of the 
 armies in eastern Virginia and North Carolina. 
 By command of the Secretary of War. 
 
 John Withers, Assistant Adjutant General. 
 
 At an early hour on June ist the Southern President 
 rode to the front to direct, in person, General Smith to 
 transfer the command of the army to General Lee, in 
 order to relieve the latter from the embarrassment of 
 first announcing this change. Later General Lee rode 
 out, reaching the field about tw^o o'clock, and formally 
 assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 which he was thereafter destined to lead against the Army 
 of the Potomac on many hard-fought fields. Eighteen 
 hours afterward General G. W. Smith, whose health had 
 not been strong, was taken ill, and had to be relieved of 
 all military duty. 
 
 At last, one year after the commencement of the war, 
 Robert E. Lee was in active command of a large army 
 in the field. His task was difficult, his responsibility 
 great. The opposing hosts were thundering at the 
 city's gates. Inch by inch they had crept so close that 
 spectators on the housetops could see their fire-fringed 
 lines and hear the angry roar of their cannon. Upon 
 his shoulders rested the safety of his capital. With 
 quiet dignity he assumed his duties. The troops were 
 immediately ordered back to their former stations, and 
 the battle of Seven Pines was, confided to the Muse of 
 History. The next move on the military chessboard 
 absorbed his immediate attention. The strongly con- 
 structed battle lines of his powerful enemy were uncora- 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 151 
 
 fortably close. McClellan had already commenced to 
 strengthen his front at Seven Pines. Franklin's corps 
 was brought from the north to the south side of the 
 Chickahominy and posted on the right of that portion 
 of his line. On the left was Sumner, and to his left 
 Heintzelman extended as far as the White Oak swamp. 
 In their rear Keyes was in reserve. On the north or left 
 bank of the Chickahominy Fitz John Porter's corps was 
 still stationed, near Gaines Mill, with McCall's division 
 of Pennsylvania reserves at Mechanicsville and on Bea- 
 ver Dam Creek — eleven divisions in all. Richmond, Mc- 
 Clellan 's coveted prize, was but five miles away. To 
 reach it he had to pass over the lines of the Army of 
 Northern Virginia. These lines were held by five divi- 
 sions — A. P. Hill's on the left at Meadow Bridge, Hu- 
 ger's and Magruder's next, supported by I.ongstreet's 
 and D. H. Hill's. Lee at once considered the best man- 
 ner to attack. The intrenchments in his front were too 
 strong for a direct assault, so the only alternative left 
 was to turn one or both of his enemy's flanks. The Fed- 
 eral left was " defended by a line of strong works, access 
 to which, except by a few narrow roads, was obstructed 
 by felling the dense forests in front." These roads were 
 commanded to a great distance by heavy guns in the 
 fortifications. The difficulties here were as great as 
 would be encountered in a direct attack. The only way 
 to get at McClellan was by assaulting his right, and the 
 Confederate commander was not long in finding it out. 
 In order to do this successfully he must fortify his lines, 
 particularly his center and right, so that they could suc- 
 cessfully resist any attack made upon them, while his 
 left wing was withdrawn to be thrown on the Federal 
 right and rear. 
 
 In Lee, as with McClellan, the military engineer was 
 combined with the army commander. Earthworks were 
 rapidly constructed. The topographical features of the 
 country were scientifically made available ; and ere many 
 days had passed the Southern troops were everywhere 
 behind strong intrenchments, while between them and 
 the city was a line of more permanent works, which had 
 been constructed some time before as a precautionary 
 measure, and behind which the troops could be rallied 
 
152 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 if the first lines were successfully assailed. Almost every- 
 day now a soldierly looking man, clad in a neat but sim- 
 ple gray uniform, conspicuous by the absence of the 
 wreath, gold braids and stars usually found on the uni- 
 forms of general officers, sitting his horse like a dragoon, 
 might be seen riding along the lines. No long column 
 of staff or couriers followed him, no display, no ostenta- 
 tion, none of the pomp of war. His enemy's right was 
 the place to attack, but where was it located and how 
 was it defended ? Were the roads leading to it ob- 
 structed, and were the woods "slashed," or would the 
 attacking column have to assault lunettes, redans, ir- 
 regular pentagons, and inclosed redoubts ? How was he 
 to ascertain all this? Fortunately he had the very offi- 
 cer in his army who could obtain replies to these impor- 
 tant questions, and he was the commander of his cav- 
 alry, James Ewell Brown Stuart, commonly called Jeb 
 Stuart from the three first initial letters of his name. 
 This distinguished cavalryman was a native of Patrick 
 County, Va., a graduate at West Point of the class of 
 1854, and a soldier from the feathers m his hat to 
 the rowels of his spurs. He was twenty-nine years 
 old when Lee ordered him to locate McClellan's right 
 flank and in the full vigor of a robust manhood. His 
 brilliant courage, great activity, immense endurance, and 
 devotion to his profession had already marked him as a 
 cavalry commander of unquestioned merit. He had the 
 fire, zeal, and capacity of Prince Rupert, but, like him, 
 lacked caution; the dash of Murat, but was sometimes 
 rash and imprudent ; was as skillful and vigorous as 
 Frederick the Great's celebrated cavalry leader, and, 
 like Seidlitz, was willing to break the necks of some 
 of his men by charging over rough ground if he made 
 bold horsemen of the rest and gained his object. He 
 would have gone as far as Cardigan, with " cannon to 
 right of him, cannon to left of him, cannon m front of 
 him." He was a Christian dragoon — an unusual com- 
 bination. His Bible and tactics were his text-books. He 
 never drank liquor, having given a promise to his mother 
 to that effect when a small boy, but when wet from 
 the storm and wearied from the march he would drink, 
 without cream or sugar, the contents of a tin quart 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 
 
 153 
 
 cup of strong coffee. Duty was his guiding star. Once 
 when on the eve of an expected battle he was tele- 
 graphed that his child was dying and urged to go to her, 
 he replied : " I shall have to leave my child in the hands 
 of God ; my duty requires me here." Lee knew him 
 well. He had been a classmate at the United States 
 Military Academy of his eldest son, and was his aid-de- 
 camp when John Brown was captured. Such was the 
 man who stood before his commander on June 11, 1862, 
 to receive his instructions. The next morning, at an 
 early hour, Stuart was in the saddle, and, with twelve 
 hundred cavalry and a section of artillery, started to 
 blaze the way for Stonewall Jackson's descent on the 
 right rear of the Federal army, and for an assault on 
 the Federal right by the left wing of the Confederate 
 army. That night he went into camp twenty-two miles 
 north of Richmond. His line of march conveyed the 
 impression that he had been sent to re-enforce Jackson 
 in the Valley, but the next day the head of his column 
 was turned eastward toward Hanover Court House, 
 which he reached about nine o'clock, driving out a body of 
 the enemy's cavalry. Between that point and Old Church 
 his advance squadron, under Captain Latane, met and 
 charged a squadron of regular cavalry under Captain 
 Royall. Latane was killed, and Royall severely wounded 
 by a saber cut and his squadron put to flight. The 
 Southern cavalry now followed rapidly to Old Church, 
 where the Federal cavalry made another stand, but was 
 soon driven from its position. Stuart was now far enough 
 on the right flank of the Federal army to get all the in- 
 formation he desired. He could return only by the way 
 he had marched, which would be attended with much 
 danger, as the troops on that flank were thoroughly 
 roused, or make the entire circuit of the Federal army. 
 He determined upon the latter course, and, in defiance 
 of many dangers and difficulties, succeeded in moving 
 his whole command not only around the right of Mc- 
 Clellan's line of battle, but along his rear and around his 
 left, bringing it in safety to the Richmond lines. It was 
 hazardous, because any prolongation of McClellan's 
 left from White Oak swamp to James River would have 
 cut him off from his own army. 
 
154 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 This celebrated raid brought the Southern cavalry 
 leader prominently before the public, and his rapid and 
 successful march received favorable comment. From 
 the left of his own army he had marched for Hanover 
 Court House, Old Church, Tunstall's Station, on the 
 York River Railroad, and Talleysville, to the lower 
 Chickahominy, where the road from Providence Forge 
 to Charles City Court House crosses it thirty-five miles 
 from Richmond. Finding that the bridge had been car- 
 ried away by the swollen stream, he tore down an old 
 barn in the vicinity, and, as rapidly as his men could 
 work, threw over another bridge, upon which he crossed 
 men and guns, returning to his quarters near Rich- 
 mond, having been continuously in the saddle for thirty- 
 six hours. The whole distance was traversed in forty- 
 eight hours, with but a single halt after reaching the 
 south bank of the Chickahominy, He was enjoined by 
 Lee to "remember that one of the chief objects of the 
 expedition is to gain intelligence for the guidance of 
 future movements." 
 
 The news of this expedition amazed the North. It 
 did not understand how twelve hundred troopers could 
 ride so close to the right, rear, and left of one hundred 
 and fifteen thousand men in line of battle without being 
 killed or captured. In his march he had crossed all 
 roads leading to McClellan's right, and located his lines 
 of communication. General Lee's General Orders No. 
 74 in part read : 
 
 Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia. 
 The commanding general announces with great satisfaction 
 to the army the brilliant exploit of Brigadier-General J. E. B. 
 Stuart with part of the troops under his command. This gallant 
 officer, with portions of the First, Fourth, and Ninth Virginia 
 Cavalry, and part of the Jeff Davis Legion, with the Boykin Ran- 
 gers and a section of the Stuart Horse Artillery, on June 13th, 
 14th, and 1 5th, made a reconnoissance between the Pamunkey and 
 Chickahominy Rivers and succeeded in passing around the rear 
 of the whole of the Union army, routing the enemy in a series of 
 skirmishes, taking a number of prisoners, destroying and captur- 
 ing stores to a large amount. Having most successfully accom- 
 plished its object, the expedition recrossed the Chickahominy, 
 almost in the presence of the enemy, with the same coolness and 
 address that marked every step of his progress, and with the loss 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 155 
 
 of but one man, the lamented Captain Latane, of the Ninth Vir- 
 ginia Cavalry, who fell bravely leading a successful charge against 
 a force of the enemy. In announcing the signal success to the 
 army, the general commanding takes great pleasure in expressing 
 his admiration of the courage and skill so conspicuously exhibited 
 throughout by the general and the officers and men under his 
 command. 
 
 General Lee had secured, by this brilliant exploit 
 of Stuart's, the information he desired. As early as 
 June 8th he had suggested to the Secretary of War 
 that "Jackson be prepared to unite with the army near 
 Richmond, if called on." The next day he announced 
 to the Secretary of War " a glorious victory by the gal- 
 lant Jackson and his troops," and writes to him that re- 
 enforcements should be sent to Jackson to enable him 
 to take the offensive again. The nth of June was a busy 
 day. Lee first prepared the instructions to start Stuart 
 on his expedition, and then wrote Jackson as follows : 
 
 Headquarters near Richmond, June 11, 1862. 
 Brigadzer-Ge7teral Thomas J. Jackson, Com7na7iding the 
 Valley District. 
 General : Your recent successes have been the cause of the 
 liveliest joy to this army, as well as to the countr}\ The admira- 
 tion caused by your skill and boldness has been constantly min- 
 gled with solicitude for your situation. The practicability of re- 
 enforcing you has been the subject of earnest consideration. It 
 has been determined to do so at the expense of weakening this 
 army. Brigadier-General Lawton, with six regiments from Geor- 
 gia, is on the way to you. and Brigadier-General Whiting, with 
 eight veteran regiments, leaves here to-day. The object is to 
 enable you to crush the forces opposed to you, then leave your 
 unavailable troops to watch the country and guard the passes 
 covered by your cavalry and artillery and with your main body, 
 including Ewell's division and Lawton's and Whiting's command, 
 move rapidly to Ashland by rail or otherwise, as you may find 
 most advantageous, and sweep down between the Chickahominy 
 and Pamunkey, cutting up the enemy's communications, while 
 this army attacks General McClellan in front. He will thus, I 
 think, be forced to come out of his intrenchments, where he is 
 strongly posted on the Chickahominy, and apparently prepared 
 to move by gradual approaches on Richmond. Keep me advised 
 of your movements, and, if practicable, precede your troops, that 
 we may confer and arrange for simultaneous attack. I am, with 
 great respect, your obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) R. E. Lee, General. 
 
156 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 On the same day, Lee writes to Randolph, the Sec- 
 retary of War at Richmond : 
 
 Headquarters, Dobb's House, June 11, 1862. 
 Honorable GEORGE W. Randolph, Secretary of War, Rich- 
 mond, Va. 
 Sir : It is very desirable and important that the acquisition of 
 troops to the command of Major-General T. J. Jackson should 
 be kept secret. With this view I have the honor to request that 
 you will use your influence with the Richmond newspapers to 
 prevent any mention of the same in the public prints. 1 am, most 
 respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) R. E. Lee. 
 
 The Southern commander desired to give Jackson a 
 sufficient force to enable him to fight a decisive battle 
 in the Valley, and then, before his enemy could recover, 
 watch him with a picket line while he reported at Rich- 
 mond with the greater part of his effective forces. Lee 
 wished the first information of the arrival of Whiting 
 and Lawton to Jackson to be given to his enemy by a 
 victory in the Valley. On this day, too, he published 
 Special Orders No. 130, Headquarters, Northern Vir- 
 ginia, June II, 1862, directing Brigadier-General W. H. 
 C. Whiting, with two brigades of Smith's division to be 
 selected by himself, to report to General T. J. Jackson, 
 commanding the Army of the Valley.' He directed that 
 this command be detached for temporary special ser- 
 vice, and that it should move in light marching order. 
 Three days after these various instructions were issued, 
 General Lee decided that it would not do to wait for 
 Jackson to fight before he should bring him to the army 
 in front of Richmond, and told him to form a junction 
 at once, and " to be efficacious, the movement must be 
 secret." This detachment of troops from Lee's army, 
 then in front of his powerful antagonist, did not pro- 
 duce in the Southern mind a feeling of uneasiness ; so 
 great was the confidence in the Southern leader that the 
 movement, without knowing for what intended, was con- 
 sidered proper, timely, and judicious! Lee's object was 
 to render the diversion of McDowell from McClellan's 
 army more decided by re-enforcing the commander 
 whose victories had already directed the attention of 
 the Federal authorities from the capture of Richmond 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 
 
 57 
 
 to their own security at Washington. Mr. Lincoln tele- 
 graphed McClellan on June 20th that Jackson is being 
 heavily re-enforced from Richmond, and that he did not 
 think he could send him more troops. Two days pre- 
 vious McClellan had informed Lincoln that some ten 
 thousand troops from Lee's army had been sent to Jack- 
 son, to which the Union President replied that if the 
 report were true, it would be as good as a re-enforce- 
 ment to him of an equal force, and that he would be 
 glad to be informed what day he would attack Rich- 
 mond. While these telegrams were being exchanged 
 Jackson was rapidly moving to the support of Lee. 
 The main portion of his army left the Valley on June 
 i8th, marching by Charlottesville and Gordonsville, 
 which latter place was reached on the 21st. Jackson, 
 leaving his army to follow, took an express car accom- 
 panied only by his chief of staff, who, strange to say, 
 was not a military man, but a Presbyterian minister and 
 a professor in a theological seminary. When Sunday 
 morning, June 22d, dawned, Jackson, with his ministerial 
 aid, had reached Frederickshall, a point on the Central 
 Railroad, now called the Chesapeake and Ohio, some 
 fifty-two miles from Richmond. Being the Sabbath, and 
 against his religious convictions to travel on Sunday, he 
 left his car and went to a gentleman's house and re- 
 mained quiet that day, except that he attended camp 
 services of some of the troops stationed near there in 
 the afternoon. Not desiring to be transported to Rich- 
 mond in a car, as he might be recognized, he determined 
 to proceed the rest of his journey on horseback ; and 
 accordingly at one o'clock Monday morning he mounted 
 a horse and started with a single borrowed courier for 
 General Lee's headquarters near Richmond, fifty-two 
 miles away. He had requested Major Dabney to get 
 from the senior officer an order to impress horses on 
 the way, and also a pass, in case he should get into the 
 pickets of General Lee's army. At 3 p. m. on Monday, 
 the 23d, he had covered the whole distance, and, travel- 
 stained, dusty, and weary from riding all night, he par- 
 ticipated in a conference called that afternoon by Gen- 
 eral Lee, of the commanding officers of the divisions 
 he proposed should attack McClellan's right and rear, 
 
158 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 namely, Longstreet, D H. Hill, and A. P. Hill. These 
 officers, with Jackson, having received the instructions 
 of the army commander, rejoined their respective com- 
 mands. Perhaps if "Old Stonewall'" had traveled to 
 Richmond on his car, and been spared the loss of sleep 
 and the all-night ride on the eve of a great battle, he 
 would have swept around on A. P. Hill's left in time to 
 have saved the lives of many brave men at Mechanics- 
 ville and Beaver Dam Creek. 
 
 Jackson's troops had been rapidly approaching Rich- 
 mond since his departure. The night of the 25th his 
 command was encamped in the vicinity of Ashland, on 
 the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad, some six- 
 teen miles from Richmond. Early on the morning of the 
 26th he moved easterly, crossing the Central Railroad 
 below Hanover Court House about ten o'clock, and, tak- 
 ing the Mechanics^iile road, camped for the night south 
 of the Totopatomoy Creek at a place called Hundley's 
 Corner, some seven or eight miles northeast of Mechan- 
 icsville. He was thus getting well in the rear of the 
 right of the Federal army. Lee's preparations for assault 
 had been completed. His battle order was as follows : 
 
 Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, June 24, 1862, 
 General Orders No. 75. 
 
 I. General Jackson's command will proceed to-morrow from 
 Ashland toward the Slash Church and encamp at some conven- 
 ient point west of the Central Railroad. Branch's brigade, of 
 A. P. Hill's division, will also to-morrow evening take position 
 on the Chickahominy near Half-Sink. At three o'clock Thursday 
 morning, 26th inst., General Jackson will advance on the road 
 leading to Pole Green Church, communicating his march to Gen- 
 eral Branch, who will immediately cross the Chickahominy and 
 take the road leading to Mechanicsville. As soon as the move- 
 ments of these columns are discovered, General A. P. Hill, with 
 the rest of his division, will cross the Chickahominy near Meadow 
 Bridge and move direct upon Mechanicsville. To aid his advance 
 the heavy batteries on the Chickahominy will at the proper time 
 open upon the batteries at Mechanicsville. The enemy being 
 driven from Mechanicsville and the passage across the bridge 
 opened, General Longstreet, with his division and that of General 
 D. H. Hill, will cross the Chickahominy at or near that point, 
 General D. H. Hill moving to the support of Jackson, and Gen- 
 eral Longstreet supporting General A. P. Hill. The four divi- 
 sions — keeping in communication with each other and moving 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 159 
 
 en echelon on separate roads, if practicable, the left division in 
 advance, with skirmishers and sharpshooters extending their 
 front — will sweep down the Chickahomlny and endeavor to drive 
 the enemy from his position above New Brid^^^e, General Jackson 
 bearing well to his left, turning Beaver Dam Creek and taking 
 the direction toward Cold Harbor. They will then press forward 
 toward the York River Railroad, closing upon the enemy's rear 
 and forcing him down the Chickahomlny. Any advance of the 
 enemy toward Richmond will be prevented by vigorously follow- 
 ing his rear and crippling and arresting his progress. 
 
 2. The divisions under Generals Huger and Magruder will 
 hold their positions in front of the enemy against attack, and 
 make such demonstrations on Thursday as to discover his opera- 
 tions. Should opportunity offer, the feint will be converted into 
 a real attack, and should an abandonment of his intrenchments 
 by the enemy be discovered, he will be closely pursued. 
 
 3. The Third Virginia Cavalry will observe the Charles City 
 road. The Fifth Virginia, the First North Carolina, and the 
 Hampton Legion (cavalry) will observe the Darbytown, Varina, 
 imd Osborne roads. Should a movement of the enemy down the 
 Chickahomlny be discovered, they will close upon his tiank and 
 endeavor to arrest his march. 
 
 4. General Stuart with the First, Fourth, and Ninth Virginia 
 Cavalry, the cavalry of Cobb's Legion and the Jeff Davis Legion, 
 will cross the Chickahomlny to-morrow and take position to the 
 left of General Jackson's line of march. The main body will be 
 held in reserve, with scouts well extended to the front and left. 
 General Stuart will keep General Jackson informed of the move- 
 ments of the enemy on his left and will co-operate with him in 
 his advance. The Tenth Virginia Cavalry, Colonel Davis, will 
 remain on the Nine-mile road. 
 
 5. General Ransom's brigade, of General Holmes's command, 
 will be placed in reserve on the Williamsburg road by General 
 Huger, to whom he will report for orders. 
 
 6. Commanders of divisions will cause their commands to be 
 provided with three days' cooked rations. The necessary ambu- 
 lances and ordnance trains will be ready to accompany the divi- 
 sions and receive orders from their respective commanders. 
 Officers in charge of all trains will invariably remain with them. 
 Batteries and wagons will keep on the right of the road. The 
 Chief Engineer, Major Stevens, will assign engineer officers to 
 each division, whose duty it will be to make provision for over- 
 coming all difficulties to the progress of the troops. The staff 
 departments will give the necessary instructions to facilitate the 
 movements herein directed. 
 
 By command of General Lee. 
 
 (Signed) R. H. Chilton, 
 
 Assistant Adjutant General. 
 
l6o GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Lee designed that Jackson should progress sufficient- 
 ly far on the 26th to relieve A. P. Hill from any diffi- 
 culty in capturing Mechanicsville. This being done, it 
 would unmask the bridge at that point, and Longstreet 
 and D. H. Hill could cross. The four commands, being 
 thus united, with Jackson in advance and on the left, 
 would flank the very strong position of the Federals 
 on the left bank of Beaver Dam Creek, which emptied 
 into the Chickahominy about one mile below Mechan- 
 icsville, But Jackson was one day behmd time. He 
 did not proceed from Ashland on the 25th, as ordered, 
 because he arrived there only that night, and did not 
 leave till the next morning. A. P. Hill, after waiting 
 the greater part of the 26th for Jackson, grew impa- 
 tient, and, fearing there might be a failure of the of- 
 fensive plan, crossed the Chickahominy at Meadow 
 Bridge at 3 p. m. and moved direct on Mechanicsville, 
 hoping that as soon as he became engaged at that point 
 Jackson would appear on his left and they would open 
 the way for a union with D. H. Hill and Longstreet; 
 and then these troops could all, as directed in Gen- 
 eral Lee's order, " sweep down the north side of the 
 Chickahominy." They were to advance in two lines: 
 Jackson on the left and A. P. Hill on the right of the 
 first line, the former being supported by D. H. Hill and 
 the latter by Longstreet. This movement rapidly and 
 successfully executed would unmask the "new bridge" 
 on the Chickahominy below, by means of which General 
 Lee could reunite the left wing of his army with Huger's 
 and Magruder's divisions on its right bank. The strat- 
 egy was a repetition of that adopted by McDowell at 
 the first Manassas, and afterward by Lee at Chancellors- 
 ville. After A. P. Hill drove the Federals out of Me- 
 chanicsville he found himself in front of the strongly 
 intrenched lines on Beaver Dam, and the remainder of 
 the afternoon of the 26th was occupied in attempting to 
 carry them, assisted by Ripley's brigade, of D. H. Hill's 
 division. The approach to the Federal position being 
 over an open plain and exposed to a murderous fire of 
 all arms, was not successful that night. Had Jackson 
 been up he would have crossed the Beaver Dam Creek 
 above the right of the Federal line that evening, as he 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. i6i 
 
 did the next day, and thus prevented a great loss of 
 Hfe. 
 
 It has been said we were lavish of blood in those 
 days, and it was thought to be a great thing to charge a 
 battery of artillery or line of earthworks with infantry. 
 On the morning of the 27th the attack was renewed at 
 dawn. While it was in progress Jackson crossed the 
 creek above, and the enemy at once abandoned his in- 
 trenchments, retiring rapidly down the river, destroying 
 a great deal of property and leaving much in his de- 
 serted camps. As soon as the bridges could be repaired 
 across the Beaver Dam, Lee's left wing resumed its 
 march. About noon the Federal troops were found in 
 position behind Powhite Creek. This second line taken 
 by Fitz John Porter was a strong one, and made more 
 so by breastworks of trees and rifle trenches, while the 
 crests of the position were crowned with artillery. Gen- 
 eral Lee says the approach to this position was over an 
 open plain about a quarter of a mile wide commanded 
 by a triple line of fire and swept by the heavy batteries 
 south of the Chickahominy. Hill, still in advance, first 
 encountered the enemy, was soon hotly engaged, and 
 met the large force with the " impetuous courage for 
 which that officer and his troops are distinguished." 
 The battle raged fiercely and with varying fortune for 
 more than two hours. The attack on the Federal right 
 being delayed by the length of Jackson's march and the 
 obstacles he encountered, Longstreet was directed to 
 make a feint on the enemy's left, which he soon con- 
 verted into a real attack. Jackson arrived about this 
 time, and, after a short and bloody conflict, his troops 
 forced their way through the morass and obstructions 
 and drove the Federals from the woods on the opposite 
 side. Lee now ordered a general advance from right to 
 left. The enemy's breastworks were quickly stormed, 
 and he was forced back with great slaughter toward 
 the banks of the Chickahominy till night put an end 
 to the pursuit. On the morning of the 28th there were 
 no Federal troops in Lee's front north of the Chicka- 
 hominy. McClellan had united what was left of Por- 
 ter's corps with the rest of his army on the south side 
 of that stream. 
 
l62 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 What would McClellan do now ? Would he attempt 
 to open communication with his base of supplies at the 
 White House, or would he retreat down the Peninsula 
 in the direction of Fort Monroe, skirting the James 
 River, where he could be in communication with the 
 Federal gunboats on that stream, or would he seek 
 shelter at the nearest point on James River ? If he at- 
 tempted to go down the Peninsula or to fight for his line 
 of communication on York River, Lee was on the proper 
 side of the Chickahominy to meet such movements. 
 Should he retreat in a direct line across the White Oak 
 Swamp for James River it would be necessary for the 
 Southern troops to get on the south bank of the Chicka- 
 hominy as soon as possible in order to pursue. The 
 seizure of the York River Railroad by Ewell's division 
 and a portion of the cavalry under Stuart convinced the 
 Southern commander that McClellan had abandoned his 
 York River base, and shortly afterward it was ascer- 
 tained that there were no indications of a retreat down 
 the James River. Lee then knew McClellan had deter- 
 mined to get to the James by the nearest practicable 
 route. The Federal right had been so pounded to 
 pieces that Lee did not fear an advance on Huger and 
 Magruder, because in that case the victorious Southern 
 legions would have been in his rear, and such an attempt 
 would have resulted in the sacrifice of his army. The 
 battle of Gaines Mill having been won and the future 
 purpose of his enemy discovered, early on the 29th 
 Longstreet and A. P. Hill were directed to recross the 
 Chickahominy at New Bridge, while Jackson and D. H. 
 Hill crossed at Grape Vine Bridge. 
 
 General Lee had now united his whole army south of 
 the Chickahominy. That afternoon Magruder attacked 
 the enemy near Savage Station, being the rear guard of 
 a retreating army. The lateness of the hour and the 
 small force employed did not produce a decisive result. 
 On the next day, the 30th, at 4 p. m., the Union troops 
 were again overtaken, and the battle of Frazier's Farm, 
 sometimes called Glendale, or Nelson's, Farm, was fought 
 by Longstreet and A. P. Hill. Huger did not get up, 
 and Jackson was unable to force a passage through the 
 White Oak Swamp. The battle raged from 4 till 9 p. m. 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 163 
 
 By that time, General Lee says, his enemy had been 
 driven with great slaughter from every position but one, 
 which he maintained till he was enabled to withdraw 
 under cover of darkness. Jackson reached the battle- 
 field on July ist, having succeeded in crossing the 
 swamp, and was directed to continue the pursuit down 
 the Willis Church road, and soon came upon the enemy, 
 who occupied the high range extending obliquely across 
 the road in front of Malvern Hill, a position of great 
 natural strength. There McClellan had concentrated 
 his artillery, supported by large masses of infantry, 
 protected by earthworks. Immediately in the Federal 
 front the ground was open, varying in width from a 
 quarter to a half mile, sloping gradually from the crest, 
 and completely swept by the fire of his infantry and 
 artillery. General Lee in his report says: "To reach 
 this open ground our troops had to advance through a 
 broken and thickly wooded country, traversed nearly 
 throughout its whole extent by a swamp passable at but 
 few places, difficult at those. The whole was in range 
 of the batteries on the heights and the gunboats on the 
 river, under whose incessant fire our movements had to 
 be executed." Here the Federals were assaulted by por- 
 tions of Jackson's, D. H. Hill's, Magruder's, and Huger's 
 divisions, but from want of concert among the attacking 
 columns. General Lee reports, their assaults were too 
 weak to break the Federal line, and, after struggling 
 gallantly and inflicting great loss, they were compelled 
 successively to retire. Night was approaching when the 
 attack began, and it soon became difficult to distinguish 
 friend from foe. " The firing continued," General Lee 
 reports, '' till after 9 p. m., but no decided result was 
 gained. The lateness of the hour at which the attack 
 necessarily began gave the enemy the full advantage of 
 his superior position and augmented the natural difficul- 
 ties of our own." In these offensive movements the 
 Southern cavalry under Stuart were directed to move to 
 the left of Jackson, breaking the Federal lines of com- 
 munication and giving notice of any attempt to get down 
 the Peninsula. The greater part of McClellan's cavalry, 
 under Stoneman, which had been picketing on Porter's 
 right flank, was cut off from his army by the march of 
 
164 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Jackson and Stuart, and, not being able to reach their 
 troops, proceeded rapidly down the Peninsula. Stuart 
 reached McClellan's base at the White House on the 29th, 
 to find it abandoned. On Stuart's approach the greater 
 part of the enemy's stores were destroyed, but a large 
 amount of property was rescued, including ten thousand 
 stand of small arms, partially burned. Stuart took 
 up his march to again place himself on Jackson's left, 
 reaching the rear of the Federals at Malvern Hill at the 
 close of the engagement on the night of July ist. The 
 next day the Federals, having again retreated, were pur- 
 sued by Lee, with his cavalry in front, in the midst of a 
 violent storm, which somewhat retarded their progress. 
 The Union troops, having retired during the night, suc- 
 ceeded in reaching the protection of their gunboats. 
 At Westover on the James River, the approach to their 
 front was commanded by the heavy guns of the ship- 
 ping in addition to those mounted in intrenchments. 
 In view of these facts General Lee deemed it inexpedi- 
 ent to attack him. His troops had been marching and 
 fighting for seven days, and after remaining in close 
 vicinity to McClellan's army, on July 8th they "were 
 returned to their former position. In concluding his 
 report of these engagements. General Lee says that 
 "under ordinary circumstances the Federal army should 
 have been destroyed. Its escape was due to the causes 
 already stated. Prominent among these is the want of 
 correct and timely information. This fact, attributable 
 chiefly to the nature of the country, enabled General 
 McClellan skillfully to conceal his retreat and to add 
 mi^ch to the obstructions with which Nature had beset 
 the way of our pursuing columns, but regret that more 
 was not accomplished gives way to gratitude to the Sov- 
 ereign Ruler of the Universe for the results achieved. 
 The siege of Richmond was raised, and the object of a 
 campaign which had been prosecuted after months of 
 preparation at an enormous expenditure of men and 
 money completely frustrated. More than ten thousand 
 prisoners (including officers of rank), fifty-two pieces of 
 artillery, and upward of thirty-five thousand stand of 
 small arms were captured. The stores and supplies of 
 every description which fell into our hands were great 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 165 
 
 in amount and value, but small in comparison with those 
 destroyed by the enemy." 
 
 When McClellan's army, worn with conflict and brok- 
 en by defeat, reached, on July 2d, the plains of the James 
 River, above Westover, had the Southern infantry moved 
 along the route taken by the cavalry of Stuart, he might 
 have been attacked again with every element of decisive 
 success. During the night of the ist Stuart's celebrated 
 horse artillery commander, Pelham, informed his chief 
 that the Federal troops, after leaving Malvern Hill, had 
 reached this position in a disorderly state, and that their 
 position on the James River flats was completely com- 
 manded by a ridge parallel to the river called Eveling- 
 ton Heights. These heights commanded the enemy's 
 encampment, and, crowned with artillery and taken 
 possession of by infantry, would have compelled, in all 
 probability, McClellan's surrender. Stuart forwarded 
 Pelham's report at once to the commanding general, and 
 proceeded to gain these heights. A squadron of the 
 Federal cavalry vacated them without much hesitation 
 on his approach. Upon getting in sight of the enemy 
 Stuart determined to send back for one of his howitzers 
 to fire upon their camp below. It was ascertained 
 that the main body of the enemy were there much re- 
 duced and demoralized. These facts were promptly 
 furnished to the commanding general, who in turn in- 
 formed him that Longstreet and. Jackson were en route 
 to his support. Stuart held this ground from 9 a. m. 
 till 2 p. M., when he was finally driven off by bodies of 
 the enemy's infantry, after the exhaustion of his how- 
 itzer ammunition. He held the heights as long as it 
 was possible, till he learned that Longstreet had taken 
 the wrong road, and was then at Nance Shop, six or 
 seven miles off, and could not possibly reach him in 
 time to secure them. It was suggested to Stuart by one 
 of his officers not to occupy the heights in force, nor to 
 fire cannon from them, because it would call the atten- 
 tion of McClellan to the great importance of securing 
 and fortifying them (before Lee's army could arrive), 
 as necessary to his own protection. The cavalry com- 
 mander disregarded this suggestion, and was driven 
 from them. It seems absolutely certain that had Long- 
 12 
 
l66 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Street followed Stuart's march, Jackson Longstreet's, 
 and the remainder of the army followed them, on July 
 2d, these heights could have been occupied by Lee's 
 army and McClellan's command attacked and destroyed. 
 The guns of the gunboats had to be so greatly elevated 
 to fire over the banks of the river that the projectiles 
 passed over the heights, so that the Southern army 
 would not be much exposed to that fire, while a plung- 
 ing fire from Lee's batteries on the Federal troops in 
 the plains below must have resulted most disastrously.* 
 
 McClellan, in a dispatch to Mr. Lincoln on the 4th, 
 two days afterward, says: "We now occupy Evelington 
 Heights, about two miles from the James, a plain extend- 
 ing from there to the river. Our front is about three 
 miles long; these heights command our whole position, 
 and must be maintained." 
 
 The total losses to the Army of the Potomac in these 
 seven days of conflict are put down at fifteen thousand 
 eight hundred and forty-nine, and the list of casualties 
 in the Army of Northern Virginia in the fights before 
 Richmond, commencing June 226. and ending July i, 
 1862, is placed at sixteen thousand seven hundred and 
 eighty-two. The Southern losses were the greater be- 
 cause during the battles they invariably formed the at- 
 tacking column, while the Federal troops fought more 
 or less behind intrenchments. 
 
 It can not be denied that the retreat of McClellan 
 from his position in front of Richmond to the James 
 River was cleverly executed. After his right was rolled 
 up the various positions selected to keep the Southern 
 troops from destroying his army were well selected and 
 ably defended. The Federal commander got unduly ex- 
 cited over what he supposed was the great preponder- 
 ance of the Southerners in numbers, as well as over the 
 re-enforcements which they were supposed to be receiv- 
 ing. On the night Stonewall Jackson encamped at Ash- 
 land McClellan told the Secretary of War by telegraph that 
 
 * The only reference known to the loss of this great opportunity 
 by the Southern army is to be found in the valuable work entitled 
 Four Years with General Lee, by Colonel Walter Taylor, his distin- 
 guished adjutant general. 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 167 
 
 he had received information from various sources that 
 Beauregard and his troops had arrived in Richmond; 
 and a half hour later he telegraphed Casey in command 
 of his depot supplies at the White House that " it was 
 said Jackson is coming from Fredericksburg with the 
 intention of attacking the right flank soon." Six and a 
 half hours later, on the morning of the 26th, at three 
 o'clock, he informed Mr. Stanton that his " impression 
 was confirmed that Jackson would soon attack our right 
 rear," and added if he " had another good division he 
 would laugh at Jackson." At 9 a. m. on the morning 
 of the 26th a negro servant who had been in the em- 
 ploy of some of the officers of the Twentieth Georgia 
 was brought before him, and, after questioning him, he 
 telegraphed Stanton, "There is no doubt that Jackson 
 is coming upon us." At midnight on June 24th he had 
 informed Stanton that a "peculiar case of desertion had 
 just occurred from the enemy." The deserter stated 
 that he had left Jackson, Whiting, and Ewell, and fifteen 
 brigades at Gordonsville on the 21st, and that it was in- 
 tended to attack his [McClellan's] rear on the 28th, and 
 asked for the latest information about Jackson. Mr. 
 Stanton replied to him on June 25th, Jackson then being 
 at Ashland, that he had no definite information as to 
 the number or position of Jackson's forces ; that it was 
 reported as numbering forty thousand men. He had 
 also heard that " Jackson was at Gordonsville with 
 ten thousand rebels. Other reports placed Jackson 
 at Port Republic, Harrisonburg, and Luray, and that 
 neither McDowell, who was at Manassas, nor Banks 
 and Fremont, who were at Middletown, appear to have 
 any knowledge of Jackson's whereabouts." On the day 
 Jackson arrived at Ashland McClellan was engaged in 
 pushing Heintzelman's corps closer to the Richmond 
 lines in prosecution of his general plan of advance. The 
 night of the 25th, when Jackson was sleeping at Ash- 
 land, McClellan again telegraphed to the Secretary of 
 War that he was inclined to think that Jackson would 
 attack his right and rear, and that the rebel force was 
 at least two hundred thousand ; that he regretted his 
 inferiority of numbers, but felt he was not responsible 
 for It, and that if his army was destroyed by overwhelm- 
 
1 68 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ing numbers he could at least die with it and share its 
 fate; that he felt there was no use in his again asking 
 for re-enforcements. It seems that McClellan was de- 
 ceived to some extent by the report of his chief of Secret- 
 Service Corps. This was a corps one of whose objects 
 was to question prisoners and deserters and ascertain 
 in every other possible way the numbers of Lee's army. 
 He was fully convinced he had to fight two hundred 
 thousand troops. Lee's army numbered at the begin- 
 ning of these combats eighty-one thousand. It was com- 
 posed of thirty-nine brigades of infantry (twelve more, 
 including those under Jackson, than General Johnston 
 had when he relinquished the command at Seven Pines), 
 six regiments and three battalions of cavalry, and 
 sixteen batteries of reserve artillery (exclusive of those 
 with the various infantry divisions). Fifty-three thou- 
 sand Southern troops were massed on McClellan's right, 
 and constituted the force which attacked Porter's com- 
 mand, numbering of all arms of service about thirty- 
 six thousand men ; while twenty-eight thousand Confed- 
 erate troops stood between some seventy thousand of 
 McClellan's army on the south bank of the Chickahom- 
 iny and Richmond. The certified morning reports of 
 the Federal Army of the Potomac, dated June 20, 1862, 
 gives 1 15,102 as the aggregate present for duty. Six days 
 later, when the battles commenced, the force probably 
 did not exceed one hundred and five thousand. If in 
 round numbers we put it at one hundred thousand, Lee 
 was outnumbered nineteen thousand. When McClellan 
 discovered that his opponent had on the left bank of the 
 Chickahominy two thirds of his army, but three courses 
 were left to him : One, to re-enforce the three divisions 
 of Porter. Another, to strengthen and fortify the position 
 along Beaver Dam Creek, and, relying on Porter to hold 
 at bay as long as possible Jackson, Longstreet, and the 
 two Hills, boldly set in motion his four corps on the 
 right bank of the Chickahominy for the coveted prize, 
 his enemy's capital. By destroying Huger and Magru- 
 der or crippling them, a portion of his troops could have 
 kept them quiet, and then, facing about with the re- 
 mainder, he might have marched to Porter's assistance 
 and possibly defeated Lee. It was hazardous, however. 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 169 
 
 Richmond was not Austerlitz, nor McClellan Napoleon. 
 Third, to rescue Porter from jjis enemy, get him safely 
 across to the south side of the Chickahominy, and unite 
 him with the rest of his army. 
 
 This plan, if it had been adopted before the Con- 
 federate attack, might have forced the Southern com- 
 mander to attack his united army on the right bank. 
 He decided to receive the attack in the position then 
 occupied by Porter, and only withdrew him to the Rich- 
 mond side of the Chickahominy after he had been badly 
 hammered and had lost some six thousand men. 
 
 Perhaps if McClellan had known that he was fight- 
 ing eighty-one thousand men, and not two hundred 
 thousand, he might have acted with more confidence. 
 Mr. Lincoln telegraphed June 26th that his suggestion 
 of the probability of his being overwhelmed by two 
 hundred thousand men, and talking about where the 
 responsibility would belong, pained him very much. 
 On June 27th McClellan began to realize that he was 
 going to have some very serious w^ork, and begged the 
 Secretary that he would put some one general in com- 
 mand of the Shenandoah Valley and of all troops in 
 front of Washington for the sake of the country. On 
 the same day he complimented Porter for his fine efforts 
 at Gaines Mill, says he looks upon the day as de- 
 cisive of the war, and tells him to "try and drive the 
 rascals, and take some prisoners and guns." This w-as 
 an hour or two before Porter's defeat. General Hooker 
 did not seem to be so confident, for about the same time he 
 reported that he had just returned from the front, where 
 " we have nothing but a stampede, owing to the behav- 
 ior of the troops occupying the picket line. The first 
 shot from a rebel was sufficient to start regiments." 
 Later that day Admiral Goldsborough, the flag officer of 
 the Federal squadron on the James, was notified by Mc- 
 Clellan that he had met with a severe repulse, and asked 
 him to send gunboats up the James River to cover the 
 left flank of his army. 
 
 The Washington War Secretary w^as confident of 
 Federal success as late as the evening of June 29th, 
 for he telegraphed Hon. William H. Seward, at New York, 
 that his inference is, from what has taken place around 
 
I/O 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Richmond, that McClellan will be in the city within 
 two days; and the day after, to General Wool, at Fort 
 Monroe, that McClellan had a favorable position near 
 Richmond, and that it looked more like occupying that 
 city than any time before. At 11.30 on the night of June 
 30th the Union army commander had begun to realize 
 that his "change of base," as he termed it, would not be 
 attended with favorable results, and telegraphed Mr. 
 Stanton that he feared he would be forced to abandon 
 his material in order to save his men, under cover of the 
 gunboats, and that if none of them escaped, they would 
 at least have done honor to the country. 
 
 On July ist his army was at Haxall's plantation, on 
 the James, and McClellan says he dreaded the result if 
 he was attacked ; that if possible he would retire that 
 night to Harrison's Bar, where the gunboats could aid 
 in covering his position. " I now pray for time. We 
 have failed to win only because overpowered by supe- 
 rior numbers." On July 2d McClellan's army had suc- 
 ceeded in reaching Harrison's Landing. He told Mr. 
 Lincoln that if he were not attacked during that day 
 his men would be ready to repulse the enemy on the 
 morrow. On the same day he received a dispatch from 
 President Lincoln in that vein of humor for which he 
 was remarkable. "If you think you are not strong 
 enough to take Richmond just now, I do not ask you 
 to. Try just now to save the army material and per- 
 sonnely and I will strengthen it for the offensive again 
 as fast as I can. The governments of eighteen States 
 offered me a new levy of three hundred thousand, which 
 I accepted." And in a letter of the same date, in ref- 
 erence to sending him re-enforcements, Mr. Lincoln 
 adds a postscript : " If at any time you feel able to take 
 the offensive, you are not restrained from doing so." 
 
 The respective commanders of the two armies de- 
 cided to rest and recruit their forces. McClellan re- 
 sumed the habit he contracted in West Virginia of issu- 
 ing proclamations. On July 4th the following was read 
 to his army from the headquarters of the Army of the 
 Potomac, camped near Harrison's Landing. 
 
 Soldiers of the Army of the Potomac : Your achieve- 
 ments of the last ten days have illustrated the ability and endur- 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND, jyi 
 
 ance of the American soldier. Attacked by vastly superior forces, 
 and without hope of re-enforcements, you have succeeded in chang- 
 ing your base of operations by a flank movement, regarded as the 
 most hazardous of military expedients. You have saved all your 
 material, all your trains, and all your guns, except a few lost in 
 battle. Upon your march you have been assailed day after day 
 with desperate fury by men of the same race and nation, skillfully 
 massed and led, and under every disadvantage of numbers, and 
 necessarily of position also. You have in every conflict beaten 
 back your foes with enormous slaughter. 
 
 (Signed) GEO. B. McClellan, 
 
 Major General Coinmandi7ig. 
 
 By a series of brilliant movements General Lee had 
 driven an army superior to him in numbers from the 
 gates of his capital, and had fully restored himself in 
 the confidence of his people by the exercise of military- 
 genius and by his personal conduct and supervision of 
 the troops on the battlefield. It might be said of him, 
 as Addison wrote of the great Marlborough, that 
 
 " His mighty soul inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 
 And taught a doubtful battle where to rage." 
 
 Or, as was written of Wellington, '' no responsibility 
 proved too heavy for his calm, assured, and fertile in- 
 tellect. If he made a mistake, he repaired it before the 
 enemy could profit by it. If his adversaries made one, 
 he took advantage of it with immediate decision. Al- 
 ways cool, sagacious, resolute, reliant, he was never at 
 a loss for expedients, never disturbed by any unforeseen 
 accidents, never without a clear conception of the object 
 to be achieved, and the best way of achieving it." 
 
 The character of Lee is most apparent from his own 
 words, only written for the eyes of the members of his 
 family. When by his skill his brave soldiers had re- 
 moved from the front of his capital McClellan's army, 
 in a letter to his wife he disposes of the matter in a few 
 lines by saying, on July 9, 1862, from Dobb's Farm, 
 on the Nine Mile Road: "I have returned to my old 
 quarters, and am filled with gratitude to our Heavenly 
 Father for all the mercies he has extended to us. Our 
 success has not been as great or complete as we could 
 have desired, but God knows what is best for us. Our 
 
172 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 enemy has met with a heavy loss, from which it must 
 take him some time to recover before he can recom- 
 mence his operations." 
 
 General Henry Glitz had been wounded and was a 
 prisoner in Richmond. General Lee answered a letter 
 in reference to him and other wounded prisoners : 
 
 Headquarters, July 15, 1862. 
 My dear Fitz : I have just received your letter of the 13th. 
 I am very sorry to hear of the sufferings of the wounded prisoners, 
 and wish I could relieve them. I proposed to General McClellan 
 on Tuesday, before the battle of that day, to parole and send to 
 him all his wounded if he would receive them. Since that the 
 arrangement has been made, and the sick and wounded are now 
 being conveyed to him. This will relieve them very much, and 
 enable us to devote our attention to those retained. In addition, 
 the enemy has at last agreed to a general exchange of all prison- 
 ers of war, and Generals Dix and D. H. Hill are to meet to-mor- 
 row to commence the negotiations. I hope in this way much 
 relief will be afforded ; at first the hospitals were overtaxed, men 
 could not be had to bury the dead, and the sufferings of all were 
 increased. Friend Clitz ought to recollect that this is a matter of 
 his own seeking, and he has only to blame himself. I will still 
 be happy to do for him all I can, and will refer your letter to the 
 director of the hospital if I can find him. 
 
 Your loving uncle, R. E. Lee. 
 
 General Fitz Lee. 
 
 The offensive tactics of the Confederate commander 
 raised the siege of Richmond and the hopes of the 
 South, From the various churches prayers ascended 
 to the throne of the God of Battles, and humble suppli- 
 cations were offered for the cessation of hostilities. 
 
 The removal of McClellan's army from the walls of 
 Richmond brought great relief to its inhabitants; the 
 blood of the bravest had been poured at their feet, the 
 moans of the wounded had fallen upon their ears, and 
 the dead lay silent and cold before their eyes. The war 
 had been brought to their hearthstones. 
 
 General Lee now proposed to transfer its horrors to 
 fields at a greater distance from the Southern capital, 
 for the proximity of a large hostile army still menaced 
 its safety. McClellan had been driven from its gates, 
 but Richmond was still his objective point. But two 
 marches away there were encamped on James River 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 173 
 
 ninety thousand men ; twenty days after the battle of 
 Malvern Hill it numbered 101,697 — a grand army, well 
 equipped with all the sinews of war, whose principal offi- 
 cers were men of undoubted courage and military ability. 
 
 Lee had three alternatives : First, to attack ; second, 
 to await an attack ; third, manoeuvre so as to threat- 
 en Washington and draw McClellan's army from the 
 vicinity of Richmond. The Army of the Potomac was 
 now behind too much dirt, and had too many big guns 
 in position on land and water to admit of an attack 
 with reasonable hopes of success; and time was too pre- 
 cious to wait for it to get in condition to assume the 
 offensive again, so Lee promptly decided to move it 
 to a safe distance. Mr. Lincoln was naturally solicit- 
 ous about the security of the Federal capital. After 
 McClellan's defeat he determined to do two things: 
 One, to concentrate the commands which Jackson had 
 scattered and put them under one officer, who should 
 be charged with the guardianship of Washington ; the 
 other, to buckle to his side by day and night a military 
 adviser in whose abilities he had confidence, and who 
 should be commander in chief of all the Federal armies. 
 
 He was singularly unfortunate in the selection of the 
 officers to fill these two important places. The forces 
 of Fremont, Banks, and McDowell were united into 
 what was termed the Army of Virginia, and its com- 
 mand was assigned to Major-General John Pope. This 
 officer, a Kentuckian by birth and a West Point gradu- 
 ate, was then forty years old. When a captain of engi- 
 neers in the United States Army he had been detailed 
 as one of the army officers to escort Mr. Lincoln to 
 Washington where he w^as to assume the duties of 
 the presidency, and, it is presumed, did not fail to im- 
 press upon the President his qualifications for com- 
 mand. Pope had met with some success in the cam- 
 paigns in the West, and was looked upon as a rising 
 officer whose military capacity .would be productive of 
 great results, and ultimately seat him in McClellan's' 
 saddle. On assuming his new command, it must be 
 confessed he made a bad beginning, which was not at- 
 tended with the usual good ending. He was evidently 
 deeply impressed with the idea that the war in Vir- 
 
174 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ginia had not been conducted properly, and that he had 
 been brought from the West — where, as he said, he 
 had only seen the backs of his enemies — to destroy the 
 human race at the South generally, whether they were 
 armed soldiers or unarmed citizens. There was a strik- 
 ing contrast between McClellan and Pope. The former 
 had announced that private property and unarmed 
 citizens should be protected, and that neither confis- 
 cation of property, political execution of persons, nor 
 forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated 
 for a moment ; the latter had ordered the arrest of all 
 disloyal male citizens, and their banishment from their 
 homes unless they took the oaths of allegiance, threat- 
 ening them if they should ever return that they would 
 be visited with the extreme rigor of military law, and 
 should their oaths be violated, the offenders would be 
 shot and their property confiscated. He also directed 
 that prominent citizens, however inoffensive they might 
 be, should be seized on every side and held as hostages 
 for Union soldiers captured by " roving bands." The inti- 
 mation to his soldiers that they were free to enter upon 
 a campaign of robbery and murder against unarmed 
 citizens and peaceful tillers of the soil produced a sen- 
 sation in the army of Lee, which had been accustomed 
 to encounter troops under leaders of a different type, 
 and also a desire to get at Pope at the earliest moment. 
 The North was not prepared at that date for such ex- 
 treme measures. Men who at home would have shud- 
 dered at the suggestion of taking another's property 
 now appropriated remorselessly whatever came within 
 their reach. The Southern President directed General 
 Lee to say to the authorities at Washington that a car- 
 tel for the exchange of prisoners between the belliger- 
 ents had just been signed by Generals Dix and D. H. 
 Hill, representing their respective governments, stipu- 
 lating that all prisoners hereafter taken will be dis- 
 charged on parole till exchanged, and that Pope had 
 violated it, because his orders contemplated the murder 
 of peaceful inhabitants as spies ; that innocent people 
 had been seized, to be murdered in cold blood if any of 
 his soldiers should be killed by unknown persons; and 
 that, in consequence, neither Pope nor his commissioned 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 175 
 
 officers, if captured, should be considered as prisoners of 
 war. To this communication President Lincoln's new- 
 military adviser replied that the communication of Mr. 
 Davis, inclosed to him by General Lee, was couched in 
 language exceedingly insulting to the Government of 
 the United States, and that he [Halleck] must respect- 
 fully decline to receive it. Later it was stated that 
 the Government disavowed these measures of the com- 
 mander of the Army of Virginia. Pope was more or 
 less ridiculed by soldiers on' both sides for his bom- 
 bastic declamations. He did not want to hear, he told 
 his troops, of taking strong positions and holding them, 
 of lines of retreat and bases of supply. His " head- 
 quarters " were reported "in the saddle," and his army 
 was to be launched upon a sea of strife without a com- 
 pass. The safety of Washington, with which he was 
 particularly charged, was to be secured by marvelous 
 methods. He proposed to keep his army on the flank 
 of any hostile force that approached it, because he 
 thought that no commander would have the temerity 
 to pass him, in the first place ; and, in the second, if 
 he should seek to attack him, he could lead him off 
 in another direction, and was satisfied that if he had 
 McClellan's numbers he could march to New Orleans 
 and dictate the terms of peace in the Crescent City. 
 
 General Lee early measured Pope, and when it be- 
 came necessary to transact military business with him 
 paralyzed him with movements as brilliant as they were 
 bold, but which it is safe to say he would never have 
 attempted against an army commander for whose mili- 
 tary genius he had profound respect. In a letter from 
 near Richmond, July 28, 1862, after telling Mrs. Lee: 
 " In the prospect before me I can not see a single ray of 
 pleasure during this war ; but so long as I can perform 
 any service to the country I am content," he could not 
 resist giving Pope a slight slap, and adds: "When you 
 write to Rob again " (his youngest son, who was a pri- 
 vate in the Rockbridge Battery) "tell him to catch Pope 
 for me, and also to bring in his cousin Louis Marshall, 
 who, I am told, is on his staff. I could forgive the latter 
 fighting against us, but not his joining Pope." 
 
 Out in the West, too, President Lincoln found his 
 
176 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 commander in chief, and on July iitli ordered that 
 Major-General Henry W. Halleck be assigned to com- 
 mand the whole land force of the United States as gen- 
 eral in chief, and that he repair to the capital. The 
 Confederates were re-enforced by these appointments 
 of Halleck and Pope. If the latter was, as Swinton, 
 the historian of the Army of the Potomac, puts it, " the 
 most disbelieved man in the army," the former was a 
 perpetual stumbling-stone in the path of the field com- 
 manders of the Federal army. His position was a 
 most difficult one to fill. Mr. Lincoln's attention was 
 drawn to him by his past record. Halleck gradu- 
 ated at the United States Military Academy in the 
 class of 1849, and was forty-seven years old when sum- 
 moned to Washington. Like Lee, McClellan, and Pope, 
 he was an engineer officer, but resigned in 1854 to prac- 
 tice law, and was so engaged in San Francisco, Cal., when 
 the war began. General Scott had a high opinion of 
 his ability. A lawyer, a soldier, and an author, he had 
 written on both military and legal topics. He had many 
 of the qualifications necessary for his trying office. 
 This appointment was made by Mr. Lincoln imme- 
 diately after a personal inspection of McClellan's army 
 on the James River. On that visit, July 8th, the North- 
 ern President ascertained that the Army of the Poto- 
 mac numbered 86,500 men present and 73,500 absent 
 to be accounted for. The tri-monthly return for July 
 loth fixed the number of men present equipped for 
 duty at 98,631. '' To make this army march to Rich- 
 mond with any hope of success it must be re-enforced 
 by at least 100,000 good troops; any officer here whose 
 opinion is worth one penny will not recommend a less 
 number," wrote one of his corps commanders on the 
 day of this return, and strongly advised the removal 
 of the army to Washington. Whether to re-enforce Mc- 
 Clellan or Pope was the question. The former could 
 not well be attacked in his fortified camp, nor could he 
 assault with much prospect of success Lee's lines, as 
 they were much stronger now than when he was last in 
 front of them. Burnside, who had been ordered from 
 the South to re-enforce McClellan, was halted at New- 
 port News, ready, as Mr. Lincoln informed McClellan 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND, ijj 
 
 on July 14th, " to move on short notice one way or the 
 other when ordered." By which he meant up the Po- 
 tomac to Washington, or up the James to McClellan, 
 and a week afterward he wrote McClellan that he would 
 decide what he should do with Burnside in the next two 
 or three days. 
 
 General Lee decided the question for him. With 
 watchful eye he had noticed the concentration of Pope's 
 army and its gradual extension into Virginia. He saw 
 that it had passed McDowell's battlefield, crossed the 
 Rappahannock, and was getting too near to the impor- 
 tant town of Gordonsville, where the railroad from Rich- 
 mond met the one from Washington. He resolved to 
 stop Pope, and, if possible, overwhelm him before he 
 could be largely re-enforced by McClellan, for a victory 
 over him would remove McClellan's army to Washing- 
 ton. On July loth Lee had 65,419 men, exclusive of 
 the Department of North Carolina, which was under his 
 command, or some 23,000 less than the army opposed 
 to him. This fact did not deter him three days after- 
 ward from making the disparity of numbers still greater 
 by sending a detachment of 8,000 men to Pope's front. 
 For the commander of this force Lee wisely selected 
 Jackson, who was so aggressive and so swift in his 
 movements that he would create a disturbance in the 
 guardian army of Washington before his departure from 
 Richmond would be known. Stonewall Jackson left 
 Lee on July 13th with his old division and that 
 of Ewell's, both having been much weakened by hard 
 marches and severe fighting. One week afterward 
 Mr. Lincoln was informed by McClellan that he had 
 heard Jackson had left Richmond by rail, going either 
 toward Gordonsville or Fredericksburg, that the move- 
 ment continued three days, and that he might be going 
 against Buell in the West via Gordonsville, so as to 
 leave the Petersburg and Danville roads free for the 
 transportation to Lee of recruits and supplies. On 
 the same day Pope reported to Lincoln that Ewell 
 was at Gordonsville with six thousand men, and Jack- 
 son at Louisa Court House, but a few miles distant, 
 with twenty-five thousand, and that his [Pope's] ad- 
 vanced posts were at Culpeper and Madison Court 
 
178 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 House. Jackson, the bete iioir of the Federal capital, 
 was on the war path, and again produced consternation. 
 Halleck hurried to McCIellan, and had a personal inter- 
 view on July 25th, urgmg upon him to attack Rich- 
 mond at once, or he would have to withdraw him to re- 
 enforce Pope. McCIellan finally agreed to attack if 
 Halleck would send him twenty thousand more troops, 
 all that Halleck could promise. McCIellan would not 
 say, says Halleck, that '' the probabilities of success 
 were in his favor, but there was a chance, and he was 
 willing to try it ; that the force of the enemy was two 
 hundred thousand ; and that in this estimate most of 
 his officers agreed." His own effective force was ninety 
 thousand, which, with twenty thousand re-enforcements, 
 would make one hundred and ten thousand ; and his 
 officers were about equally divided in opinion in regard 
 to the policy of withdrawing or risking an attack on 
 Richmond. 
 
 Five days before Halleck's visit General Lee's army 
 numbered 57,328. Estimating it at 60,000 when McCIel- 
 lan and Halleck were in conference, it is seen the former 
 overestimated Lee's strength only about 140,000. The 
 interview between these two officers highest in rank in 
 the Federal army was productive of temporary respect, 
 confidence, and friendship. Halleck writes McCIellan a 
 few days afterward that " there was no one in the army 
 under whom I could serve with greater pleasure." 
 McCIellan replies: ''Had I been consulted as to who 
 was to take my place, I would have advised your ap- 
 pointment ; and that if we are permitted to do so, I 
 believe that together we can save this unhappy country 
 and bring this war to a comparatively easy termination. 
 The doubt in my mind is whether the selfish politicians 
 will allow us to do so." The next few days saw changes 
 not only in the relations between these two officers, but 
 in the plans and purposes of the contending forces. 
 Jackson arrived at Gordonsville on July 19th, and at 
 once began to consider the best way to strike Pope. 
 Finding that his antagonist had practically concentrated 
 the corps of Sigel (formerly Fremont's), Banks's, and 
 McDowell's, and had nearly six times his numbers, he 
 wisely decided to apply to General Lee for more troops 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 
 
 79 
 
 before he assumed the offensive. On July 27th Lee 
 sent A. P. Hill's division, which gave him an army of 
 18,623. While he could not hope to beat the whole of 
 Pope's army, numbering on July 31st, according to 
 Pope, 40,358, or, if we accept the reports of the various 
 corp commanders, 47,000 men, the disposition of these 
 forces gave him an opportunity to strike a part of it. 
 Banks was in advance at Culpeper Court House, with 
 his cavalry picketing the line of the Rapidan. Jack- 
 son always availed himself of such opportunities, and 
 promptly moved forward and crossed the Rapidan on 
 August 8th. Pope, on learning of Jackson's advance, 
 ordered Banks to move in his direction from Culpeper 
 Court House; so Jackson encountered him on the 9th 
 about eight miles in front of that place, a short distance 
 west and north of Slaughter Mountain near Cedar Run. 
 A well-tested battle was fought, resulting in a victory 
 for the Southern troops, their pursuit being stopped 
 by night. Banks fell back to his old position north 
 of Cedar Run, while Jackson remained in the field 
 next day, and then, hearing that Banks had been heav- 
 ily re-enforced, returned to the vicinity of Gordons- 
 ville. The Confederates sustained a loss of thirteen 
 hundred officers and men, including General Charles 
 Winder, of Maryland, one of the most promising and 
 gallant soldiers of the South. Jackson mourned him as 
 one of his most accomplished officers. " Richly en- 
 dowed," he wrote, " with those qualities of mind and 
 person which fit an officer for commanding, and which 
 attract the admiration and excite the enthusiasm of the 
 troops, he was rapidly rising to the front rank of his 
 profession. His loss has been severely felt." By this 
 movement Jackson, as usual, had rendered great serv- 
 ice. The question whether to re-enforce Pope or Mc- 
 Clellan was decided. Stonewall Jackson was in front 
 of the army covering Washington. Halleck's orders for 
 the evacuation of the Peninsula by McClellan's army 
 must be carried out. Burnside, hanging for so long a 
 time between McClellan and Pope, must go to Pope. 
 
 The anticipations of General Lee had been realized ; 
 it was now a race who should" get to Pope first — the 
 Army of Northern Virginia or the Army of the Po- 
 
l8o GENERAL LEE. 
 
 tomac. The movements oi the Southern general had 
 been delayed because he did not desire to risk the de- 
 tachment of too many troops from Richmond lines until 
 he had a reasonable confidence that McClellan's offen- 
 sive operations were at an end. Four days after Jack- 
 son's fight he determined to transfer the theater of 
 action to Pope's front, and accordingly ordered Major- 
 General Longstreet, with ten brigades, commanded by 
 Kemper, Jenkins, Wilcox, Pryor, Featherstone, D. R. 
 Jones, Toombs, Drayton, and Evans, to Gordonsville, 
 and on the same day Hood, with his own and Whiting's 
 brigades, was sent to the same place. Two days after- 
 ward — namely, August 15th — General Lee proceeded in 
 person to join Longstreet and Jackson. He was dis- 
 tressed at being deprived of the services of Richmond, 
 his cheval de bataille, in the approaching campaign. His 
 favorite riding mare was a sorrel called Grace Darling. 
 When the war began he had her sent down from Arling- 
 ton to the White House. He writes that he heard of 
 Grace. She was seen bestridden by some of the Federal 
 soldiers, with her colt by her side, and adds that he could 
 have been better resigned to many things than that. " I 
 have also lost my horse Richmond." (Presented to him 
 by some citizens of Richmond.) '^ He died Thursday. I 
 had ridden him the day before. He seemed in the morn- 
 ing as well as ever ; but I discovered in the evening he 
 was not well. I thought he was merely distressed by 
 the heat, and brought him along very slowly. Finding 
 at bedtime he had not recovered, I had him bled, which 
 seemed to relieve him. In the morning he was pro- 
 nounced better; at noon he was reported dead. His 
 labors are over and he is at rest. He carried me very 
 faithfully, and I shall never have so beautiful an animal 
 again. His fate is different from Grace's, and to his loss 
 I can easily be resigned. I shall want but few horses 
 more, and have as many as I require." 
 
 Three days after Longstreet, and one day after Lee 
 left, McClellan telegraphed (August i6th) Halleck : 
 "Movement has commenced by land and water. All 
 sick will be away to-morrow night. Everything being 
 done to carry out your orders. I do not like Jackson's 
 movements. He will suddenly appear when least ex- 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND, jgi 
 
 pected." It is apparent that General Lee was confident 
 of McCIellan's withdrawal, or he would hardly have left 
 in person or detached Longstreet from Richmond. On 
 Lee's departure, General G. W. Smith, who had returned 
 to duty, was left in command with his own division 
 and that of D. H. Hill (at Petersburg commanding 
 the Department of North Carolina), as well as McLaw's 
 and R. H. Anderson's divisions and Hampton's cavalry 
 brigade; but on the 15th Lee telegraphed to Mr. Davis 
 requesting him to order R. H. Anderson's division to him, 
 and on the 17th General G. W. Smith was ordered to join 
 him also. The great value of time was appreciated by 
 the Southern leader. It was his plain duty to force Pope 
 to accept battle before he was joined by the whole of 
 McCIellan's army. When Pope discovered that Lee was 
 marching to fight him he fell back behind the line of 
 the Rappahannock, though he thought that river was 
 too far to the front, because, he said, '^ the movements of 
 Lee were too rapid and those of McClellan too slow to 
 make it possible with his force to hold that line, or to 
 keep communication with Fredericksburg without being 
 turned on my right flank by Lee's whole army and cut 
 off altogether from Washington." He was told that in 
 two' days more he would be largely re-enforced by the 
 Army of the Potomac, and would not only be secure, 
 but strong enough to assume the offensive. He was in- 
 structed, he reports, to hold on there, '' and fight like 
 the devil." Lee therefore found Pope on the Rappa- 
 hannock, with his right at the Waterloo Bridge and 
 his left at Kelly's Ford. He had stretched down the 
 river as far as he well could so as to keep his communi- 
 cation open with Fredericksburg, from which point 
 Burnside and Fitz John Porter's corps of the Army of 
 the Potomac were coming. Lee was anxious to get at 
 Pope at once, but there was a river rolling between 
 them. From " Camp near Orange Court House," Au- 
 gust 17, 1862, he wrote : " Here I am in a tent instead of 
 my comfortable quarters at Dobbs's " (his headquarters 
 in front of Richmond). " The tent, however, is very com- 
 fortable, and of that I have nothing to complain. Gen- 
 eral Pope says he is very strong, and seems to feel so, 
 for he is moving apparently up to the Rapidan. I hope 
 i3 
 
1 82 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 he will not prove stronger than we are. I learn since I 
 have left that General McClellan has moved down the 
 James River wnth his whole army. I suppose he is com- 
 ing here, too, so we shall have a busy time. Burnside and 
 King from Fredericksburg have joined Pope, which, from 
 their own report, has swelled Pope to ninety-two thou- 
 sand. I do not believe it, though I believe he is very 
 big. Johnny Lee saw Louis Marshall after Jackson's 
 last battle, who asked him kindly after his old uncle, 
 and said his mother was well. Johnny said Louis looked 
 wretchedly himself. I am sorry he is in such bad com- 
 pany, but I suppose he could not help it."* 
 
 Lee promptly decided to destroy the railroad in Pope's 
 rear so as to capture re-enforcements and supplies from 
 the direction of Washington and Alexandria, for he knew 
 that the portion of McClellan's army which should be 
 transferred by water would take that route to join Pope. 
 This duty he intrusted to his chief of cavalry, J. E. B. 
 Stuart, who had been commissioned as a major general 
 on July 25th. Three. days thereafter his cavalry was 
 organized into a division consisting of two brigades 
 under Wade Hampton and Fitz Lee: Hampton's, the 
 First North Carolina Cavalry, Cobb Legion Cavalry, 
 Jeff Davis Legion, Hampton Legion, and the Tenth Vir- 
 ginia, while Fitz Lee's brigade consisted of the First, 
 Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Nmth Virginia Cavalry. When 
 these new operations commenced, Stuart, leaving; Hamp- 
 ton on the Richmond lines, moved Fitz Lee's brigade to 
 the Rapidan, while he went by rail to join General Lee 
 at Orange Court House for consultation. After his con- 
 sultation with General Lee, Stuart proceeded to Verdier- 
 ville, on the road from Orange Court House to Freder- 
 icksburg, where he had expected to find Lee's brigade on 
 the evennig of the 17th, a proceeding which came very 
 near resulting in the capture of himself and staff. Not 
 finding the brigade as contemplated, he sent one of. his 
 staff officers in the direction he expected to meet it to 
 conduct it to his headquarters. A body of the enemy's 
 
 * Louis Marshall, son of his sister, who remained on the Federal 
 side, and was a member of General Pope's staff; Johnny Lee was 
 General Lee's nephew, and met Marshall under a flag of truce after the 
 fight at Cedar Mountain. 
 
COMMANDS THE ARMY DEFENDING RICHMOND. 183 
 
 cavalry, which had started on a reconnoissance the day 
 before, was marching in that direction, and into their 
 ranks in the darkness of the night Major Fitzhugh, of 
 his staff, rode, and was captured. On his person was 
 found an autograph letter from General Lee to Stuart, 
 disclosing the design of turning his left flank, Stuart 
 and his staff proceeded to pass the night on the porch 
 of an old house. He was awakened at dawn by the 
 sounds of approaching horsemen ; sent two of his aids 
 off in that direction to find out who was coming, and 
 walked out to the front gate, bareheaded, to greet, 
 as he supposed, his brigade commander ; but in an- 
 other instant he heard pistol shots and saw Mosby* 
 and Gibson rapidly returning, pursued by a party of 
 the enemy. He and the rest of his staff then rushed 
 back, jumped over the fence, and made across the 
 fields to the nearest woods. They were pursued only 
 a short distance. When the pursuit stopped, Stuart 
 returned to a point where he could observe the house, 
 and saw the enemy departing with his cloak and hat, 
 which he had been compelled to leave on the porch 
 where he had slept. Stuart's hat was generally a con- 
 spicuous one, having a broad brim looped up on one 
 side, over which always floated large black feathers, and 
 for many days thereafter he was subject to the constant 
 inquiry of "Where's your hat?" The brigade com- 
 mander he had expected did not understand from any 
 instructions he received that it was necessary to be at 
 this point on that particular afternoon, and had marched 
 a little out of his direct road in order to reach his 
 wagons and get from them a full supply of rations and 
 ammunition. After Stuart reached the army, to the 
 brigade he brought from Richmond was added another 
 which had previously served in the Valley, and was com- 
 manded by General Beverley Robertson, which consisted 
 of the Second, Sixth, Seventh, Twelfth, and Seventeenth 
 Battalions of Virginia cavalry. Having detached a 
 regiment under Munford to operate on the left of the 
 army, Stuart crossed the Rapidan on the 20th with Fitz 
 Lee's brigade and the remainder of Robertson's, and 
 
 * John S. Mosby, afterward the famous partisan officer. 
 
1 84 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 proceeded at once to drive the Federal cavalry from out 
 of the section between the Rapidan and Rappahannock 
 Rivers, across the latter stream. Lee now began to 
 extend his left, and on the 226. and 23d Jackson moved 
 up the Rappahannock River to the Warrenton Springs 
 ford. Stuart started on his mission, crossing at Water- 
 loo Bridge, a point above Warrenton Sprmgs, and, mov- 
 ing by way of Warrenton, reached the vicinity of Cat- 
 lett's Station, twelve miles in Pope's rear, after dark. 
 The rain fell in such torrents and the night was so dark 
 that it was not possible for him to damage the road to 
 any great extent. At that point was encamped the 
 whole reserve, baggage, and ammunition train of Pope's 
 army as well as his headquarters tent and personal ef- 
 fects. Stuart captured a number of officers and men, a 
 large sum of money in a safe in one of the tents, dis- 
 patches and other papers of Pope's office, and his per- 
 sonal baggage. Had it not been raining so hard the 
 destruction of the railroad bridges and of the track 
 itself, as well as an immense number of wagons, v/ould 
 have seriously crippled Pope, and the object of the ex- 
 pedition would have been accomplished. He was obliged 
 to withdraw before daylight, and returned to his army at 
 Warrenton Springs the next day, bringing back with him 
 over three hundred prisoners. Pope now ascertaining 
 that Lee was turning his attention to a flank movement 
 on his right, began extending his lines up the river. 
 The Southern commander was not content with what 
 had been done by Stuart, and determined to execute the 
 same movement on a larger scale, which would have the 
 effect of severing Pope's communications with his base 
 of supplies and compel him to leave the lines of the 
 Rappahannock. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 
 
 The strate.2:y of Lee was daring and dangerous, the 
 conception brilliant and bold. Self-reliant, he decided 
 to separate his army into two parts. On August 24, 
 1862, he had fifty thousand troops, while Pope, including 
 his own army, had, with Reno's corps of Burnside's army 
 and Reynolds's division of Pennsylvania reserves, about 
 the same number, which two days later was increased to 
 seventy thousand by the arrival of the corps of Fitz John 
 Porter and Heintzelman. Lee proposed to hold the line 
 of the Rappahannock and occupy Pope's attention with 
 thirty thousand troops under the immediate command 
 of Longstreet, while he rapidly transferred Jackson by 
 a circuitous march of fifty-six miles to a point twenty- 
 four miles exactly in rear of Pope's line of battle. On 
 August 25th Jackson, with three divisions of infantry, 
 under Ewell, A. P. Hill, and W. B. Taliaferro, preceded 
 by Munford's Second Virginia Cavalry, crossed the upper 
 Rappahannock, there called the Hedgman River, at Hin- 
 son Mills, four miles above Waterloo Bridge, where the 
 left and right of the two opposing armies respectively 
 rested. The ''Foot Cavalry" were in light marching 
 order, and were accompanied only by a limited ordnance 
 train and a few ambulances. Three days' cooked rations 
 were issued and duly deposited in haversacks, much of 
 w^hich was thrown away in the first few hours' march, the 
 men preferring green corn, seasoned by rubbing the meat 
 rations upon the ears, and the turnips and apples found 
 contiguous to their route. After the sun sank to rest on 
 that hot August day, Jackson went into bivouac at Salem, 
 a small village on the Manassas Gap Railroad, having 
 
 (18s; 
 
1 86 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 marched in the heat and dust twenty-six miles. But one 
 man among twenty thousand knew where they were go- 
 ing. The troops knew an important movement was on 
 hand, which involved contact with the enemy, and pos- 
 sibly a reissue of supplies. At early dawn the next day 
 the march was resumed at right angles to the course of 
 the day before, following the Manassas Gap Railroad 
 and passing through Bull Run Mountains at Thorough- 
 fare Gap. At Gainesville, Stuart, with Robertson and 
 Fitz Lee's brigades of cavalry, overtook Jackson, whose 
 subsequent movements were " greatly aided and influ- 
 enced by the admirable manner in which the cavalry 
 was employed and managed by Stuart." On reaching 
 the vicinity of Manassas Junction, his objective point, 
 Jackson inclined to the right and intersected the main 
 railroad in Pope's rear at Bristoe Station, four miles 
 closer to Pope, where he halted for the night, having 
 marched nearly thirty miles. That night he sent General 
 Trimble, who had volunteered for the occasion, with five 
 hundred men, and Stuart, with his cavalry, to capture 
 Manassas, which was handsomely done. Pope claims 
 that Jackson's movement was known, and that he re- 
 ported it to Halleck, but on the day Jackson marched 
 Pope was disposing his army along the Rappahannock 
 from Waterloo to Kelly's Ford. On the night of the 
 26th, when Jackson began to tear up the railroad at 
 Bristoe, the nearest hostile troops were the corps of 
 Heintzelman and Reno at Warrenton Junction, ten miles 
 away. The next day, leaving General Ewell's division 
 at Bristoe to watch and retard Pope's march to open his 
 communications, Jackson, with the remainder of his 
 troops, proceeded to Manassas. He found that Stuart 
 and Trimble had captured eight guns, three hundred 
 prisoners, and an immense quantity of stores. The vast- 
 ness and variety of the supplies was a most refreshing 
 sight to his tired and hungry veterans. All of the 27th 
 his troops, transformed from poverty to affluence, reveled 
 in these enormous stores, consisting of car loads of pro- 
 visions, boxes of clothing, sutler's stores containing 
 everything from French mustard to cavalry boots. 
 Early that morning Taylor's New Jersey brigade, of 
 Slocum's division of Franklin's corps, which had been 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 187 
 
 transported by rail from Alexandria to Bull Run for the 
 purpose of attacking what was presumed to be a small 
 cavalry raid, got off the cars and marched in line of bat- 
 tle across the open plain to Manassas, Fitz Lee, who 
 with his cavalry brigade had crossed Bull Run to make 
 a reconnoissance in the direction of Alexandria, ascer- 
 tained that Taylor was not supported by other troops 
 and sent information of this fact to Jackson, suggesting 
 that Taylor be allowed to march to Manassas, where 
 he and his whole command would be most certainly 
 captured. The artillery, however, opened on the bri- 
 gade, giving them notice that a large force was present, 
 which resulted in the killing of many men, including 
 the gallant brigade commander, and capturing many 
 others. The remainder beat a hasty retreat. That 
 afternoon Ewell was attacked by Hooker's division of 
 Heintzelman's corps, who had been ordered to re-open 
 the Federal communications, and retired, as he had been 
 directed, to join Jackson. This enterprising officer, hav- 
 ing executed General Lee's instructions and having torn 
 up the railroad and burned the bridges in that vicinity, 
 now determined to move in such a manner as to avoid 
 disaster to his o.wn troops, while he united them at the 
 earliest possible moment with those under Longstreet 
 €71 route to his assistance. He had successfully thrown 
 his fourteen brigades of infantry, two of cavalry, and 
 eighteen light batteries in Pope's rear; but his position 
 was perilous. 
 
 Two plans were open to Pope after he had ascer- 
 tained that Jackson was on the line of his communica- 
 tion and between him and his capital — one to throw his 
 whole force on Longstreet and, if possible, destroy him, 
 and then move with his victorious legions on Jackson; 
 the other to hold Longstreet apart from Jackson with a 
 portion of his force, in which he would be greatly as- 
 sisted by the topographical features of the country, 
 while moving with the remainder of his command on the 
 Confederate forces in his rear. He decided to adopt the 
 latter, and might have succeeded had he so manoeuvred 
 as to prevent the junction of the two wings of Lee's 
 army. There can be no fault found with the skillful 
 directions issued for the movements of Pope's army on 
 
1 88 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Jackson on the 27th. At sunset of that day Jackson's 
 command was still eating, sleeping, and. restmg at 
 Manassas. McDowell, with his own, Sigel's corps, and 
 Reynolds's division of Pope's army, was at Gainesville, 
 fifteen miles from Manassas and five from Thorough- 
 fare Gap, through which Lee's route to Jackson lay, be- 
 ing directly between Jackson and Lee, while Reno's corps 
 and Kearny's division of Heintzelman's corps were 
 at Greenwich, in easy supporting distance. Hooker at 
 Bristoe Station was four miles from Manassas, and 
 Banks and Fitz John Porter at Warrenton Junction ten 
 miles. On the night of the 27th everything was favora- 
 ble to Pope, and it seemed his various corps would only 
 have to be put in motion on the morning of the 28th to 
 crush Jackson. McDowell was told by Pope if he would 
 move early with his forty thousand on Manassas he 
 would, as Pope expressed it, with the assistance of 
 troops coming in other directions, *' bag Jackson and his 
 whole crowd." 
 
 But Pope made two great mistakes — one in not hold- 
 ing, with a large force, at all hazards, Thoroughfare 
 Gap, five miles from McDowell's position at Gainesville, 
 and thus shut the door of the battlefield in Longstreet's 
 face. The other, in supposing Jackson was going to re- 
 main at Manassas in order that he might carry out his plans 
 to beat him; for while Pope was arranging that night to 
 his own satisfaction his tactical bagging details for the 
 next day, the three divisions of that wide-awake officer 
 were marching away from Manassas: A. P. Hill to Cen- 
 treville, Ewell to the crossing of Bull Run at Blackburn 
 Ford, and up the left bank of that stream to Stone 
 Bridge, where the Warrenton turnpike crosses, and 
 Taliaferro, whose march Jackson in person accompanied, 
 to the vicinity of Sudley Mills, north of Warrenton turn- 
 pike and west of Bull Run, at which point Jackson de- 
 signed to concentrate his command. The movements 
 of the two divisions across Bull Run were made to mis- 
 lead Pope, and did so. When he reached Manassas the 
 next day Jackson was not there. He thought from the 
 passage of Bull Run he had gone to Centreville, and so 
 the march of his converging troops was directed upon 
 that point. Jackson had exercised his usual skill in the 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MxVNASSAS. 189 
 
 selection of his position. He could attack any of Pope's 
 troops marching down the Warrenton turnpike in the 
 direction of Centreville, where they hoped to find him, 
 and at the same time by prolonging his right he would 
 be in a position to communicate at the earliest possible 
 moment with General Lee as he came through Thorough- 
 fare Gap with Longstreet. After Jackson had arrived 
 at his new position a courier of the enemy was captured 
 by the cavalry, who was conveying a dispatch from Mc- 
 Dowell to Sigel and Reynolds, which disclosed Pope's 
 intention to concentrate on Manassas. One of Jack- 
 son's division commanders writes that the messenger 
 bearing the captured orders " found the Confederate 
 headquarters established on the shady side of an old- 
 fashioned fence, in the corners of which General Jack- 
 son and the commanders of his divisions were profoundly 
 sleeping after the fatigue of the preceding night, and 
 there was not as much as an ambulance at his headquar- 
 ters. The headquarters train was back beyond the Rap- 
 pahannock, with servants, camp equipage, and all the 
 arrangements for cooking and serving food. The prop- 
 erty of the general, of the staff, and of the headquarters 
 bureau was strapped to the pommels and cantles of the 
 saddles, which formed pillows for their weary owners. 
 The captured dispatch roused Jackson like an electric 
 shock ; he was essentially a man of action, and never 
 asked advice or called council. " Move your division 
 to attack the enemy," said he to Taliaferro; and to 
 Ewell, " Support the attack." The slumbering soldiers 
 sprang from the earth. They were sleeping almost in 
 ranks, and by the time the horses of the officers were 
 saddled, lines of infantry were moving to the anticipated 
 battlefield. It was Stonewall's intention to attack the 
 Federals who were on the Warrenton road moving on 
 hi.s supposed position, but after marching some distance 
 north of the turnpike in the direction of Thoroughfare 
 Gap no enemy was found. McDowell, after sending 
 Rickett's division to the gap to retard the advance of 
 Longstreet, moved it direct to Manassas and not down 
 the Warrenton pike; so finding this pike clear of his 
 enemy, he halted, and, keeping his flanks guarded by 
 cavalry, watched it, while ever and anon he turned a 
 
IQO GENERAL LEE. 
 
 wistful eye in the direction of the gap in the mountain 
 to his right. 
 
 Pope now seemed to have lost his military head. It 
 did not occur to him that his success lay wholly in keep- 
 ing Longstreet and Jackson apart. Jackson alone was 
 a subject of concern to him. He reached in person 
 Manassas about midday on the 28th, and found that 
 Jackson had left the night before after burning five 
 thousand pounds of bacon, a thousand barrels of corned 
 beef, two thousand barrels of salt pork, two thousand 
 barrels of flour, together with large supplies of every 
 sort. While Pope was following his supposed route to 
 Centreville, Jackson in his war paint was in line beyond 
 the Warrenton turnpike waiting for Longstreet. He 
 had evidently determined to attack any and every one 
 who dared to occupy the pike he was keeping open 
 for Longstreet. It so happened that King's division 
 of McDowell's corps, which on the night of the 27th 
 was near Buckla'nd, in getting the order to march to 
 Centreville had to pass without knowing it in front of 
 Jackson, by whom he was promptly and furiously at- 
 tacked, and a most stubborn contest followed. Kmg's 
 troops fought with determined courage, and his artillery 
 was admirably served. In addition to the four brigades 
 of his division, he had two regiments of Doubleday's, 
 and fought two of Ewell's and three of Taliaferro's 
 brigades of Jackson's command. A. P. Hill's division 
 was not engaged. It was an exhibition of superb cour- 
 age and excellent discipline on both sides, and a fight 
 face to face. " Out in the sunlight, in the dying daylight, 
 and under the stars they stood," neither side yielding an 
 inch, while brave men in blue and gray fell dead almost 
 in each other's arms. Jackson's loss was heavy. Ewell 
 and Taliaferro were both wounded, the former losing a 
 leg, while King lost over a third of his command. The 
 Federal commander held his ground till i a. m., when, 
 being without support or orders, he marched to Man- 
 assas Junction. Jackson, who was not at Manassas or 
 Centreville on the days Pope desired him to be, informed 
 that officer by this fight exactly where he was ; so on the 
 29th Pope once more changed the march of his columns, 
 still hoping he would be able to defeat him before being 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 191 
 
 re-enforced by General Lee. General Lee, with Long- 
 street's command, left the Rapidan on the 26th and fol- 
 lowed Jackson's route. A little before dark on the 28th 
 he reached and occupied the western side of Thorough- 
 fare Gap with one brigade. At the same time Ricketts 
 came up from Gainesville with his division and occupied 
 the eastern side of the same pass. Longstreet describes 
 this pass as rough and at some points not more than 
 one hundred yards wide. A turbid stream rushes over 
 its rugged bottom, on both sides of which the mountain 
 rises several hundred feet. On the north the face of 
 the gap is almost perpendicular. The south face is less 
 precipitous, but is covered with tangled mountain ivy 
 and projecting bowlders, forming a position unassailable 
 when occupied by a small infantry and artillery force. 
 This gap and the Hopewell Gap, three miles north, if 
 seriously disputed by the Federals would have embar- 
 rassed Lee. Prompt measures were taken to prevent it. 
 Hopewell was occupied, and through it three brigades 
 under Wilcox were passed during the night, while Hood 
 climbed over the mountain near Thoroughfare Gap by 
 a trail. At dawn on the 29th, much to General Lee's 
 relief, Ricketts had marched away to join McDowell. 
 At 9 A. M. the head of Longstreet's column reached 
 Gainesville on the Warrenton pike. The troops passed 
 through the town and down the turnpike and were de- 
 ployed on Jackson's right, and ready for battle at twelve 
 o'clock on the 29th. At daylight on that day, to Sigel, 
 supported by Reynolds, was delegated the duty of at- 
 tacking Jackson and bringing him to a stand, as Pope 
 expressed it, until he could get up Heintzelman and 
 Reno from Centreville, and Porter, with King's division, 
 from Bristoe and Manassas. Pope reached in person 
 the battlefield about noon, and found nearly his whole 
 army in Jackson's front. Longstreet had connected 
 with Jackson's right, which Pope did not know, but rode 
 along his lines and encouraged his men by stating that 
 McDowell and Fitz John Porter were marching so as to 
 get in Jackson's right and rear. The Federal attack 
 had been principally made with the center and right 
 against Jackson. The left, under Fitz John Porter — 
 some ten thousand men — was stationary, McDowell hav- 
 
192 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ing gone to the support of the rest of the army. Lee's 
 line had been advanced in the fierce contests of the day, 
 but during the night was retired to its first position. 
 
 Porter's inaction in front of Longstreet has been the 
 subject of much comment, and did not please either 
 Longstreet or Pope. Both wanted him to attack — Pope, 
 because h-e was under the impression it would be a flank 
 and rear attack on Jackson's position ; Longstreet, be- 
 cause, having nearly three men to Porter's one, he could 
 easily defeat him. It is certain that when Pope ordered 
 Porter at half past four o'clock in the afternoon to at- 
 tack, Longstreet's whole force had been in front of him 
 for four hours and a half. Porter reported the enemy 
 were in great force in front of him. '' They had gathered 
 artillery, cavalry, and infantry, and the advancing masses 
 of dust showed the enemy coming in great force," said 
 he. The " indefatigable Stuart " had ridden out in the 
 direction of Thoroughfare Gap to meet General Lee and 
 inform him of the exact position of Jackson and the 
 general disposition of the troops on both sides. He then 
 passed the cavalry he had on that flank through Long- 
 street's column so as to get on his right, and directed 
 Rosser to have brush dragged up and down the road by 
 the cavalry from the direction of Gainesville so as to 
 deceive the enemy, and, according to Porter's dispatch, 
 it had the desired effect. Stuart found an elevated ridge 
 in front of Porter, and sent back and got three brigades 
 of infantry and some artillery, which, in addition to his 
 cavalry and the effect produced by dragging the brush 
 and making a great dust, gave the impression that he 
 had a large force in Fitz John Porter's front. The next 
 day — the 30th — Pope, desiring to delay as long as possible 
 General Lee's further advance on Washington, renewed 
 the engagement. He advanced Porter, whom he had 
 called to him during the night, supported by King's gal- 
 lant division, to attack the Confederates along the War- 
 renton pike, while he assaulted with his right wing Jack- 
 son's left. His first impression in the morning was that 
 General Lee was retreating, and he so telegraphed to 
 Washington, having derived the impression from the re- 
 tirement of Lee the night before to his original lines. 
 Jackson was still Pope's objective point. It was evident 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 1Q3 
 
 Lee must re-enforce Jackson or attack with Longstreet. 
 He did ttie latter after first pounding the flanks of Pope's 
 assaulting columns with artillery, under Stephen D. Lee, 
 splendidly massed and served. Pope and Lee were of 
 the same mind that day from their respective stand- 
 points, for as the former was moving on Lee's center 
 and left, the latter was marching to attack the Federal 
 left. A bloody and hard-fought battle resulted, in which 
 the Federal troops were everywhere driven back, and 
 when night put an end to the contest, Pope's line of 
 communication was threatened by the Southern troops 
 occupying the Sudley Springs road close to the stone 
 bridge on Bull Run. He could stay in Lee's front no 
 longer, for he had been badly defeated, and that night 
 withdrew to Centreville, having lost, since he left the 
 Rappahannock, in killed, wounded, and missing, nearly 
 fifteen thousand men. On the 31st his army was posted 
 on the heights of Centreville. Halleck telegraphed him 
 on that day from Washington : " You have done nobly. 
 All reserves are being sent forward. Do not yield an- 
 other inch if you can avoid it. I am doing all I can for 
 you and your noble army." 
 
 Pope now occupied a strong and commanding posi- 
 tion along the Centreville heights. He had been re- 
 enforced by the corps of Franklin, which arrived on the 
 30th, and Sumner on the 31st, and the divisions of Cox 
 and Sturgis. These two latter amounted to seventeen 
 thousand men, and the infantry of Sumner's and Frank- 
 lin's corps to twenty-five thousand. The march of these 
 troops and their junction with Pope had been reported 
 to General Lee by the cavalry, under Fitz Lee, which, 
 having left Manassas the day of Jackson's arrival there, 
 had penetrated the country as far as Fairfax Court House. 
 Near that point the cavalry commander captured a squad- 
 ron of the Second Regular Cavalry, which was sent out 
 reconnoitering by General Sumner, having surrounded 
 it while halting to feed their horses. The officers were 
 captured in the house just as they were going to din- 
 ner. The cavalry commander did not know whether 
 they would be considered as belonging to McClellan's 
 or Pope's army ; and as orders had been received not 
 to parole any of Pope's officers, he kept the Federal 
 
194 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 officers with him, having simply exacted from them 
 their pledged word that they would not attempt to 
 escape. These officers rode with his staff during the 
 battle of the 30th, and one of them bore a dispatch for 
 the Confederate commander, who had sent off all his staff 
 officers on the ground that he had been kindly and 
 courteously treated. After the battles were over they 
 were duly paroled and permitted to ride their horses to 
 the Federal lines near Washington. McClellan reports 
 this capture in a dispatch to Halleck on December 31st, 
 and adds that he had no confidence in the dispositions 
 made by Pope ; that there appeared to be a total absence 
 of brains, and he feared the total destruction of the 
 army ; while Halleck, in a dispatch from Washington on 
 August 29th, telegraphs McClellan, then in Alexandria, 
 that he had been told on good authority that Fitzhugh 
 Lee had been in that town the Sunday preceding for 
 three hours. 
 
 The great strength of the Federal position with the 
 large re-enforcements Pope had received decided Gen- 
 eral Lee to turn Centreville by moving to Pope's right 
 and striking his rear in the vicinity of Fairfax Court 
 House. Jackson was again employed for this purpose. 
 He crossed Bull Run at Sudley, and marched to the Lit- 
 tle River turnpike, pursuing that road in the direction 
 of Fairfax Court House. As soon as this movement was 
 perceived Pope abandoned Centreville. Hooker was 
 immediately ordered to Fairfax Court House to take up a 
 line on the Little River pike to prevent Lee's troops 
 getting in his rear at the point where it joins the War- 
 renton pike, the movement to be supported by the rest 
 of his army. As his troops reached the vicinity of Fair- 
 fax Court House, Jackson determined to attack them, and 
 moved at once upon the force which had been posted 
 on a ridge near Germantown for the purpose of driving 
 them before him, so he could be in a position to com- 
 mand the pike from Centreville to Alexandria, down 
 which Pope's troops must pass on their retreat. A san- 
 guinary battle ensued just before sunset, terminated by 
 darkness. The battle of Oxhill, as it was called, was 
 fought in the midst of a thunderstorm. Longstreet's 
 troops came on the field toward its conclusion. The 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 
 
 95 
 
 loss on both sides was heavy, the Federals losing two 
 of their best generals, Kearny and Stevens. The form- 
 er was a dashing officer of undoubted courage and great 
 merit. Had he lived he might have been an army com- 
 mander. He rode into the Confederate lines, thinking 
 they were occupied by a portion of his troops. It was 
 nearly dark and raining. Seeing his mistake, he whirled 
 his horse around, threw himself forward in the saddle, 
 Indian fashion, and attempted to escape. A few men 
 close to him fired, and he fell from his horse. General 
 Lee had his body returned to the Federal lines the next 
 day, accompanied with a courteous note to Pope. 
 
 On September 2d Pope's army, by Halleck's direc- 
 tion, was withdrawn to the intrenchments around Wash- 
 ington. While Pope was undoubtedly overmatched in 
 generalship, an analysis of his tactics on the battlefield 
 will show that they are of a higher order of merit than 
 he is credited with, and many of his troops fought with 
 stubbornness and courage. It is true he did not at 
 times seem to appreciate his situation, and his orders 
 were the subject of rapid and radical change. He tele- 
 graphed after the battle of the 3bth : "We have fought 
 a terrific battle here which lasted with continuous effort 
 from daylight till dark, by which time the enemy was 
 driven from the field, which we now occupy." Whereas 
 the facts of the case were that the Confederate lines were 
 advanced and were only retired after the fighting was 
 over, during the night, to their former positions. The 
 very next day, however, at Centreville, he wires Halleck 
 that his troops were in position there, " though much 
 used up and worn out," but that he could rely upon his 
 giving his enemy as desperate a fight as he could force 
 his men to stand up to, and adds that he should " like to 
 know if you feel secure about Washington should this 
 army be destroyed." He had still an army much greater 
 than Lee's, but there was more or less demoralization in 
 the ranks. 
 
 General Franklin, who arrived at Centreville on the 
 30th with his corps, threw out Slocum's division across 
 the road between that point and Bull Run at Cub Run, 
 to stop, as he says, " an indiscriminate mass of men, 
 horses, guns, and wagons all going pellmell to the rear. 
 
IC)6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Officers of all grades, from brigadier general down, were 
 in the throng." McClellan estimated the number of 
 stragglers he saw two days later at twenty thousand ; 
 and Assistant-Adjutant-General Kelton, who had been 
 sent out by Halleck, puts the number at thirty thou- 
 sand. Much uneasiness prevailed in the Federal capital, 
 disorder reigned, and confusion was everywhere. As a 
 precautionary measure, it was said, the money in the 
 Treasury and in the banks was shipped to New York, 
 and a gunboat with steam up lay in the river off the 
 White House, and yet there was in and around Washing- 
 ton one hundred and twenty thousand men. On the ist 
 of September McClellan was again assigned to the com- 
 mand of the defenses around Washington. He had been 
 much mortified in listening to the distant sound of the 
 firing of his men, and asked General Halleck on the 
 night of the 30th of August for permission to go to the 
 scene of battle, telling him his men would fight none the 
 worse for his presence ; and that if it was deemed best 
 not to intrust him with the command of even his own 
 army, he simply desired permission to share their fate on 
 the field of battle. Kelton had reported that General 
 Pope was entirely defeated and was falling back to 
 Washington in confusion, and McClellan reports that 
 Mr. Lincoln told him he regarded Washington as lost, 
 and asked him to consent to accept command of all the 
 forces, to which McClellan replied that he would stake 
 his life to save the city, but that Halleck and the Presi- 
 dent said it would, in their judgment, be impossible to 
 do that. 
 
 General McClellan having accepted command, on 
 September 2d rode out in the direction of Upton's Hill 
 to meet Pope's army and direct them to their respective 
 positions in the line of the Washington defenses. He 
 met Pope and McDowell riding toward Washington, 
 escorted by cavalry, when the former asked if he had 
 any objection to McDowell and himself going to Wash- 
 ington ; to which McClellan replied : " No, but 1 am 
 going in the direction of the firing." 
 
 Lee's military plans had been wisely conceived, and 
 the tactical details splendidly executed by his officers 
 and men. Only three months had elapsed since he had 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 
 
 197 
 
 been in command of the army, and in that brief period 
 he had transferred a hostile army superior in numbers 
 from the lines in front of his capital to the redoubts of 
 the capital of his enemy. Richmond had been relieved; 
 Washington was threatened. He could not hope with 
 prospect of success to attack the combined armies of 
 Pope and McClellan in their intrenchments on the Vir- 
 ginia side of the Potomac, for behind them they could 
 fight two soldiers where he could bring only one in front 
 of them. Apart from these difficulties a wide and un- 
 fordable river rolled between Virginia and Washington. 
 His residence at Arlington had made him familiar with 
 the topography of that section. He had but two al- 
 ternatives : One, to withdraw his army and take up a 
 line farther back in Virginia, rest and recruit his army, 
 and patiently wait, as was done after the first battle of 
 Manassas, till his antagonist should again assume the 
 offensive. The other, to continue the active prosecu- 
 tion of the campaign and fight another battle while he 
 had the prestige of victory and his enemy the discom- 
 fiture of defeat. He determined to adopt the latter 
 method, and decided to cross the Potomac at the fords 
 near Leesburg, some forty miles above Washington, and 
 march into western Maryland. 
 
 Having received the approval of the Southern Presi- 
 dent to this plan, he immediately proceeded to put it 
 into execution. First, because he believed if he could 
 win a decisive victory the fall of Washington and Balti- 
 more would follow, with far-reaching results. Second, 
 because it would relieve Virginia and the Confederate 
 quartermasters and commissary departments at Rich- 
 mond of the support of his army for a time. Third, be- 
 cause it was hoped that large accessions to his deci- 
 mated ranks would be obtained from those who sympa- 
 thized with his cause in Maryland. Accordingly, the 
 heads of his columns were turned toward the Potomac, 
 and on September 5th -successfully crossed that river 
 and advanced to Frederick, where he established him- 
 self behind the Monocacy. He had been joined by the 
 divisions of McLaws and D. H. Hill, which had been 
 left at Richmond, but many of his men were obliged to 
 be left on the Virginia side on account of their con- 
 14 
 
198 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 dition — long marches in bare feet had incapacitated 
 them for further service. His army had been so con- 
 stantly engaged in marching and fighting during the 
 past few months that its condition was not favorable to 
 further active work. The soldier was still there with 
 his gun and his ammunition, but his clothes — from the 
 hat on his head to his shoeless feet — were tattered and 
 torn. The army was not presentable to the inhabitants 
 of a State who had been accustomed to the sight of 
 Federal troops well clothed and well fed. It was with 
 difficulty they could understand that these troops had 
 gained fame. The Southern feeling had been overawed 
 and kept down in Maryland for so long a time by Fed- 
 eral occupation that recruits from that State did not 
 care to join the Southern army till it was demon- 
 strated that it could seize and hold their territory. 
 They were not prepared to leave their homes and ac- 
 company the army back to Virginia. 
 
 Near Frederick, on September 8th, General Lee is- 
 sued a proclamation to the people of Maryland in ac- 
 cordance with the suggestion of President Davis, who 
 wrote him that it was usual on the occupation by an 
 army of another's territory. General Lee told them 
 that the people of the Confederate States had seen 
 with profound indignation their sister State deprived 
 of every right and reduced to the condition- of a con- 
 quered province. That his army was there to enable 
 them again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen, 
 and restore independence and sovereignty to their State. 
 That no constraint upon their free-will was intended, 
 and no intimidation would be allowed. That it was for 
 them to decide their destiny freely and without restraint, 
 and that his army would respect their choice, whatever 
 it might be; for, "while the Southern people will rejoice 
 to welcome you to your natural position among them, 
 they will only welcome you when you come of your own 
 free-will." 
 
 Lee's crossing the Potomac and marching to Fred- 
 erick relieved the Federal authorities from their imme- 
 diate anxiety about the safety of .their capital. As he 
 had supposed, they determined to send an army after 
 him, marching in such a way as not to uncover the capi- 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 
 
 199 
 
 tal, because it was feared that, after drawing their troops 
 away from Washington, Lee might suddenly cross the 
 Potomac and, with the rapidity of march for which he 
 was noted, seize Washington, which attempt would be 
 facilitated by its lines being weakened by troops taking 
 the field. The time had arrived for the Federal army to 
 advance, but no commander had been assigned to take 
 the field with it. Halleck had intimated that McClellan 
 would not be allowed to have it. The latter has stated 
 that he was expressly told that no commander had been 
 selected, but that he determined to solve the question 
 for himself, so left his "cards at the White House and 
 War Department with ' P. P. C written upon them, and 
 then went to the field."' That he " fought the battles of 
 Antietam and South Mountain with a halter around his 
 neck." If he had been defeated and had survived, he 
 " would have been tried for assuming authority without 
 orders, and probably been condemned to death." There 
 is no doubt that at that time much dissatisfaction ex- 
 isted in the Federal councils with McClellan. His great 
 personal popularity with his troops, the threatened safety 
 of Washington, and the difficulty of finding a suitable suc- 
 cessor, all combined to produce a negative acquiescence 
 in his assuming command of the army for offensive oper- 
 ations. McClellan pushed slowly and cautiously his 
 march in Lee's direction; for he said he knew Lee well, 
 had served with him in Mexico, and had the " highest re- 
 spect for his ability as a commander, and knew that he 
 was a general not to be trifled with or carelessly ten-^ 
 dered an opportunity of striking a fatal blow." General 
 McClellan was deceived, too, as usual, in reference.to his 
 opponent's numbers, which he estimated to be one hun- 
 dred and twenty thousand men — about three times the 
 actual strength of Lee's army. 
 
 The determination of the boundary line between 
 Maryland and Virginia has been attended with much 
 expense and discussion. It never has been satisfac- 
 torily ascertained, because, as a talented son of Mary- 
 land put it, "there is no real division between them." 
 The acquisition of Maryland would have added a bright 
 star to the Southern constellation ; but for many reasons 
 there was no rushing to arms or many recruits added 
 
200 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 to Lee's army. The sons of Maryland in the Confed- 
 erate army were splendid soldiers, enthusiastic iii the 
 cause, and brave in battle; and they knew, as the 
 Southern commander did, that a battle fought and 
 won in western Maryland, followed by a rapid march 
 in the direction of Baltimore and Washington, would be 
 attended with immense results, and that nothing would 
 be accomplished, so far as Maryland was C04icerned, till 
 then. Much curiosity existed in that State to see the 
 victors of the first Manassas, the Seven Days' Battles 
 around Richmond, and the three days' combats on the 
 plains of the second Manassas. Inquisitive crowds 
 hung around the commandmg officers. Jackson was 
 especially an object of much interest. The magic name 
 of "Stonewall" had been heard at the hearthstones of 
 the people, and they wanted to see him. He was de- 
 scribed by one of them as wearing a coarse homespun, 
 over which flapped an old soft hat that any Northern 
 beggar would have considered an insult to have offered 
 him. It was reported that he was continually praying, 
 and that angelic spirits were his companions and coun- 
 selors, and a desire was expressed to see him at his 
 "incantations." His dress and deportment disappoint- 
 ed many who expected to see a great display of gold 
 lace and feathers ; and when he ordered his guards, 
 said a writer, to clear his headquarters of idle crowds, 
 many went away muttering, " Oh, he's no great shakes 
 after all ! " 
 
 Lee did not move on Washington after crossing the 
 Potomac, because his numbers were too small to en- 
 counter the fortifications and large force assembled for 
 their defense. His line of march was so directed as 
 to draw a portion of the force at Washington after him 
 and then defeat it. Frederick, in Maryland, was his first 
 objective point, and then, it was said, Harrisburg, Pa. 
 The Monocacy River, flowing from north to south, emp- 
 ties into the Potomac about twenty miles below Har- 
 per's Ferry. Behind the line of that river he deter- 
 mined to halt and be governed by the movements of his 
 enemy. From that point he could open his communica- 
 tions with the Valley of Virginia by Shepherdstown and 
 Martinsburg ; resupply his ammunition ; gather in de- 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 201 
 
 tachments of his men left behind in Virginia, from bare 
 feet and other causes, and fill up his supply trains. He 
 knew his enemy occupied Harper's Ferry in large force, 
 and Martinsburg in his rear, and that his proposed line 
 of communication could not be opened so long as these 
 places were garrisoned, and that sound military princi- 
 ples required that they should be evacuated when his 
 army passed beyond them. So did McClellan, and 
 urged it more than once. Halleck, the strategist of 
 the Federal administration, differed from both Generals 
 Lee and McClellan. Harper's Ferry was in his opinion 
 the key to the upper door of the Federal capital, and 
 should be held till the wings of the Peace Angel were 
 spread over the republic. General Lee promptly planned 
 to show that McClellan was right and Halleck wrong, 
 though it involved a change of his original designs. 
 His cavalry, under the vigilant Stuart, was at Urbana 
 and Hyattstown, and well advanced on the road from 
 Frederick to Washington, and every mile of McClellan's 
 march was duly recorded and reported. The progress 
 of this officer was so slow, his movements so cautious, 
 that Lee determined to detach sufficient troops from his 
 army to capture Harper's Ferry and Martinsburg, and 
 bring them back in time to present a united front to 
 McClellan. Daring, skill, celerity, and confidence were 
 the qualifications of an officer to execute the movement. 
 In Jackson they were all combined. He moved on 
 September loth from Frederick with three divisions; 
 crossed the Potomac into Virginia; marched on Mar- 
 tinsburg, which was evacuated on his approach ; and 
 then to Harper's Ferry, which he reached on the 13th. 
 McLaws, with his own and Anderson's division, was di- 
 rected to seize the Maryland heights overlooking Har- 
 per's Ferry, while Brigadier-General Walker was in- 
 structed to cross the Potomac below Harper's Ferry 
 and seize the Loudoun heights in Virginia. These 
 movements were successfully accomplished, and on the 
 14th Harper's Ferry was closely invested. The heights 
 were crowned with artillery ready to open at command 
 on the doomed garrison. The little village of Harper's 
 Ferry lies in an angle formed by the Shenandoah and 
 Potomac where their united waters break through the 
 
202 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Blue Ridge Mountains. It is a troop trap unless de- 
 fended by the adjacent heights. Colonel Miles had 
 strongly fortified the ridge in Virginia called Bolivar 
 Heights, lying between the rivers; but Maryland heights, 
 the key to the situation, was only feebly garrisoned. At 
 dawn on the 15th, in response to Jackson's order, a line 
 of fire leaped from the mountain-crowned heights and 
 told Colonel Miles, the Federal commander, in no un- 
 certain tones, that his surrender was demanded. For 
 two hours this plunging fire was maintained, and at the 
 moment A. P. Hill advanced to storm the town from the 
 Virginia side a white flag was displayed. The firing 
 ceased, and Hill entered the village to receive the sur- 
 render of its garrison. Jackson's work was well done. 
 Twelve thousand men stacked their arms. Seventy-three 
 pieces of artillery, thirteen thousand stand of small 
 arms, large numbers of horses and wagons, and im- 
 mense supplies were the results of his expedition. The 
 cavalry, skillfully conducted by Colonel B. F. Davis, 
 alone escaped on the Sharpsburg road. 
 
 When Jackson left Lee, five days before, McClellan 
 was less than five marches from him. It was necessary 
 that he should return as soon as possible, so leaving A. 
 P. Hill to manage the details of surrender with his other 
 two divisions, he marched day and night, recrossing the 
 Potomac and reaching Sharpsburg on the i6th, followed 
 by Walker. For the purpose of facilitating this reunion, 
 Lee had retraced his steps from Frederick, directing 
 the only two divisions Longstreet had left under Hood 
 and Jones to move to Hagerstown, west of the moun- 
 tains, while D, H. Hill with his division should halt at 
 Boonsboro', where were parked most of his wagons, and 
 where he would be only three miles west of Turner's 
 Pass on the Frederick road. Two days after Lee left 
 Frederick, McClellan occupied it, and at eleven o'clock 
 on the night of the 13th informed Halleck that an or- 
 der of General Lee's, addressed to D. H. Hill, had acci- 
 dentally fallen into his hands, the authenticity of which 
 he thought was unquestionable. " It discloses," said he, 
 " some of the plans of the enemy, and shows most con- 
 clusively that the main rebel army is now before us. 
 It may therefore be regarded as certain that this rebel 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 
 
 203 
 
 army, which I have good reason for believing amounts 
 to one hundred and twenty thousand men or more, and 
 known to be commanded by Lee in person, intended 
 to penetrate Pennsylvania." Lee was fortunate in hav- 
 ing the Federal commander overestimate his strength 
 by eighty-five thousand ; for confidence, a great attri- 
 bute in war, is much more easily instilled into troops 
 attacking an army of thirty-five thousand than one of 
 one hundred and twenty thousand. But he was unfor- 
 tunate in having a confidential order to one of his com- 
 manders find its way to the headquarters of the enemy. 
 General D. H. Hill was under Jackson's command. 
 When the latter received Special Orders No. 191 he 
 had a copy of it made and sent to Hill before starting 
 for Harper's Ferry, which Hill produced after the ter- 
 mination of the war, and his adjutant general made af- 
 fidavit that no other order was received at his office from 
 General Lee. As Hill was to remain with Lee and not 
 march with Jackson, another copy of this order was ad- 
 dressed to him, but how transmitted from Lee's head- 
 quarters to Hill's camp, and who was guilty of gross 
 carelessness in losing it, has never been ascertained. 
 The Twelfth Federal Army Corps stacked arms when 
 they arrived at Frederick on the 13th, on the ground 
 that had been previously occupied by General D. H. 
 Hill's division ; and Private B. W. Mitchell, of Company 
 F, Twenty-seventh Indiana Volunteers, Third Brigade, 
 First Division, found it on the ground wrapped around 
 three cigars. Little did he think how his discovery 
 would affect a great campaign ! The knowledge of its 
 contents had a marvelous effect upon AlcClellan. Lee 
 had been informed by his cavalry of McClellan's reach- 
 ing Frederick. He did not know that his designs had 
 been disclosed to him, and therefore did not understand 
 the sudden life infused into the legs of the Federal 
 soldiers; but learning at Hagerstown that McClellan 
 was advancing more rapidly than he had anticipated, he 
 determined to return with Longstreet's command to the 
 Blue Ridge, to strengthen D. H. Hill's and Stuart's 
 divisions, engaged in holding the passes of the moun- 
 tains, lest the enemy should fall upon McLaws's rear, 
 drive him from Maryland Heights, and thus relieve 
 
204 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 the garrison at Harper's Ferry. Stuart, who had occu- 
 pied Turner's Gap with Hampton's brigade of cavalry — 
 this gallant officer having rejoined his army — moved to 
 Crampton's Gap, five miles south of Turner's, to re- 
 enforce his cavalry under Munford there, thinking, as 
 General Lee did, that should have been the object of 
 McClellan's main attack, as it was on the direct route 
 to Maryland Heights and Harper's Ferry. When D. H. 
 Hill, at dawn on the 14th, re-enforced his two advance 
 brigades in Turner's Gap, Stuart had gone, leaving one 
 regiment of cavalry and some artillery under Rosser to 
 guard Fox's Gap, a small one to the south of Turner's. 
 As Hill reached the top of the mountain on that Sep- 
 tember morning a magnificent spectacle was presented. 
 Far as the eye could reach flashed the bayonets of 
 the advancing columns of McClellan's army. It was 
 a sight not often vouchsafed to any one, and was both 
 grand and sublime. Hill must have felt helpless with 
 his five small brigades numbering less than five thou- 
 sand men, and must have been impressed vividly with 
 " how terrible was an army with banners ! " It was 
 his duty to retard the march of this immense host, 
 to give Lee time to get his trains at Boonsboro' out of 
 the way, to bring Longstreet from Hagerstown to his 
 support, and to give Jackson time for his work at Har- 
 per's Ferry. The resistance of Hill's troops — from nine 
 in the morning till half-past three in the afternoon — to 
 the attack of Reno's corps reflected great credit upon 
 the capacity of the commander and the courage of his 
 men. The combat later in the afternoon between Long- 
 street and Hill on the one side, and Burnside with the 
 two corps of Reno and Hooker on the other, was marked 
 by great gallantry on the part of both. Of the nine 
 brigades Longstreet had with him, whose strength he 
 estimated at thirteen thousand men (three of his bri- 
 gades were with Jackson), Hill says only four were 
 seriously engaged. So the struggle on the part of the 
 Confederates was made with nine thousand men, one 
 third less in numbers than their antagonists. The South- 
 ern lines were generally held, but when night put an 
 end to the contest the advantage of the position was 
 with the Federals. 
 
SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 205 
 
 In a consultation that night between Generals Lee, 
 Longstreet, and Hill, it was decided to withdraw the 
 troops from that point, and form a line of battle at 
 Sharpsburg, where he would be in a position to unite 
 with Jackson, when he should recross the Potomac at 
 Shepherdstown. Fitz Lee, who had been with his cavalry 
 brigade in the rear of the Federal army at Frederick, 
 arrived at Boonsboro' during the night, and was directed 
 by General Lee to remain there and retard as much as 
 possible the Federal advance the next day. On the morn- 
 ing of the 15th, when the Federal army debouched from 
 the mountains, the cavalry brigade was alone between 
 the Federals and Lee at Sharpsburg to dispute with 
 their advance every foot of ground between the base 
 of the mountains and Boonsboro'. This was done with 
 artillery, dismounted cavalry, and charges of mounted 
 squadrons. The object having been accomplished, the 
 brigade was slowly withdrawn and placed on the left of 
 the line of battle at Sharpsburg. 
 
 While McClellan was attempting the passage of 
 Turner's Gap with his main army, Franklin with the 
 Sixth Corps, supported by Couch's division, was strug- 
 gling to get through Crampton's Gap, where McLaw^s 
 had left a brigade and regiment of his division, and a 
 brigade of Anderson's, to prevent the enemy from pass- 
 ing through the mountains at that point, and threaten- 
 ing his rear at Maryland Heights. The work of these 
 brigades and a portion of Stuart's cavalry was well per- 
 formed ; and when the fighting, which had been going 
 on from twelve o'clock, ceased at night, Franklin had 
 made such progress that they were withdrawn also. On 
 the morning of the 15th, as McClellan. was passing 
 through the mountains near Boonsboro', Franklin was 
 marching through Crampton Pass at about the same 
 time, and occupying Pleasant Valley. Both were too 
 late to relieve Miles at Harper's Ferry, who surrendered 
 about half-past seven that morning. Franklin declined 
 to attack McLaws after reaching Pleasant Valley, re- 
 mained there (the i6th) without receiving any orders, 
 and on the morning of the 17th marched for the battle- 
 field at Sharpsburg, arriving at ten o'clock. 
 
 McClellan did not anticipate Lee would offer battle 
 
2o6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 on that side of the Potomac. When the head of his 
 columns arrived west of the mountains he informed 
 Halleck that his enemy was making for Shepherdstown 
 in a perfect panic, and that General Lee had stated pub- 
 licly the night before that he must admit he had been 
 shockingly whipped, and that Lee was reported wounded. 
 Mr. Lincoln was well pleased with this statement, and 
 replied to McClellan : " God bless you and all \vith you. 
 Destroy the rebel army if possible." A little later, when 
 the Federal commander discovered Lee's army in line of 
 battle waiting an attack, he declined to make it, stating 
 that his troops had arrived in Lee's front in sufhcient 
 force too late in the day to attack. He remained quiet 
 all the next day, because he said the fog had pre- 
 vented him from developing the situation of the enemy. 
 Both sides had lost heavily in the mountain passes, and 
 the deaths of such capable officers as Reno on the Fed- 
 eral and Garland on the Confederate side were greatly 
 deplored by their respective armies. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 The small town of Sharpsburg, lying amid surround- 
 ing hills, formed an attractive center to the beautiful 
 landscape stretching away on every side. Here, in the 
 embrace of the Potomac on the west and the Antietam 
 Creek on the east, with rolling fields well cultivated 
 and fenced, and fringed here and there with picturesque 
 patches of woodland, it presented an inviting field for 
 battle ; but the rich fields were destined to be plowed by 
 cannon balls and fertilized with blood ; while against 
 such desecration the peaks above the passes in the moun- 
 tains loomed up in the distance, as if pointing to heaven 
 in solemn protest. 
 
 The position was well selected by Lee to deliver a 
 defensive battle; and while a big, though fordable, river 
 a few miles in the rear was objectionable, its concave 
 curve allowed each of his flanks to rest on the river, 
 though the center of his line of battle was some three 
 miles to the front. There could be no overlapping his 
 flanks by the superior numbers of his opponent, who 
 had to meet a line of battle at whatever point he might 
 select for the attack. It is true the scattered Southern 
 troops could have been more easily concentrated in 
 Virginia and, if necessary, a battle avoided ; but Lee 
 had entered Maryland with the intention of fighting, 
 and did not care to change his plans until he had ap- 
 pealed to the God of War. 
 
 The troops under Longstreet and D. H. Hill were 
 leisurely marched the four or five miles from Boonsboro' 
 to Sharpsburg. After crossing the Antietam Creek on 
 the morning of September 15th, Lee formed his line of 
 battle along the hills — Longstreet on the right and D. 
 
 C207; 
 
2o8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 H. Hill on the left of the road facing the creek, which 
 runs north and south. General Lee reported that the 
 advance of the enemy was delayed by the brave oppo- 
 sition encountered from his cavalry, and did not appear 
 on the opposite side of the Antietam until about 2 p.m., 
 when the battalions began filing to the right and left of 
 the road, taking up their position in his front and ex- 
 changmg artillery salutations. The sluggish creek flow- 
 ing between the two armies was spanned by four bridges 
 at the various road crossings converging at Sharpsburg, 
 and was fordable at other points. 
 
 McClellan, always deliberate, consumed the whole of 
 the i6th in making his arrangements for approaching 
 battle, much to General Lee's relief. At 4 p. m. in the 
 afternoon Hooker from the Northern right crossed the 
 Antietam with instructions to take position in front of 
 the Southern left, and during the night Mansfield's 
 Twelfth Corps also crossed. In anticipation of such a 
 movement Lee had ordered Longstreet to send Hood 
 with two brigades to prolong D. H. Hill's left, so that 
 when Hooker, with three divisions under Meade, Rick- 
 etts, and Doubleday (an officer that Jackson in one of 
 the few jokes of his life called " Forty-eight Hours "), 
 proceeded to execute his orders, he found General Hood 
 across his path with a command equal in efficiency and 
 courage to the best troops of either army, and each 
 claimed the advantage in the engagement which fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Jackson reached Sharpsburg that morning from Har- 
 per's Ferry, and Walker later. . At night Hood was re- 
 lieved by Lawton's and Trimble's brigades of Ewell's 
 division. Jackson's division, under General J. R. Jones, 
 was placed on Lawton's left, supported by the remain- 
 ing brigades of Ewell, while General Walker with his 
 two brigades was placed on Longstreet's right. The 
 cavalry were located on either flank. 
 
 These are all the troops McClellan would have en- 
 countered if he had attacked on the 16th. Anderson's six 
 brigades, McLaws's four, and A. P. Hill's five — making 
 fifteen brigades — did not reach Lee until the 17th. After 
 they had arrived the total infantry amounted to 27,255 
 men, which, with eight thousand cavalry and artillery, 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 209 
 
 would make Lee's army at Sharpsburg 35,255.* Mc- 
 Clellan reports he had in action, on the 17th, 87,164 
 troops of all arms. He had therefore present fifty-two 
 thousand more men than Lee. When the inequality in 
 numbers and the difference in quality of cannon, small 
 arms and ammunition, food and raiment is considered, 
 Sharpsburg, as it is called at the South, Antietam at the 
 North, is a superb monument to the valor of the Con- 
 federate soldier and the tactical genius of a great com- 
 mander. 
 
 The picture of the private soldier of Lee's army at 
 Sharpsburg, as he stood in the iron hail with the old 
 torn slouch hat, the bright eye glistening with excite- 
 ment, powder-stained face, rent jacket and torn trousers, 
 blanket in shreds, and the prints of his shoeless feet in 
 the dust of the battle, should be framed in the hearts of 
 all who love true courage wherever found. He was a 
 veritable tatterdemalion, loading and firing his rifle 
 with no hope of reward, no promise of promotion, no 
 pay, and scanty rations. If he stopped one of the ene- 
 my's bullets he would be buried where the battle raged, 
 in an unknown grave, and be forgotten, except by com- 
 rades, and possibly a poor old mother who was praying in 
 her Southern home for the safe return of her soldier boy. 
 
 Six corps of Federal troops, under Hooker, Sumner, 
 Burnside, Franklin, Mansfield, and Fitz John Porter, 
 stood in battle array, while Pleasonton had forty-three 
 hundred and twenty cavalry. McClellan's plan of battle 
 was to envelop the Confederate flanks — first the left, and 
 then the right — and could he have succeeded in break- 
 ing through either of them and gaining the Williams- 
 port road in Lee's rear and cutting him off from the 
 Potomac, his victory would have been decisive. Had 
 General Lee not divined the main struggle would be on 
 his left, McClellan informed him when he ordered Hooker 
 over the Antietam the evening before ? 
 
 The fighting at Sharpsburg on the Federal side was 
 done by four corps, numbering fifty-seven thousand six 
 hundred and fourteen men, with a loss of twenty per 
 cent of their numbers. Porter's and Franklin's corps 
 
 * General Lee told the writer he fought the battle with 35,cmx> troops. 
 
2IO GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and the cavalry, numbering twenty-nine thousand five 
 hundred and fifty troops, were not engaged. As all of 
 General Lee's army fought except a portion of his cav- 
 alry, the actual difference between the active combat- 
 ants was some twenty-six thousand. 
 
 On that memorable autumn morning, about the cen- 
 ter of his long, slim, gray battle line, Lee stood on a 
 large rock to the right of the Boonsboro' road, east of 
 the town, calm, dignified, and confident, as his glance 
 swept the country in front. " His fine form was sharply 
 outlined against the sky," says a Confederate general, 
 " and I thought I had never seen a nobler figure. He 
 seemed quite unconscious that the enemy's shells were 
 exploding around and beyond him." 
 
 Most of the time he was on foot, having both arms and 
 hands injured before leaving Virginia from being thrown 
 violently to the ground, his horse making a sudden jump 
 when he was standing by his side with the bridle reins 
 over his arm. Some of the bones in one hand were broken, 
 and the other arm injured. He was obliged to ride in an 
 ambulance or l^t a courier lead his horse. In the tu- 
 mult of battle he could ride but little along his lines on 
 his famous war horse Traveler. So McClellan on that 
 day had the advantage of him as he galloped about on 
 his black charger Daniel Webster. 
 
 Jackson, too, had been stunned by the rearing and 
 falling back of a large gray mare which had been pre- 
 sented to him a few days before by an enthusiastic ad- 
 mirer, and was obliged to ride in an ambulance, but for- 
 tunately recovered in time for the battle. His horse at 
 Sharpsburg seemed to be gentle enough, for during a 
 lull in the firing Jackson w^as found under an apple tree, 
 with one leg over the pommel of the saddle, eating 
 ^ples. The fate of a battle with Generals Lee and 
 Jackson both in ambulances would have been uncertain. 
 
 At dawn on the 17th the Federal artillery opened on 
 Hood's front, being directed against the Confederate 
 left, to mask and assist the advancing columns of at- 
 tack on Jackson. " For several hours the conflict 
 raged," says General Lee, " with great fury and alter- 
 nate success." The troops advanced with great spirit 
 and the enemy's lines were repeatedly broken and forced 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 21I 
 
 to retire. Fresh troops, however, replaced those that 
 were beaten, and Jackson's men were in turn compelled 
 to fall back. General J. R. Jones was obliged to leave 
 the field, and "the brave General Starke " (as General 
 Lee called him), who succeeded him, was killed. Gen- 
 eral Lawton was wounded, and was succeeded by Early, 
 who had been supporting the cavalry and horse artillery 
 in defending a most important hill, which if occupied by 
 the enemy would have commanded and enfiladed Jack- 
 son's position, and who "got in " with his brigade, as he 
 usually did, at the proper moment. Hood and Early, 
 re-enforced by the brigades of Ripley, Colquitt, and Gar- 
 land, under Colonel McRae, of Hill's division, and D. R. 
 Jones, under Colonel G. T. Anderson, now took up the 
 fighting ; the Federals were again driven back, and 
 agam brought up fresh troops. General McLaws ar- 
 rived just in time to meet them; General Walker 
 brought from the right, together with Early's division, 
 drove the Federals back in confusion, beyond the posi- 
 tion occupied at the beginning of the engagement. 
 
 The long Imes of blue which first recoiled from the 
 walls of gray on the Southern left were Hooker's corps, 
 fourteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-six men, 
 which was to have formed, with the Ninth Corps, the 
 left of McClellan's battle Ime, both to be commanded 
 by Burnside. But Hooker was ambitious and enterpris- 
 ing and secured permission to lead the assault on Lee's 
 left against Jackson, around the well-known Dunker 
 Church, a mile to the north of Sharpsburg on the Ha- 
 gerstown road, and over the historic cornfields and the 
 " east and west woods," where raged all the morning, 
 with varying fortunes, the bloody combat. 
 
 As early as 7 a. m. Hooker had given up the task 
 assigned him, and Mansfield's corps, ten thousand one 
 hundred and twenty-six in numbers, with flags flying, 
 advanced to his support; but in the midst of deploy- 
 ing his columns this veteran general was killed, and in 
 two hours " the corps seems to have about lost all ag- 
 gressive force," said a Federal historian. Sumner's 
 corps marched next into the battle — Sedgwick's division 
 in advance. The Federal troops previously fighting 
 had melted away, and the march of Sedgwick in close 
 
212 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 column of three brigades in the direction of the Dunker 
 Church was unsupported, and it appeared as if he had 
 been assigned to fight the remainder of the battle alone. 
 The First Corps had been disposed of and Hooker 
 wounded and carried to the rear, the Twelfth broken 
 into fragments and Mansfield killed. Sedgwick was an- 
 nihilated by the Confederate fire in front and on both 
 flanks. The ground was strewn with the bodies of the 
 dead and wounded, while the unwounded men moved 
 rapidly away. " Nearly two thousand men were dis- 
 abled in a moment." 
 
 The other divisions of the Second Corps under 
 Richardson — who was mortally wounded — and French 
 were ordered up to support Sedgwick, but too late, for 
 R. H. Anderson's division, just from Harper's Ferry, had 
 re-enforced- D. H. Hill in his position on the famous 
 Sunken road, which enabled the Confederates to vigor- 
 ously assume the offensive, and the assaults of the re- 
 mainder of Sumner's corps were repulsed. 
 
 The terrible carnage had progressed six hours. 
 Franklm, with his Sixth Corps from Pleasant Valley, 
 arrived about lo a. m. — having sent Couch's division of 
 the Fourth Corps to guard Maryland Heights. His 
 leading division under Smith, whose advance brigade 
 was commanded by Hancock, went to the support of 
 Sumner; a forward movement of this division and that 
 of Slocura, which had arrived about noon, was stopped 
 by McClellan, who feared a counter attack on his van- 
 quished right. 'I'he attack on the Confederate left be- 
 ing foiled, McClellan next threw a heavy force on the 
 Sout)iern center, which was repulsed by a part of Walk- 
 er's division and the brigade of General G. B. Ander- 
 son, and Rodes of D. H. Hill's, assisted by a few pieces 
 of artillery. R. H. Anderson came to the support of 
 this line too, and formed in rear. The Fifth Alabama, 
 on Rodes's right, was being enfiladed by battery fire, 
 and Rodes gave directions to retire it, when the whole 
 brigade, through a misapprehension of orders, moved 
 back, making a gap which was immediately occupied 
 by the Federals. G. B. Anderson's brigade was broken, 
 its commander being mortally wounded, and Major- 
 General R. H. Anderson and Brigadier-General Wright 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 213 
 
 were also borne from the field wounded. General Lee 
 says that " heavy masses of the enemy again moved 
 forward, being opposed by only four pieces of artil- 
 lery, supported by a few hundreds of men rallied by 
 General D. H. Hill, being parts of Walker's and R. H. 
 Anderson's commands. Colonel John R. Cook, with the 
 Twenty-seventh North Carolina, stood boldly in line 
 without a cartridge. The firm front presented by this 
 small force, and the well-directed fire of the artillery 
 under Captain Miller of the Washington Artillery, and 
 Captain Boyce's South Carolina Battery, checked the 
 progress of the enemy, and in about an hour and a half 
 he retired." Longs'treet states that the only troops 
 there were Cook's regiment, and that as he rode along 
 he saw two pieces of Washington Artillery, but that 
 there were not enough men to man them, and that he 
 put his staff officers to work the guns, while he held 
 their horses. 
 
 During the battle McClellan held Fitz John Porter's 
 corps, twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty men, 
 with his cavalry, in reserve m the rear of his center. The 
 " Little Napoleon," ^s he was then sometimes called, 
 was reserving it to be used as the Great Napoleon em- 
 ployed the " Old Guard," to win a battle at the oppor- 
 tune moment, or save an army from destruction should 
 defeat ensue. Had they supported Burnside even as 
 late as his attack was made, McClellan might still have 
 gained a great victory. 
 
 " In the afternoon," General Lee says, " the enemy 
 began to extend his line as if to cross the Antietam 
 below, and at 4 p. m. Toombs retired from the posi- 
 tion he had so bravely held. The enemy immediately 
 crossed the bridge in large numbers, and advanced 
 against General D. R. Jones, who held the crest with 
 less than two thousand men. After a determined and 
 brave resistance he was forced to give way and the 
 enemy gained the summit. General A. P. Hill had now 
 arrived from Harper's Ferry, having left that place at 
 7 A. M., and immediately attacked, while his batteries and 
 those of D. R. Jones and D. H. Hill opened an enfilade 
 fire north of the Boonsboro' road, and the Federal prog- 
 ress was arrested, seeing which. General Jones ordered 
 15 
 
214 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Toombs to charge the flank, while Archer, supported by 
 Branch and Gregg, moved upon the front of the Federal 
 Ime. The enemy made a brave resistance, and then 
 broke and retired in confusion toward the Antietam, 
 pursued by the troops of Hill and Jones until he reached 
 the protection of the batteries on the opposite side. In 
 this attack the brave and lamented General L. O. B. 
 Branch was killed, gallantly leading his brigade." 
 
 While this attack was going on, Lee ordered Jackson 
 to turn the enemy's right, but found it extended nearly 
 to the Potomac, and was so strongly defended with 
 artillery that the attempt had to be abandoned. J. E. B. 
 Stuart had been selected to command the advance in this 
 movement. The Union attack on the Confederate right 
 was made by Burnside's Ninth Corps of four divisions. 
 It was on the eastern side or left bank of the Antietam 
 Creek in front of a bridge, and he was ordered early in 
 the morning to hold his men in readiness to assault. 
 
 At eight o'clock McClellan says he sent Burnside 
 orders to cross the creek and take the heights beyond, 
 and move so as to gain possession of them and cut Lee 
 off from the Williamsport or Shepherdstown road, and 
 Burnside immediately prepared to execute them. Toombs 
 had only some four hundred Georgians at this bridge, 
 but his defense of the passage was well executed. Burn- 
 side's thirteen thousand troops took three hours to cross, 
 and lost five hundred men. It was now one o'clock, and 
 two hours more were consumed in preparations to as- 
 sault the ridge held by Jones. The opportune arrival 
 of A. P. Hill, with his thirty-four hundred men, saved 
 Lee's right. Had McClellan placed a portion of his 
 large cavalry force on that flank. Hill's approach might 
 have been retarded and the battle won before his arrival. 
 It is diflicult to explain, too, why Couch was not recalled 
 from the vicinity of Maryland Heights after Harper's 
 Ferry was abandoned by Hill. 
 
 The bloody battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam, has 
 passed into impartial history as a drawn combat. The 
 next day neither side would renew the fighting — Lee 
 says because he was too weak to renew the offensive ; 
 but that he awaited without apprehension the renewal 
 of the attack. He had received reports that McClellan 
 
SHARrSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 215 
 
 was expecting the arrival of re-enforcements, and as he 
 could not look for a material increase of his strength, it 
 was not thought prudent to wait until his adversary- 
 should be ready to again fight a battle. During the 
 night of the i8th his army was passed to the south of 
 the Potomac, near Shepherdstown. The enemy advanced 
 next morning, but was held in check by cavalry, who cov- 
 ered his movements with success. 
 
 The Southern loss in the Maryland campaign was 
 ten thousand two hundred and ninety-one — eight thou- 
 sand at Sharpsburg. McClellan's loss in the battle was 
 twelve thousand four hundred and ninety-six. He did 
 not claim a victory until Lee had recrossed the Poto- 
 mac. At 1.20 p. M., during the battle, he telegraphed 
 Halleck : '' We are in the midst of the most terrible bat- 
 tle of the war — perhaps of history. Thus far it looks 
 well, but I have great odds against me." And at 
 8 A.M. on the i8th he telegraphed: "The battle of 
 yesterday continued for fourteen hours, and until after 
 dark. We hold all we gained, except a portion of the 
 extreme left. Our loss was very heavy, especially in 
 general officers. The battle will probably be renewed 
 to-day." But it was only on the 19th — thirty-six hours 
 after the fighting was over — that he informed Halleck 
 that *' we may safely claim a complete victory." 
 
 General Lee's Maryland campaign was a failure. 
 He added but few recruits to his army, lost ten thou- 
 sand men, and fought a drawn battle, which for an in- 
 vading army is not a success. It was preferable, in his 
 opinion, to consuming the substance of the Confederacy 
 in Virginia after the second Manassas, and the result of 
 a victory in Maryland was worth the attempt. McClel- 
 lan threw two divisions of infantry across the river, but 
 was driven back, the Confederates losing four guns — a 
 part of their reserve artillery. 
 
 The Confederate army then moved back to the Ope- 
 quan, near Martinsburg, and after a few days' rest to 
 the vicinity of Bunker Hill and Winchester. McClellan 
 occupied Harper's Ferry and the surrounding heights 
 with two corps under Sumner, and encamped the re- 
 mainder near the scenes of its late exploits, amid the 
 picturesque hills and vales of southwestern Maryland. 
 
2i6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Rest with regular rations at regular times w^as most 
 grateful to both armies, for both were more or less ex- 
 hausted. General Lee's two weeks' campaign in Mary- 
 land had demonstrated that his army, without re-enforce- 
 ments, was too small for offensive operations. 
 
 His son Robert was at that time a private in the 
 Rockbridge Battery, and was in the thickest of the fight. 
 Just after the battle the general wrote to Mrs. Lee: "I 
 have not laid eyes on Rob since I saw him in the battle 
 of Sharpsburg going in with a single gun of his battery 
 for the second time after his company had been with- 
 drawn in consequence of three of its guns having been 
 disabled. Custis has seen him, and says he is very well 
 and apparently happy and content. My hands are im- 
 proving slowly, and with my left hand I am able to dress 
 and undress myself, which is a great comfort. My right 
 is becoming of some assistance, too, though it is still 
 swollen, and sometimes painful. The bandages have 
 been removed. I am now able to sign my name. It has 
 been six weeks to-day since I was injured, and I have at 
 last discarded the sling." 
 
 In his tent near Winchester he heard of the death of 
 his daughter Annie, who had always been the greatest 
 favorite with her father, and on October 26, 1862, in 
 a letter to Mrs. Lee, he said : " I can not express the 
 anguish I feel at the death of our sweet Annie. To 
 know that 1 shall never see her again on earth, that 
 her place in our circle, which I always hoped one day to 
 enjoy, is forever vacant, is agonizing in the extreme. 
 But God in this, as in all things, has mingled mercy with 
 the blow in selecting that one best prepared to leave us. 
 May you be able to join me in saying, ' His wnll be 
 done I ' When I reflect on all she will escape in life, 
 brief and painful at the best, and all we may hope she 
 will enjoy with her sainted grandmother, I can not wish 
 her back. I know how much you will grieve, and how 
 much she will be mourned. I wish I could give you any 
 comfort, but beyond our hope in the great mercy of 
 God, and the belief that he takes her at the time and 
 place when it is best for her to go, there is none. May 
 that same mercy be extended to us all, and may we be 
 prepared for his summons." 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 21/ 
 
 It was now McCiellan's turn to assume the offensive. 
 To cross the Potomac, having that river at his back, and 
 to fight Lee, was too hazardous for a man of his prudence ; 
 but by crossing below Harper's Ferry and marching into 
 Virginia he could keep interposed between his capital 
 and the Confederate army, and at the same time move 
 on interior lines toward Lee's capital, which would bring 
 Lee from the Valley of Virginia to offer battle at a point 
 where, if he could be defeated, Richmond might fall. 
 Both armies had increased in numbers. Three days 
 after the battle Lee had 40,000 men, and McClellan — 
 notwithstanding his loss in the two battles, had 80,930, 
 exclusive of the two divisions of Couch and Humphreys, 
 which reached him the day after the battle. The morn- 
 ing report, dated September 20th, sent by McClellan — 
 which included the troops at Washington under Banks 
 and 3,500 men at Williamsport, Frederick, and Boons- 
 boro' — showed an aggregate present for duty of 164,359, 
 and an aggregate absent of 105,124, making a total 
 present and absent of 293,798. 
 
 '• General McClellan was never in a hurry, but 
 wanted to reach the ideal of preparation before ac- 
 tion." He was deliberate, his Government impatient. 
 The chasm between the two was widening. The blood 
 on the field of Sharpsburg was not dry before the Fed- 
 eral army commander was expressing his regret that 
 every dispatch from his general in chief, Halleck, was 
 fault-finding; he asked him to say something in com- 
 mendation of his army ; that it had been lately " badly 
 cut up and scattered by the overwhelming numbers 
 brought against them in the battle of the 17th, and it 
 was only by very hard fighting that we gained the ad- 
 vantage we did. As it was, the result was at one period 
 very doubtful, and we had all we could do to win the 
 day." On the other side Halleck was, with Mr. Lincoln's 
 assistance, putting hot coals on his back. " The coun- 
 try is becoming very impatient at the want of activity 
 in your army, and we must push it on," the former 
 writes, October 7, 1862. And again: "There is a de- 
 cided want of celerity in our troops. They lie still in 
 camp too long." 
 
 Three days after the withdrawal of the Southern 
 
2i8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 army from Maryland the President of the United States 
 issued his proclamation proclaiming freedom to the 
 slaves. It was admitted to be a war measure, whose 
 purpose, if necessary, was to kindle insurrectionary 
 fires in the Southern States, which should assist the 
 Federal arms in crushing the "Rebellion," as it was 
 termed ; but to McClellan and a large part of his army 
 it was objectionable. In his General Order No. 163, of 
 October 7th, in reference to it, he deprecated in the 
 army heated political discussions, and reminded them 
 that the remedy for political errors is at the polls, thus 
 widening the growing gulf between him and his admin- 
 istration, which President Lincoln's visit to him on Oc- 
 tober ist, and charging him with being overcautious, did 
 not dimmish. 
 
 As soon as Lincoln returned to Washington he 
 directed Halleck to order McClellan to "cross the Po- 
 tomac and give battle to the enemy and drive him 
 South." But many suns were destined to rise and set 
 before that order was executed. General Lee, as well 
 as the Union President, was growing impatient, and 
 wondering why McClellan did not promptly obey or- 
 ders. So he directed his chief of cavalry, Stuart, on 
 October 8th, to cross the Potomac above Williamsport 
 with his cavalry and ascertain McClellan's positions and 
 designs ; to enter Pennsylvania, and to do all in his 
 power to impede and embarrass the military operations 
 of his enemy. 
 
 Stuart left the army next morning with detachments 
 of six hundred men from each of the brigades of Hamp- 
 ton, Fitz Lee, and W. E. Jones, and four guns. He was 
 considerate in his orders to his own troops, directing 
 them to give receipts for everything that they were 
 obliged to take in the way of subsistence for man and 
 horse, and also that whenever his column met ladies 
 in Maryland and Pennsylvania, it should turn out of the 
 road to let them pass w^th their conveyances without 
 molestation. He marched to Chambersburg, in Penn- 
 sylvania, passing the right flank of the Federal army, 
 and made a complete circuit, returning by the left flank. 
 He rode eighty miles in twenty-seven hours, and by his 
 swiftness and boldness deceived and evaded every effort 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 219 
 
 to intercept him. " His orders were executed," says 
 General Lee, " witii skill, address, and courage." He 
 had destroyed a large amount of public property, re- 
 ported McClellan's exact position to General Lee, and 
 recrossed the Potomac without loss. '' Not a man 
 should be permitted to return to Virginia," telegraj:)hed 
 Halleck to McClellan in informing him that Stuart 
 was at Chambersburg, Pa., and was answered that, in 
 spite of all precautions, Stuart "went entirely around 
 this army"; and calls attention to his deficiency in cav- 
 alry, and complained that " the horses of the army were 
 fatigued and had sore tongues," which called forth an 
 inquiry from Mr. Lincoln : " Will you pardon me for 
 asking what the horses of your army have done since 
 Antietam that fatigues anything?" And that "Stuart's 
 cavalry had outmarched ours, having certainly done 
 more marked service in the Peninsula and everywhere 
 since." And yet McClellan had received seventeen 
 thousand nine hundred and eighteen fresh horses since 
 the Sharpsburg battle. 
 
 At last on October 26th, three weeks after he had 
 received orders, he began crossing his army over the 
 Potomac into Loudoun County, Va., at Berlin, below 
 Harper's Ferry. This occupied nine days. A slow con- 
 centration of his army in the direction of Warrenton 
 followed. Lee met this movement, and later, on No- 
 vember 3d, marched Longstreet's corps to Culpeper 
 Court House to McClellan's front, and brought the corps 
 of Jackson to the east side of the mountain. He had 
 crossed swords, however, for the last time with his 
 courteous adversary. The axe had fallen, and with it 
 McClellan's official head into the basket already con- 
 taining Pope's. General Order No. 182 from the War 
 Department, dated November 5, 1862, announced, by di- 
 rection of President Lincoln, that General McClellan be 
 relieved from the command of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, and that Major-General Burnside take command 
 of that army. 
 
 " Late at night," says McClellan, " I was sitting 
 alone in my tent writing to my wife. All seenied to be 
 asleep. Suddenly some one knocked upon the tent 
 pole, and upon my invitation to enter, there appeared 
 
220 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Generals Burnside and Buckingham, both looking very 
 solemn. After a few moments Buckingham said to 
 Burnside : ' Well, General, I think we had better tell Gen- 
 eral McClellan the object of our visit'; whereupon Buck- 
 ingham handed me the order of which he was the bearer. 
 I read the papers with a smile, and immediately turned to 
 Burnside and said : ' Well, Burnside, I turn the command 
 over to you.' " When General Lee heard of it he said 
 he was sorry to part with McClellan ; * not that he an- 
 ticipated his army would be defeated by a change of 
 commanders, but it was a satisfaction to know that as 
 long as McClellan was in command everything would 
 be conducted by the rules of civilized warfare. The 
 soldiers parted with McClellan with great grief, and 
 tears stood in many an eye that had learned to look on 
 war without a tremor. 
 
 Many circumstances directed Mr. Lincoln's course. 
 The entente cordiale between his Secretary of War, Com- 
 mander in Chief, and McClellan had been broken. The 
 little value the latter placed upon time as an important 
 element in military operations had been exasperating 
 to them. It had been charged, too, that his different 
 political faith from the party in power, his popularity 
 with his troops, and the probability of his becoming 
 the presidential candidate of his party in opposition to 
 Mr. Lincoln, united to effect his removal. It is not 
 thought that this last condition weighed with the Fed- 
 eral President, or tipped the scales, but rather McClel- 
 lan's procrastination and his overcautiousness, added to 
 an absurd overestimation of his opponent's strength, 
 and the impatience of the Northern people for more 
 battles. McClellan was always and everywhere a gen- 
 tleman, who believed in conducting war in a Christian 
 and humane manner. He had strategic, but no tac- 
 tical ability. Risks have to be taken when battle is 
 joined, but he never took them. Broken, wavering lines 
 were not restored beneath the wave of his sword, and 
 his personal presence was rarely felt when it might have 
 been beneficial. He had none of the inspiration of war. 
 
 * General Lee said, after the war, that he considered General Mc- 
 Clellan the most intellectual of all the Federal generals. 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 221 
 
 Lee had a great respect for him as a soldier, though he 
 counted on his being slow when manoeuvring in his 
 front. The Federal general could organize with great 
 ability and inspire confidence in his troops, and would 
 have been a great commander had he been more rapid 
 in his movements and adventurous in his plans. 
 
 His unwilling successor, Ambrose E. Burnside, was 
 the soul of good-fellowship, an amiable officer, and a 
 kind-hearted gentleman. He possessed these quali- 
 ties as a cadet. The celebrated Benny Havens, who 
 kept a saloon in the old days outside of West Point 
 limits, had a special toast which he invariably repeated 
 every time he indulged in a stimulant — and the repe- 
 tition of the toast was very frequent during the day. 
 He drank to the health of the two greatest men, in his 
 opinion, who had ever lived — St. Paul and Andrew Jack- 
 son; but he took such a fancy to Burnside, when he was 
 a cadet, that he added his name to his toast, and ever 
 thereafter, to the day of his death, he drank to St. Paul, 
 Andrew Jackson, and A. E. Burnside. 
 
 This officer conceived the idea of concentrating his 
 army on the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericks- 
 burg. The position there would be about sixty miles 
 from Richmond, and by a short railroad to his rear he 
 could reach the Potomac near Acquia Creek, and then, 
 by water some fifty miles, his Washington base. He di- 
 vided his six corps into three grand divisions — the right, 
 composed of the Second and Ninth, under Sumner; the 
 Third and Fifth Corps, the center, under Hooker; and 
 the left, under Franklin, consisting of the First and Sixth. 
 Sumner, in advance, arrived opposite Fredericksburg on 
 November 17th. Franklin was in supporting distance 
 on the i8th, and Hooker on the 19th, but their pontoons 
 did not arrive for eight days afterward. The vigilance 
 of Stuart informed Lee of this movement on the 15 th, 
 and he ordered at once two divisions of infantry and a 
 brigade of cavalry and a battery to proceed to Freder- 
 icksburg. A forced reconnoissance of Stuart to Warren- 
 ton told him that the whole of Burnside's army had 
 gone to the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg. 
 On the 19th Longstreet was ordered to Fredericksburg 
 with the remainder of his corps, and Jackson, who had 
 
222 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 been moved to Orange Court House, was, about the 
 26th, ordered to Fredericksburg also. There was much 
 deliberation in Lee's movements. His army was stretched 
 out from the mountains to the river, and it was only af- 
 ter he was satisfied that the Federal army had gone to 
 the Rappahannock that he moved Longstreet, and not 
 for nine days afterward did he direct Jackson to unite 
 with him. He knew a large army changing its line of 
 communication with its base of supplies required time 
 to assume the offensive. 
 
 When Sumner arrived at Falmouth, a little village 
 on the left bank of the river a mile above Fredericks- 
 burg, with his thirty-three thousand men, across the 
 river was only a regiment of cavalry, a battery, and four 
 companies of infantry. Four days afterward Longstreet 
 arrived, and his attempt to cross then would have been 
 resisted. The surrender of the town had been demanded 
 by Sumner just before the arrival of Longstreet. If not 
 granted, the women, children, aged and infirm, could 
 have sixteen hours to' leave their homes, and then "I 
 shall proceed," said Sumner, -'to shell the town." 
 
 Fredericksburg, a typical Virginia town, is built on 
 a plain every foot of which is commanded by the heights 
 opposite in Stafford County. A plunging fire would de- 
 stroy it, and Sumner's threat was a serious one to the 
 inhabitants. The man of the house was in the Southern 
 army, and it was a heart-rending experience for the 
 women and children to have their homes and their 
 household goods battered to pieces with cannon. Be- 
 fore the expiration of the time arranged, Longstreet 
 arrived and told the authorities he would not occupy 
 the town for military purposes, and that there was no 
 reason why it should be shelled, and this being commu- 
 nicated to Sumner, he decided not to execute his threat. 
 
 It was not wholly Burnside's fault that he was slug- 
 gish in his preparations. The railroad to the Potomac 
 had to be prepared, his pontoons were late getting up, 
 and many unexpected matters had to be considered. 
 The twenty-four days which elapsed before he delivered 
 battle were greatly appreciated by Lee. It gave him 
 time to concentrate his army and deploy and strengthen 
 his line of battle on a most defensible position. He 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 223 
 
 would have preferred fighting the battle at North Anna, 
 a defensive point in his rear, because it would draw 
 Burnside farther from his base, and if in the fortunes of 
 battle he could assume the offensive, decisive results 
 would follow, and so thought Jackson ; but an unwill- 
 ingness to give up more of the country, and a desire to 
 draw supplies from the Rappahannock Valley, decided 
 him to fight at Fredericksburg. 
 
 Picture a river about two hundred yards wide run- 
 ning east the short distance you see it, and then south- 
 east, the little village of Falmouth, in Stafford County, 
 being on its left, and the town of Fredericksburg, in 
 Spottsylvania, a mile below on its right bank. Imagine 
 a high line of hills from Falmouth down the river whose 
 western slopes touch the water. These are Stafford 
 Heights. On the Fredericksburg side a level plateau 
 stretches out to a range of hills which, beginning at a 
 point above the town, runs parallel to the river for a 
 mile or two, then extends back in a curve for four miles, 
 until at its southern extremity at Hamilton's Crossing 
 they gradually sink to the level of the surrounding 
 country. Along Stafford Heights was posted the army 
 of Burnside — 104,903 infantry, 5,884 cavalry, and 5,896 
 artillery, making, by the report of December loth, 116,- 
 683 men present for duty equipped. On the Spottsyl- 
 vania hills, a cannon-shot away, lay Lee's legions 78,- 
 513 of all arms, which included the cavalry brigades of 
 Hampton and W. E. Jones, both of whom were absent. 
 
 A river and a plain lay between the hostile forces, 
 and the Northern troops had to cross both to reach the 
 Southern position. The Federal batteries commanded 
 the town of Fredericksburg and the contiguous plain, 
 while the Confederate batteries everywhere swept the 
 open plain nearest to the Southern lines. Burnside's 
 army had to cross this open plain in full view of Lee, 
 and he knew that it would be plowed by shot and shell, 
 and any assault would have to be made amid the iron 
 hail of small arms. Lee's position was strong by nature 
 and made stronger by art. No troops could success- 
 fully assail it, and no commanding general should have 
 ordered it to be done. Burnside's order for battle was 
 fathomless; he could not carry Lee's position by sur- 
 
224 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 prise, as he told Franklin he expected to, or hope for 
 success least of all by the tactics adopted and made 
 known to his right and left grand division commanders 
 on the morning of battle. Three weeks after Burnside 
 arrived on the Rappahannock, public pressure pushed 
 him across it. He did not cross some miles below 
 Fredericksburg, as first contemplated, because he said 
 Lee had divined his intention and prepared for it, but 
 would cross directly in his front, because General Lee 
 was not expecting it, and attack him before re-enforced 
 by the troops detached to prevent his crossing at the 
 lower point. 
 
 The night of December lo, 1862, was a long one for 
 Burnside. One hundred and forty-seven rifled cannon, 
 20-pound Parrotts, and 4-inch siege guns were dis- 
 tributed along Stafford Heights by Hunt, Burnside's 
 able chief of artillery. The pontoons were placed in 
 position, and at three o'clock on the morning of the 
 nth the task of constructing four or five bridges oppo- 
 site the town and two miles below began. 
 
 Scarcely had the work commenced before Lee's sig- 
 nal gun announced the news to his sleeping troops. He 
 had never contemplated making a serious resistance at 
 the river banks. To use his own words: "The plain 
 of Fredericksburg is so completely commanded by the 
 Stafford Heights that no effectual opposition could be 
 made to the construction of bridges or the passage of 
 the river. Our position was therefore selected w^th a 
 view to resisting the enemy's advance after crossing, 
 and the river was guarded only by a force sufficient to 
 impede his movements until the army could be concen- 
 trated." 
 
 The Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twen- 
 ty-first Mississippi, of Barksdale's brigade of McLaws's 
 division, and the Third Georgia and Eighth Florida of 
 Anderson's division, guarded the points where pontoons 
 were to be laid, and displayed such skill as marksmen 
 and such courage as men, sheltered behind the houses 
 at the river banks, that the Federal army was delayed 
 at the river bank for sixteen hours, giving the Confed- 
 erate commander ample time to prepare for battle. 
 During the night of the nth and succeeding day Sum- 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 225 
 
 ner's two corps, with one hundred and four cannon, 
 crossed at the upper, and Franklin's two corps, with one 
 hundred and sixteen guns, crossed at the lower bridge, 
 and by the night of the 12th Burnside's army was in 
 readiness for the attack. His plans for the next day 
 were ambiguous. A Federal general reports him as 
 riding about on the evening of the 12th as if he had 
 arrived at the conclusion to attempt to do something 
 with his left, and, if successful, to do something with 
 his right. The tremendous responsibility of having one 
 hundred thousand men on the wrong side of the Rappa- 
 hannock was having its full effect. He seemed to expect 
 Franklin to get m somewhere on Lee's right and Sumner 
 on his left, and these lodgments being made, the Con- 
 federate line between would have to retire or be crushed. 
 He increased Sumner's troops to about sixty thousand, 
 and added Butterfield's corps and Whipple's division to 
 Franklin's command, giving him about forty thousand. 
 At 5.55 A. M. oh the 13th, the day of battle, he sent 
 orders to Franklin — which he received two hours and a 
 half afterward (it was said, because the staff officer who 
 carried them stopped to get his breakfast) — to keep his 
 command in readiness to move down the old Richmond 
 road, and send out at once a division at least to seize 
 the heights at Hamilton's Crossing, where Lee's right 
 rested, taking care to keep it well supported. In an 
 order dated 6 a. m., the same morning, he directs Sum- 
 ner to " push a division or more along the streets and 
 roads on the line from the town to Lee's left, with a 
 view to seizing the heights in the rear of the town," but 
 not to attack until he got additional orders. 
 
 Lee was quietly awaiting him. Earthworks had been 
 constructed at points on the crests of the hills, skill- 
 fully designed by General Pendleton, chief of artillery, 
 and the engineer officers. His army was divided into 
 two corps, under Longstreet and Jackson, Longstreet 
 being on the left. Anderson's division rested on the 
 river, and then McLaws, Pickett, and Hood extended to 
 the right in the order named. Ransom's division sup- 
 ported the batteries on Marye's and neighboring hills, at 
 the foot of which Cobb's brigade, of McLaws's division, 
 and the Twenty-fourth North Carolina, were stationed, 
 
226 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 protected by a stone wall. The Washington Artillery, 
 under Colonel Walton, occupied the redoubts on the 
 crest of Marye's Hill, and those on the heights to the 
 right and left were held by a part of the reserve artil- 
 lery. Colonel E. P. Alexander was in charge of the 
 division batteries of Anderson, Ransom, and McLaws. 
 A. P. Hill, of Jackson's corps, was posted between 
 Hood's right and Hamilton's Crossing. Early's and 
 Taliaferro's divisions composed Jackson's second line, 
 while D. H. Hill's division was formed in reserve. 
 Stuart, with two brigades of cavalry, under General 
 Lee's son and nephew, was on Jackson's right. A dense 
 fog overhung the plain and river until after 9 a. m., 
 obscuring from view the movements of the Federals. 
 Then, as the struggling rays of the sun lifted the mist, 
 it unmasked to Lee and his army a picture unparalleled 
 in surpassing splendor, unequaled in terrible sublimity. 
 
 From his lofty position on Telegraph Hill, in the 
 center of his line, Lee saw the mass of Federals de- 
 ploying in A. P. Hill's front. Franklin was about to 
 assault with " one division at least," as ordered. As a 
 matter of fact, his attack was afterward made with Rey- 
 nolds's First Corps of three divisions, under Meade, 
 Gibbon, and Doubleday. Meade, an excellent soldier, 
 was sent in first; Gibbon to support him, and Double- 
 day to follow. Meade selected for his point of attack 
 the place where the ridge on Lee's right terminated 
 and where it gradually reached the level of the plam. 
 It was a salient point, and at its southern end devoid 
 of fortification. Stuart had placed his cavalry and 
 horse artillery far out on the plain, and his guns enfi- 
 laded the march of this attacking column. The fire 
 of his horse artillery, under his celebrated boy chief, 
 Pelham, was very effective. The second ball from a 
 "W^hitworth gun tore through the knapsack of a Federal 
 infantryman, distributed his clothing to the winds, threw 
 a pack of playing cards twenty feet in the air, and 
 created consternation and death as it flew a long dis- 
 tance down the line. Doubleday's division was halted 
 by Pelham's fire and the presence of cavalry on its flank, 
 and Reynolds was deprived of its support, and with only 
 two divisions and two regiments of Stoneman's Third 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 227 
 
 Corps was attempting to overthrow Jackson, who lay in 
 his front with thirty thousand men in a sheltered, and 
 for a portion of the line, fortified position. Why Rey- 
 nolds was not supported by Smith's Sixth Corps of 
 twenty-four thousand men, which was a short distance 
 behind him, is one of the mysteries of war. Franklin 
 would still have had fourteen thousand men — namely, 
 two divisions of the Third Corps and one of the Ninth 
 — exclusive of thirty-five hundred cavalry, under the 
 gallant Bayard, as a reserve. The Federal advance 
 marched to destruction. Meade broke through a gap 
 in Jackson's line between Thomas's and Archer's bri- 
 gade, but fresh troops came up under Taliaferro and 
 Early, amid cries of " Here comes Old Jubal ! " " Let 
 Jubal straighten that fence ! " and it was securely rebuilt. 
 
 The Union troops were broken and driven back with 
 great slaughter. Meade lost in killed, wounded, and 
 missing, 1,853, and Gibbon 1,266 men, in a short, fierce, 
 furious and useless combat. Meade told Franklin he 
 " found it quite hot," taking off his slouch hat and show- 
 ing two bullet holes between which and the top of his 
 head there must have been little space. To Lee — calm, 
 self-contained and self-reliant as Wellington at Water- 
 loo — from his position on I'elegraph (since called Lee's) 
 Hill, the movement appeared like an armed reconnois- 
 sance, and was only considered a precursor to something 
 more serious. Jackson was much pleased at the result 
 on his front. He appeared that day for the first and 
 last time in a bright new uniform which replaced his 
 former dingy suit, having actually exchanged his faded 
 old cap for another which was resplendent in gold lace, 
 a present from J. E. B. Stuart. It was a most remark- 
 able metamorphosis of his former self, and his men did 
 not like it, fearing, as some of them said, that " Old Jack 
 would be afraid of his clothes and would not get down 
 to his work." 
 
 Burnside's plans seem to have been to attack simul- 
 taneously on both of Lee's flanks, like Napoleon when 
 he had the river and three bridges behind him at Dres- 
 den, and he may have reasoned, as did that great French 
 soldier, that an assault on both flanks would demoralize 
 the center, which he would overwhelm by concentrated 
 
228 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 attack. Sumner's right grand division held the town. 
 Couch's Second Corps occupied it, and Wilcox's Ninth 
 Corps stretched out from Couch's left toward Franklin's 
 right. At 8.15 A. M. Couch received an order from Sum- 
 ner, who was across the river at the Lacy House, ''to 
 form a column of a division for the purpose of seizing 
 the heights in the rear of the town"; to advance in 
 three lines, and be supported by another division^ be 
 formed in the same manner as the leading division ; but 
 the movement should not begin until further orders. 
 French's division in column of three brigades, at two 
 hundred yards' interval, was selected to lead, Hancock's 
 in similar formation to follow. About eleven o'clock, the 
 fog lifting. Couch signaled to Sumner that he was ready, 
 and received orders to move. The troops debouched 
 from the town, crossed with difficulty the bed of an old 
 canal at right angles to their course, and deployed along 
 the bank bordering the plain over which they were to 
 charge. At this time Burnside, the army commander, 
 was two miles away, across the river at his headquar- 
 ters, the Phillips House. Sumner, the right grand com- 
 mander, was at his headquarters also, on the other side 
 of the Rappahannock. Couch, in command of the corps, 
 and Howard, his remaining division commander, climbed 
 the steeple of the courthouse in the town, and the bat- 
 tle began. It was not long before Couch exclaimed 
 to Howard: "Oh, great God! See how our men, 
 our brave fellows, are falling!" And so they were. 
 They " could not make reply " or protest, and nothing 
 was left but "to do and die." "I remember," said 
 Couch, " that the whole plain was covered with men 
 prostrate and dropping, the live men running here and 
 there, and m front, closing upon each other, and the 
 wounded coming back. The commands seemed to be 
 mixed up. I had never before seen fighting like that, or 
 anything approaching it in terrible uproar and destruc- 
 tion. There was no cheering on the part of the men, 
 but a stubborn determination to obey orders and do 
 their duty. As they charged, the artillery fire would 
 break their formation and they would get mixed. Then 
 they would close up together, everywhere receiving the 
 withering infantry fire, and those who were able would 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 229 
 
 run to the lines and fight as best the}^ could ; and then 
 the next brigade coming up in succession would do its 
 duty and melt like snow coming down on a warm morn- 
 ing." Hancock and French sent promptly for assistance. 
 Two brigades of Wilcox's corps were sent to the slaugh- 
 ter pen, and one of Howard's, and then a division of 
 Stoneman's, of Hooker's center grand division, as well 
 as Gifford's division of Butterfield's corps. The other 
 divisions of the same corps were also put in supporting 
 distance, and it now began to look like a genuine at- 
 tempt to crush Lee's left. At 3 p. m. Couch was told by 
 a dispatch from Sumner that Hooker had been ordered 
 to put in everything. " His coming to me," said Couch, 
 " was like the breaking out of the sun in the storm," It 
 had been demonstrated the storm was there, but what 
 became of the sun ? Hooker consulted Hancock, who 
 had been in the leaden hail and had lost two thousand 
 out of five thousand men composing his division in a 
 very brief interval of time, after which, without obeying 
 orders, he rode back at 2 p. m. across the river to Burn- 
 side, and did not return for two hours. 
 
 The battery of artillery on Marye's Hill was relieved 
 in the meantime by fresh batteries, under Wolfolk and 
 Moody, which produced the impression that the hill 
 was being abandoned, so Couch directed Humphreys 
 to attack with his two brigades and Getty's division of 
 the Ninth Corps. This was bravely done, but with the 
 same result. Humphreys lost seventeen hundred out 
 of three thousand men. It was hardly possible for 
 Hooker's whole army to have carried Marye's Hill by 
 direct assault as long as Confederate ammunition lasted. 
 It resisted the successive charges of the Federals as 
 Gibraltar withstands the surging seas. It was defended 
 by the famous battalion of Washington Artillery from 
 New Orleans. The men and officers were full of fight, 
 enthusiastic, vigilant, enterprising, and brave. No mis- 
 take had been made in committing this important post 
 to that organization. Around and stretching on either 
 side was the left wing of the army. Marye's Hill met 
 the streets leading from the town, and offered the most 
 inviting point of attack. The front sloped to a sunken 
 road, on the town side of which was a stone wall some 
 16 
 
230 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 four feet high; the exacavated dirt had been thrown on 
 the other side of the wall, so that no part of the wall 
 showed on the side of the Federal advance, and their 
 troops were in ignorance of its existence. Behind this 
 wall, four files deep, was the Georgia brigade of Gen- 
 eral Thomas R. Cobb, which was afterward re-enforced 
 by portions of Kershaw's and Cook's brigades. To reach 
 this wall the Union troops were obliged to march over, 
 a plain swept by artillery. General E. P. Alexander, 
 Tongstreet's accomplished artilleryman, remarked before 
 the battle : " We cover that ground now so well that we 
 will comb it as with a fine-toothed comb. A chicken 
 could not live on that field when we open on it." 
 
 The dauntless courage displayed by the Federal offi- 
 cers and men availed nothing against the rapid plung- 
 ing fire of well-served 12-pound howitzers. Napoleons, 
 and rifle guns. The three-inch rifle balls of the Federals 
 that fell near these batteries were hurled back at them 
 out of Confederate guns. " On they came in beautiful 
 array," wrote a Washington Artillery participant, ''more 
 determined to hold the plain than ever ; but our fire was 
 murderous, and no troops on earth could stand the feu 
 aenfer we were giving them. In the foremost line we 
 distinguished the green flag with the golden harp of old 
 Ireland, and we knew it to be Meagher's Irish brigade." 
 
 It was a picturesque field, the blue, the red breeches 
 of the Zouaves, and the green of old Ireland were 
 mingled in Death's cold embrace. Imagine troops, as 
 soon as deployed, stormed at with shot and shell, and 
 those who escaped, treated next to canister, and the 
 brave survivors exposed to the severe fire of con- 
 cealed infantry which scorched the ground beneath 
 their feet ! The battle on Lee's left was fought prin- 
 cipally by the artillery and the few thousand infantry in 
 the sunken road — troops whose courage, steadiness, and 
 endurance has been honorably mentioned. Were it pos- 
 sible to have scaled Marye's Hill no hostile force could 
 have lived there, for a concentrated, converging fire 
 from the heights in the rear which commanded it, and 
 of which it was simply an outpost, would have swept 
 it from its face. 
 
 The battle of Fredericksburg was a grand sight as 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 23 1 
 
 Lee witnessed it from Lee's Hill in the center of his 
 lines, and Burnside through his field glass from a more 
 secure position, two miles in the rear of the battlefield, 
 with the river flowing between himself and his troops. 
 The roar of over three hundred cannon — the Federals 
 alone had three hundred and seventy-five in their army 
 — forrned an orchestra which had the city of Fredericks- 
 burg for audience, as well as both armies. 
 
 Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky, 
 And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry. 
 
 A hundred thousand men in line of battle, both flanks 
 being visible, from whose bristling bayonets were re- 
 flected the rays of the morning sun as they penetrated 
 the rising mists, was a gorgeous pageant viewed from 
 the Confederate lines. 
 
 The battle of Fredericksburg was a.farce which one 
 could laugh at, except for the sacrifice of human life. 
 A grand army seeks offensive battle, makes isolated at- 
 tacks by fractional forces, remains in position two days, 
 and secretly, in the midst of a violent storm, recrosses 
 the river during the night, with a loss of twelve thou- 
 sand six hundred and fifty-three. If Burnside had held 
 fast with a small force in Fredericksburg, protected by 
 the reserve artillery on Stafford Heights, while re-en- 
 forcing Franklin with the bulk of Sumner's and Hook- 
 er's forces so as to have threatened the Confederate 
 line of communication, he would have drawn Lee from 
 Marye's Hill and forced him to deliver battle on more 
 equal terms. 
 
 The popular notion that General Jackson wanted to 
 move on the Federals after their repulse and drive them 
 into the river is disposed of by his own report, in 
 which he says: " The enemy making no forward move- 
 ment, I determined, if prudent, to do so myself; but the 
 first gun had hardly moved from the woods a hundred 
 yards when the enemy's artillery reopened and so com- 
 pletely swept our front as to satisfy me that the pro- 
 jected movement should be abandoned." 
 
 Lee had really fought a defensive battle to a finish 
 without knowing it. Only one third of his army had 
 been engaged, and in killed, wounded, and missing his 
 losses were only five thousand three hundred and seventy- 
 
232 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 seven. The Washington Artillery, which for four hours 
 and a half mowed down the charging columns until their 
 canister, case, and solid shot had been exhausted, lost 
 three killed and twenty-four wounded. Naturally the 
 Southern commander waited in his advantageous posi- 
 tion for the big battle, but he waited in vain. It would 
 have been a mistake to have done otherwise ; and " in 
 war the crown of laurel is reserved for him who makes 
 the fewest mistakes hmiself and most promptly profits 
 by the mistakes of others." 
 
 Lee greatly regretted the loss of his brave men, the 
 wounding of the gallant Cook and the death of such 
 splendid soldiers as Cobb, and Maxey Gregg. • Cobb 
 fell mortally wounded at the foot of the stone wall he 
 had so bravely defended, at the door of the house of 
 Mrs. Martha Stevens, who must have been a sort of 
 *' Molly Pitcher," for it is related that she was very ac- 
 tive all day in the Confederate cause, and after using 
 all her materials for bandages for the wounded, ac- 
 tually tore from her person most of her garments, on 
 that cold December morning, in her anxiety to minister 
 to their necessities. 
 
 After one or two abortive attempts to assume the 
 offensive were made later by Burnside, the two armies 
 looked quietly at each other from their respective posi- 
 tions on either side of the Rappahannock for four 
 months. A few wall and common tents, pitched half 
 way between Fredericksburg and Hamilton's Crossing 
 on the border of an old pine field, marked the headquar- 
 ters of the Confederate commander, and here Lee labored 
 to promote the efficiency of his troops and prepare them 
 for the active operations which he knew must commence 
 when spring succeeded winter. 
 
 It was at this time. Long tells us, that among a num- 
 ber of fowls presented to the general was a sprightly 
 hen, who went into the egg business before her turn 
 came to lose her head, and thus persuaded Bryan, Gen- 
 eral Lee's well-known steward, that her egg, which she 
 each morning deposited in the general's tent, was better 
 for the general's breakfast than herself. Lee, fond of 
 domestic animals, appreciated her selection of his quar- 
 ters, and would leave the tent door open for her and 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 233 
 
 wait elsewhere until her cackle informed him that he 
 could return to his canvas home. She roosted and 
 rode in his wagon, was an eye-witness of the battle of 
 ChancellorsviUe, and there it is said she refused to lay 
 until victory perched upon her general's plume, when 
 she at once recommenced. Many months she soldiered 
 — participated, in her way, in the battle of Gettysburg, but 
 when the orders were given to fall back, and the head- 
 quarters wagons had been loaded, the hen could not be 
 found. General Lee joined others in a search for her, 
 and finally she was found perched on top of the wagon 
 seemingly anxious to return to her native State. 
 
 In the fall of 1864, when Lee's headquarters were 
 near Orange Court House, the hen had become fat and 
 lazy, and on one occasion when the general had a dis- 
 tinguished visitor to dine with him, Bryan, finding it diffi- 
 cult to procure suitable material, unknown to every one, 
 killed the hen. At dinner the general was surprised to 
 see so fine a fowl, and all enjoyed it, not dreaming of 
 the great sacrifice made upon the altar of hospitality. 
 
 Lee's forced inactivity brought homesickness. He 
 longed to be reunited to his family. In his letters he 
 tells them of the noble spirit displayed by the people of 
 Fredericksburg; that the faces of the old and young 
 were wreathed with smiles and glowed with happiness 
 at their sacrifices for the good of their country. " Many 
 have lost everything. What the fire and swords of the 
 enemy spared, their pillagers destroyed; but God will 
 shield them I know." That the only place he "can be 
 found is in camp, and there I will have to be taken 
 with the three stools, the sun, the rain and mud." That 
 " Hooker, Burnside's successor, is obliged to do some- 
 thing, but \vhat, I do not know." That "he plays 
 the Chinese game, runs out his guns, starts his wagons 
 and troops up and down the river, and creates an ex- 
 citement generally. Our men look on in w^onder, give 
 a cheer, and immediately again subside." That "God 
 is kind and gives me plenty to do in good weather and 
 bad, and that I owe Mr. J. Hooker no thanks for keep- 
 ing me here, for he ought to have made up his mind 
 long ago what to do." Later he writes: "The cars 
 have arrived from Richmond and brought me a young 
 
234 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 French officer, full of vivacity and ardor, for service 
 with me. I think the appearance of things will cool 
 him. If they do not the night will, for he brought no 
 blankets." 
 
 In a letter to his daughter Mary, previous to Burn- 
 side's attack, dated Camp near Fredericksburg, Novem- 
 ber 24, 1862, he says: " I have just received your letter 
 of the 17th, which has afforded me great gratification. 
 I regretted not finding you in Richmond, and grieve 
 over every opportunity at not seeing you that is lost, 
 for I fear they will become less and less frequent. The 
 death of my dear Annie was, indeed, to me a bitter pang, 
 but ^ the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed 
 be the name of the Lord.' In the quiet hours of the night, 
 w^hen there is nothing to lighten the full weight of my 
 grief, I feel as if I should be overwhelmed. I have 
 always counted, if God should spare me a few days of 
 peace, after this cruel war was ended, that I should have 
 her with me, but year after year my hopes go out, and 
 I must be resigned. General Burnside's whole army is 
 apparently opposite Fredericksburg, and stretches from 
 the Rappahannock to the Potomac. What his inten- 
 tions are he has not yet disclosed. I am sorry he is 
 in position to oppress our friends and citizens of the 
 Northern Neck. He threatens to bombard Fredericks- 
 burg, and the noble spirit displayed by its citizens, par- 
 ticularly the women and children, has elicited my high- 
 est admiration. They have been abandoning their homes 
 night and day during all this inclement weather cheer- 
 fully and uncomplainingly, with only such assistance as 
 our wagons and ambulances could afford — women, girls, 
 children, trudging through the mud and bivouacking in 
 the open fields." 
 
 Again, in a letter to his wife from the same camp, on 
 December 2, 1862, he writes : " I am glad you had the op- 
 portunity of visiting New Kent ; but the sight of the White 
 House must have brought particularly sad thoughts. It 
 will all come right in the end, though we may not live to 
 see it. That is Lieutenant Spangler who addressed me so 
 familiarly. He was orderly sergeant of Captain Evans's 
 company. Second Cavalry, United States Army, and was 
 a good soldier. I tremble for my country when I hear 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 235 
 
 of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my 
 weakness, and that our only hope is in God." 
 
 On December nth, at the commencement of the 
 Federal operations, General Lee writes Mrs. Lee : " 1 
 return a bit sent up by Custis. It is not the one I 
 wished, but I do not want the one I wrote for now, as 
 I have one that will answer as well. The enemy, after 
 bombarding the town of Fredericksburg, setting fire to 
 many houses, and knocking down nearly all those along 
 the river, crossed over a large force about dark, and 
 now occupy the town. We hold the hills commandmg 
 it, and hope we shall be able to damage him yet. His 
 positions and heavy guns command the town entirely." 
 
 On December i6th he thus writes of the recrossing 
 of the Federals, and also of the liberation of the 
 Arlington slaves: " I had supposed they were just pre- 
 paring for battle, and was saving our men for the con- 
 flict. Their hosts crown the hill and plain beyond the 
 river, and their numbers to me are unknown. Still, I 
 felt a confidence we could stand the shock, and was 
 anxious for the blow that is to fall on some point, and 
 was prepared to meet it here. Yesterday evening I had 
 my suspicions that they might return during the night, 
 but could not believe they would relinquish their hopes 
 after all their boasting and preparation, and when I say 
 that the latter is equal to the former, you will have 
 some idea of the magnitude. This morning they were 
 all safe on the north side of the Rappahannock. They 
 went as they came — in the night. They suffered heavily 
 as far as the battle went, but it did not go far enough 
 to satisfy me. Our loss was comparatively slight, and 
 I think will not exceed two thousand. The contest will 
 have now to be renewed, but on what field I can not 
 say. As regards the liberation of the people [slaves] I 
 wish to progress in it as far as I can. Those hired in 
 Richmond can still find employment there if they choose. 
 Those in the country can do the same or remain on the 
 farms. I hope they will all do well and behave them- 
 selves. I should like if I could to attend to their wants, 
 and see them placed to the best advantage. But that is 
 impossible. All that choose can leave the State before 
 the war closes. The quartermaster informs me he has 
 
236 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 received the things you sent. The mitts will be very 
 serviceable. Make as many as you can obtain good 
 material for. I have everything I want." General 
 Lee was the executor, and the date of the emancipation 
 of the slaves under Mr. Custis's will had arrived. 
 
 From the same camp on Christmas day he writes Mrs. 
 Lee : " I will commence this holy day by writing to you. 
 My heart is filled with gratitude to Almighty God for 
 the unspeakable mercies with which he has blessed us in 
 this day, for those he has granted us from the beginning 
 of life, and particularly for those he has vouchsafed us 
 during the past year. What should have become of us 
 without his crowning help and protection ? Oh, if our 
 people would only recognize it and cease from vain self- 
 boasting and adulation, how strong would be my belief in 
 final success and happiness to our country ! But what a 
 cruel thmg is war; to separate and destroy families and 
 friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has 
 granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred 
 instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the 
 fair face of this beautiful world ! I pray that on this 
 day, when only peace and good-will are preached to man- 
 kind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies 
 and turn them to peace. Our army was never in such 
 good health and condition since I have been attached to 
 it. I believe they share with me my disappointment that 
 the enemy did not renew the combat on the 13th. I was 
 holding back all that day and husbanding our strength 
 and ammunition for the great struggle for which I 
 thought I was preparing. Had I divined what was to 
 have been his only effort he would have had more of it. 
 My heart bleeds at the death of every one of our gallant 
 men." Again, from the same place he tells her : " We had 
 quite a snow day before yesterday, and last night was 
 very cold. It is thawing a little this morning, though 
 the water was freezing as I washed. I fear it will bring 
 much discomfort to those of our men who are barefooted 
 and poorly clad. I can take but little pleasure in my 
 comforts for thinking of them. A kind lady — Mrs. Sallie 
 Braxton Slaughter — of Fredericksburg, sent me a mat- 
 tress, some catsup, and preserves during the snowstorm. 
 You must thank Miss Norvell [Caskie] for her nice cake, 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 237 
 
 which I enjoyed very much. I had it set out under the 
 pines the day after its arrival, and assembled all the 
 young gentlemen [of his staff] around it ; and though I 
 told them it was a present from a beautiful young lady, 
 they did not leave a crumb. I want a good servant 
 badly. Perry [an old Arlington servant] is very willing, 
 and I believe does as well as he can. You know he is 
 very slow and inefficient, and moves very like his father 
 Lawrence. He is also very fond of his blankets in the 
 morning — the time I most require him. I hope he will 
 do well when he leaves me, and get in the service of 
 some good person who will take care of him." 
 
 On the 8th of January he again makes reference to 
 the Arlington servants, and says: "I executed the deed 
 of manumission sent me by Mr. Caskie, and returned it 
 to him. I perceived that John Sawyer and James's 
 names among the Arlington people had been omitted, 
 and inserted them. I fear there are others among the 
 White House lot which I did not discover. As to the 
 attacks of the Northern papers, I do not mind them, 
 and do not think it wise to make the publication you 
 suggest, li all the names of the people at Arlington 
 and on the Pamunkey are not embraced in the deed I 
 have executed, I should like a supplementary deed to be 
 drawn up containing all those omitted. They are all 
 entitled to their freedom, and I wish to give it to them. 
 Those that have been carried away I hope are free and 
 happy. I can not get their papers to them, and they do 
 not require them. I will give them if they ever call for 
 them. It would be useless to ask their restitution to 
 manumit them. The enemy is still in large force opposite 
 to us. There is no indication of his future movements." 
 And on the 29th of January he writes : " The storm 
 has culminated here in a deep snow, which does not im- 
 prove our comfort. It came particularly hard on some 
 of our troops whom I was obliged to send some eleven 
 miles up the Rappahannock to meet a recent move of 
 General Burnside. Their bivouac in the rain and snow 
 was less comfortable than at their former stations, where 
 they had constructed some shelter. General Burnside's 
 designs have apparently been frustrated, either by the 
 storm or by other causes, and on last Saturday he took 
 
238 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 a special steamer to Washington, to consult the military 
 oracles at the Federal seat of Government. Sunday I 
 heard of his being closeted with President Lincoln, Sec- 
 retary Stanton, and General Halleck. I suppose we 
 shall have a new programme next week. You had bet- 
 ter finish all the gloves you intend making at once, and 
 send them to the army. Next month they will be much 
 needed. After that no use for this winter. Tell Mr. 
 Haskins I am delighted the turkey was so good. I was 
 that day up at United States Mine Ford, on the Rappa- 
 hannock. Did not get back till late at night. After 
 our nocturnal repast was over, having been on horse- 
 back from early breakfast, you can imagine how I would 
 have enjoyed it. I was, however, thinking so much of 
 General Burnside's playing us such a shabby trick, run- 
 ning off to Washington when we were waiting for him, 
 that I did not then miss my dinner." 
 
 General Lee was surrounded by embarrassments 
 during the wmter — the troops were scantily clothed, ra- 
 tions for men and animals meager. The shelters were 
 poor, and through them broke the sun, rains, and winds. 
 He could not strike his enemy, but must watch and be 
 patient, for he remembered the favorite maxim of Marl- 
 borough, " Patience will overcome all things, and the 
 gods smile on those who can wait." He was obHged to 
 send Longstreet with two of his four divisions to the 
 section south of James River, nearly one hundred miles 
 away, to relieve his commissary department and to col- 
 lect supplies, and was thus deprived of their support 
 when the campaign opened. Across the river his bet- 
 ter sheltered, fed, and clothed opponent had his trou- 
 bles too. Burnside had lost the confidence of many of 
 his principal officers, and after a harmless attempt to 
 reach Lee by Banks's Ford, six miles above Fredericks- 
 burg, further winter operations were suspended. 
 
 Then Burnside prepared a sweeping order, dismiss^ 
 ing from the army Generals Hooker, Brooks, Cochrane, 
 and Newton, and relieving from their commands Gen- 
 erals Franklin, W. F. Smith, Sturgis, Ferrero, and Colo- 
 nel Joseph Taylor, Sumner's adjutant general. To ap- 
 prove the order, or accept his resignation, was the 
 alternative presented to the President. Mr. Lincoln 
 
SHARPSBURG AND FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 239 
 
 accepted his resignation, and immediately placed the 
 baton of the army commander in the hands of Joseph 
 Hooker, the head and front of the caballed officers. 
 Mr. Lincoln's letter of January 26, 1863, to Hooker, is 
 characteristic. He tells him he has thwarted Burnside 
 as much as he could, doing a great wrong to his country 
 and to a most meritorious brother officer ; that he had 
 heard of his saying that both the army and country 
 needed a dictator. " What I ask," he adds, " is military 
 success. In that event I will risk the dictatorship " ; and 
 concludes by begging him to *' Beware of rashness ! " 
 
 Hooker, or " Fighting Joe," as he was sometimes 
 called, had managed a corps well, possessed personal 
 magnetism and a fine presence, but had not the ability 
 to conduct great operations ; and yet it must be admitted 
 his preliminary steps toward reorganization and the pro- 
 motion of the battle power of his army were well taken. 
 He found his army amid the Stafford hills, on the left 
 bank of the Rappahannock, and stretching back to the 
 Potomac some twelve miles, which river gave him a 
 splendid line of communication with his capital, secure 
 from an enemy who had no boats. IMuch discontent 
 prevailed in the ranks, and his men were deserting at 
 the rate of two hundred per day. A majority of the 
 officers, too, were hostile to the policy of the Govern- 
 ment, and the number of absentees without leave 
 amounted to 2,922 officers and 81,964 non-commissioned 
 officers and privates, while the express trains to the army 
 w^ere filled with citizens' clothing, sent to assist soldiers to 
 desert. Hooker, by judicious furloughs, stopped this in 
 a measure, filled up his ranks, instilled discipline, gave 
 leaves to the officers, consolidated his cavalry into a 
 corps, and replaced the Corps d'armee or Grand Divi- 
 sions by an army organization of seven corps, command- 
 ed by, First, Reynolds; Second, Couch; Third, Sickles; 
 Fifth, Meade ; Sixth, Sedgwick ; Eleventh, Howard ; 
 and Twelfth, Slocum. Then he began to study strategy, 
 for Mr. Lincoln had said, " Go forward and give us victo- 
 ries." Lee's army, his objective point, must be reached — 
 but how ? The more the problem was considered the 
 more he was convinced its solution involved reaching 
 General Lee's left rear. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHANCELLORS VI LLE. 
 
 Chancellorsville was the most wonderful of Lee's 
 battles, and demanded the highest exercise of his mili- 
 tary ability. The Army of Northern Virginia amounted 
 to 53:3^3 present for duty at Chancellorsville, with one 
 hundred and seventy pieces of artillery.* 
 
 The Federals numbered, according to the return of 
 April 30th, an aggregate of officers and men present of 
 138,378, and, under the head of "present for duty 
 equipped," which embraces those actually available for 
 the line of battle at the date of the report, the army 
 numbered 133,708. Hooker had by these returns, there- 
 fore, a numerical superiority on the field of 80,000. 
 
 The Southern commander, penetrating the Federal 
 plan of operations, placed one of the only two cavalry 
 brigades with his army in the vicinity of Culpeper Court 
 House, and had the Rappahannock picketed for twenty- 
 five miles above the left of his infantry. Hooker deter- 
 mined to break up this observation cavalry, for they 
 would be too near his flanking route, and on the i6th 
 dispatched three thousand cavalry under Averell to 
 attack them. The Southern brigade was small at the 
 time. The cavalrymen owned their horses, and many 
 of them had been detailed to go home to get fresh 
 horses for the spring campaign. Owing to that fact, 
 and the absence of many squadrons on detached service, 
 only eight hundred men could be placed in the saddle. 
 Butterfield, Hooker's chief of staff, reported the combat 
 
 * The returns make the numbers 57,112. This included Hamp- 
 ton's and Jones's cavalry brigades, which, though included in the re- 
 turns, v/ere absent, making the cavalry at Chancellorsville 2,700 in- 
 stead of 6,500, as in the returns. 
 
 (240) 
 
Cli ANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 241 
 
 that followed as the best cavalry fight of the war, last- 
 ing five hours, charging and recharging on both sides, 
 and that the Confederate cavalry were driven back 
 three miles into cover of earthworks and heavy guns. 
 Stanton, the Federal Secretary of War, congratulated 
 Hooker on the success of the expedition. " You have 
 drawn the first blood, and I hope now to see the boys 
 up and at them." It was Sir Walter Raleigh who said 
 that human testimony was so unreliable that no two 
 men could see the same occurrence and give the same 
 report of it. The Confederate official reports state that 
 Averell was defeated and driven back across the river. 
 Major John Pelham, who was accidentally present, being 
 summoned to Culpeper Court House as a witness in a 
 court-martial, borrowed a horse and rode out on the 
 field, where he acted temporarily as aid-de-camp, and 
 was killed. He was Stuart's chief of horse artillery, 
 and a graduate of West Point of the class of 1861. The 
 death of this blue-eyed Alabama boy was a great loss. 
 His superb courage and dash had been immortalized by 
 Jackson's expression, after seeing him handle his guns 
 at Sharpsburg, that "an army should have a Pelham on 
 each flank," while General Lee called him, at Fredericks- 
 burg, "the gallant Pelham"; and Stuart in General Or- 
 ders wrote: "The memory of the gallant Pelham, his 
 many virtues, his noble nature, his purity of character, 
 is enshrined as a sacred legacy in the hearts of all who 
 knew him." 
 
 On the arrival of spring the two armies were still in 
 sight of each other occupying the old lines. Hooker 
 must now assume the offensive. In addition to his 
 twelve corps of infantry — three divisions to a corps, ex- 
 cept Slocum's, who had two — he had a large, finely ap- 
 pointed cavalry corps under Stoneman, numbering thir- 
 teen thousand three hundred and ninety-eight sabers, 
 and three hundred and seventy-five cannon. The Con- 
 federate force consisted of McLaws and Anderson's di- 
 visions of Longstreet's corps (Hood and Pickett's divi- 
 sions of that corps being absent in the vicinity of 
 Suffolk, south of James River), and Jackson's corps, 
 composed of the divisions of A. P. Hill, Early, and D. H. 
 Hill under Rodes, and Trimble under Colston. 
 
242 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 The Federal general's designs were well conceived. 
 He proposed to march three of his corps up the Rappa- 
 hannock twenty-seven miles, cross them at Kelly's Ford, 
 add to them one corps which should cross below at 
 United States Ford, and with these four corps make a 
 great turning column, which should move down on Lee's 
 left rear, while the remaining three corps, constituting his 
 left wing, should cross a la Burnside in Lee's front at 
 Fredericksburg, hold him steady by the menace of a di- 
 rect attack, and when he was manoeuvred out of his in- 
 trenchments, pursue him. In order to make the blow 
 more effective, Stoneman was directed to make a wide 
 detour well around the Southern left and rear, throw 
 ten thousand sabers between Lee and Richmond, break- 
 ing up his communications, stopping his supplies, and 
 be in a position to obstruct the Confederate retreat 
 until Hooker could deliver a final blow. 
 
 The Union cavalry were put in motion as early as 
 the 13th of April to cross the upper fords of the Rappa- 
 hannock. Mr. Lincoln, who was alive to all that was 
 going on, telegraphed Hooker : '^ The rain and mud were, 
 of course, to be calculated upon. General Stoneman is 
 not moving rapidly enough to make the expedition come 
 to anything. He has now been out three days, two of 
 which were unusually fair weather, and all free from 
 hindrance by his enemy, and yet he is not twenty-five 
 miles from where he started. To reach his point he has 
 still sixty to go. By arithmetic how many days will 
 it take him to do it?" The general impatience for a 
 move was prevalent everywhere. Even the Union Gen- 
 eral Peck, at Suffolk, hoping to be relieved from Long- 
 street's presence, wired urging it, to which Hooker re- 
 plied on April 21st: "You must be patient with me. I 
 must play with these devils before I can spring." 
 
 On the 27th Hooker's turning column of the Eleventh, 
 Twelfth, and Fifth Corps began its march, while two di- 
 visions of Couch's Second Corps were sent to United 
 States Ford, between Kelly's and Fredericksburg. On 
 the night of the 28th and the morning of the 29th the 
 right wing crossed the Rappahannock River, marched 
 under Hooker's immediate command in two columns 
 for the Rapidan, crossing that stream at Germania and 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 243 
 
 Ely's Fords. Having brought Couch to him, Hooker 
 was concentrated on the night of the 30th at Chancel- 
 lorsville, ten miles west of Fredericksburg, but had con- 
 sumed four days in getting this far on Lee's left. 
 
 The day before Hooker moved, Sedgwick, proceed- 
 ing to carry out his part of the plan, crossed the Rappa- 
 hannock below Fredericksburg with the First, Third, and 
 Sixth Corps, numbering fifty-two thousand four hundred 
 and one. This imposing demonstration on Lee's front, 
 it was expected, would make him arrange for another 
 defensive battle, and while doing so. Hooker's right wing 
 would overwhelm his left and attack in reverse his forti- 
 fied lines. The next day Sickles's Third Corps, having 
 assisted Sedgwick to demonstrate, went to Hooker at 
 Chancellorsville to join in the contemplated crushing; 
 but Sedgwick still had for his feint thirty-seven thou- 
 sand SIX hundred and seventy-three troops. 
 
 Hooker was greatly elated at the situation on the 
 night of the 30th. The next day he would advance with 
 "the finest army on the planet," as he called it, uncover 
 Banks's Ford six miles below, and thus have direct com- 
 munication by a short route with Sedgwick. He con- 
 gratulated in General Orders the right wing at the great 
 success attending their operations, telling them that his 
 enemy "must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind 
 his defenses and give us battle on our own ground, 
 where certain destruction awaits him." On May ist 
 Hooker started for Fredericksburg. The four corps with 
 him, less Gibbon's division of the Second at Falmouth, 
 and exclusive of a cavalry brigade, amounted to seven- 
 ty-three thousand one hundred and twenty-four. What 
 a grand army to hurl on an enemy's flank ! 
 
 If the Union general's tactics had kept pace with his 
 strategy, his numbers might have given him a great 
 victory. His well-devised plans were divined by his 
 alert antagonist. Stuart's cavalry pickets, which were 
 driven away from Kelly's Ford on the 28th, reported 
 infantry crossing there that night; their line of march 
 was quickly ascertained next day and reported to Gen- 
 eral Lee by telegraph from Culpeper Court House. 
 Stuart made a detour with one of his two brigades of 
 cavalry, after throwing a regiment in front of the Fed- 
 
244 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 eral advance, and reaching Todd's Tavern on the 30th, 
 placed his cavalry across the routes leading to Lee's 
 lines of communication. Jackson, whose right stretched 
 fourteen miles below Fredericksburg, was brought up to 
 Hamilton's Crossing the same day Hooker's right wing 
 was crossing the river at Kelly's, and then Lee waited 
 for his enemy's plans to be more fully developed, believ- 
 ing the war maxim, ** When your enemy is making a mis- 
 take he must not be interrupted." He readily perceived 
 that with Hooker at Chancellorsville and Sedgwick 
 three miles below Fredericksburg, the two wings were 
 thirteen miles apart, and that his army was directly be- 
 tween them. He understood the military problem — 
 drive the wedge in and keep them separate, hold one 
 still by a feint or retard his march by fighting, concen- 
 trate on and overwhelm the other. Sedgwick lay quiet 
 while Hooker was massing at Chancellorsville. 
 
 " Jackson at first," says Lee, " preferred to attack 
 Sedgwick's force in the plain of Fredericksburg, but I 
 told him I feared it was as impracticable as it was at 
 the first battle of Fredericksburg. It was hard to get 
 at the enemy, and harder to get away, if we drove him 
 into the river, but if he thought it could be done, I would 
 give orders for it." Jackson asked to be allowed to ex- 
 amine the ground, and did so during the afternoon, and 
 at night came to Lee and said he thought he [Lee] was 
 right. It would be inexpedient to attack there. "Move, 
 then," said Lee, " up to Anderson," who had been previ- 
 ously ordered to proceed to Chancellorsville. " And the 
 next timie I saw Jackson," says General Lee, " was the 
 next day — May ist — when he was on our skirmish line, 
 driving in the enemy's skirmishers around Chancellors- 
 ville." 
 
 McLaws reached Anderson's position before sun- 
 rise on the ist, and Jackson at 8 a. m. It was deter- 
 mined to hammer Hooker while Sedgwick was held at 
 arm's length. Lee wisely selected Early to keep, if 
 possible, Sedgwick out of the difficulty he proposed to 
 have with Hooker, and, in addition to his own division, 
 gave him Barksdale's brigade of McLaws's division and 
 the reserve artillery under General Pendleton. Jackson 
 found Anderson some six miles from Chancellorsville, 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 245 
 
 intrenching. He ordered the work discontinued, for, as 
 usual, he wanted at once to find his enemy. At 11 a. m. 
 the Confederates, in two columns under Anderson and 
 McLaws, with Jackson closely following, moved on 
 Chanceliorsville. 
 
 The same morning Hooker put his troops in motion 
 in three columns on the roads Lee was marching, think- 
 ing the latter was held at Fredericksburg by his demon- 
 stration there, and ordered his headquarters to be es- 
 tablished at Tabernacle Church, half-way between Chan- 
 celiorsville and Fredericksburg, at 2 p. m. ; but the 
 church was not destined to be so marked. As the head 
 of his columns debouched from the forest a few miles 
 from Chanceliorsville, they encountered the Army of 
 Northern Virginia advancing in line of battle, which so 
 surprised Hooker that he lost for the first time his self- 
 confidence. He had not dreamed that Lee would 
 assume the offensive. It embarrassed him so much 
 that he decided on defensive tactics — a decision fatal 
 to him. Fearing he could not throw his troops through 
 the forest fast enough, and apprehensive of being whipped 
 in detail, he ordered his army to retire to their lines 
 around Chanceliorsville. Lee, with brilliant daring 
 worthy of the hero of Malakoff, followed him and estab- 
 lished a line of battle in front of him, at some points 
 withm a mile of Chanceliorsville. " Here," says he, " the 
 enemy had assumed a position of great natural strength, 
 surrounded on all sides by a dense forest filled with 
 tangled undergrowth, in the midst of which breastworks 
 of logs had been constructed with trees felled in front so 
 as to form an almost impenetrable abatis. His artillery 
 swept the few narrow roads by which his position could 
 be approached from the front, and commanded the ad- 
 jacent works." The left of Hooker's line extended from 
 Chanceliorsville to the Rappahannock River, covering 
 the United States Ford, while on the other, side it 
 reached west as far as Wilderness Church. His left (lank 
 was unassailable, as Lee found from a personal recon- 
 noissance that afternoon, and his front impregnable. Of 
 the five miles of battle line, his right alone could be con- 
 sidered. That night Stuart brought the Rev. Dr. B. T. 
 Lacy to Lee, who told him a circuit could be made 
 
246 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 around by Wilderness Tavern, and General Lee directed 
 Jackson to make his arrangements to move early next 
 day around the Federal right flank. 
 
 The sun rose on this eventful 2d of May unclouded 
 and brilliant, gilding the hill tops and penetrating the 
 vapors of the valley — as gorgeous as was the sun of 
 Austerlitz, which produced such an impression upon the 
 imagination of Napoleon. Its rays fell upon the last 
 meetmg in this world of Lee and Jackson. The Duke 
 of Wellington is reported to have said: "A man of fine 
 Christian sensibilities is totally unlit for the position of 
 a soldier " ; but here were two great soldiers who faith- 
 fully performed all their duties as Christians. 
 
 Lee, erect and soldierly, emerged from the little pine 
 thicket where he had bivouacked during the night, and 
 stood on its edge at sunrise to see Jackson's troops file 
 by. When Jackson came along he stopped and the two 
 conversed for a few moments, after which Jackson 
 speedily rejoined his troops, now making their famous 
 flank march. Bold, but dangerous, was Lee's strategy. 
 He had decided to keep some 14,000 men, under Ander- 
 son and McLaws, in front of Hooker's 73,000, while 
 Jackson marched by a wide circuit with less than 30,000, 
 to gain the Union right rear. Reynolds's First Corps 
 on that day was marching from Sedgwick to Hooker. 
 It numbered 19,595, and reached Hooker at daylight on 
 the 3d. General Hooker then had around Chancellors- 
 ville 92,719 men. 
 
 At Austerlitz, when the Russians made the flank 
 movement around the French right. Napoleon moved at 
 once upon the weakened line of the allies in his front 
 and burst through it. Leaving some battalions to hold 
 the right wing, he wheeled the remainder upon the left 
 and destroyed it, and then, turning toward the right 
 wing, he directed upon it a terrible onset, and it too 
 was no more. In some places the men in Lee's thin 
 gray line in front of Hooker were six feet apart. Jack- 
 son marched rapidly diagonally across the front of 
 Hooker's line of battle, screened from view by the for- 
 est and by three regiments of cavalry which had been 
 ordered to mask the movement as well as to precede it. 
 
 As early as 8 a. m. Birney, of Sickles's corps, reported a 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 247 
 
 continuous column of infantry trains and ambulances pass- 
 ing his front. His division was on Howard's left, whose 
 corps formed the right of the Union army. Sickles sent 
 a battery forward to a commanding position on his front 
 and fired at the moving column, and at 12 m, moved with 
 two of his divisions and Barlow's brigade of Howard's 
 corps and gained the road Jackson was moving on, 
 capturing a few hundred of his men. Howard did not 
 fear an attack on his right, for his brigade, in reserve at 
 that point, was selected to assist in Sickles's pursuit. 
 
 At 9.30 A. M. Hooker notified Slocum and Howard 
 that the right of their line did not appear to be strong 
 enough. " We have good reason to suppose the enemy 
 is moving to our right." Howard does not admit that he 
 ever received the notification — Slocum says he read it; 
 but at 10.50 A. M. Hooker received a dispatch from How- 
 ard that a column of infantry had been observed moving 
 west, and that he had taken measures to resist an attack 
 from the west. Later he became convinced it was a re- 
 treat, not an attack. At 2 p. m. Couch, next m com- 
 mand, was told by Hooker that Lee was in full retreat 
 toward Gordonsville, and that he had sent out Sickles 
 to capture his artillery ; and at 4.10 p. m., the hour Jack- 
 son was forming his column of attack behind his right, 
 Hooker sent a dispatch to Sedgwick : " We know the 
 enemy is flying, trying to save his trains. Two of 
 Sickles's divisions are among them." 
 
 About 3 P.M. Jackson's van reached the plank road, 
 three miles west of Chancellorsville. The commander 
 of the cavalry accompanymg him had made a personal 
 reconnoissance while waiting for Jackson t'o come up, 
 and had located the exact position of the Union right. 
 When Jackson arrived, at his request, he accompanied 
 him through a concealed wooded road to a hill over- 
 looking the rear of the Federal right. Below and but 
 a few hundred yards' distant ran their line of battle, 
 with abatis in front and long lines of stacked arms in 
 the rear. Cannon in position were visible, and the sol- 
 diers were in groups, chatting, smoking, and playing 
 cards, while others in the rear were driving up and butch- 
 ering beeves. Stonewall's face bore an expression of in- 
 tense interest during the five minutes he was on the hill, 
 
248 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and the Federal position was pointed out to him. His e3'es 
 had a briUiant glow. The paint of approaching battle was 
 coloring his cheeks, and he was radiant to find no prepa- 
 ration had been made to guard against a flank attack. 
 He made no remarks to the officer with him ; his lips 
 were, however, moving, for, sitting on his horse in sight of 
 and close to Howard's troops, he was engaged in an ap- 
 peal to the God of Battles. He quickly perceived what 
 had been suggested — that by movnig to the old turnpike, 
 a little farther to the rear, and not turning down the 
 plank road as proposed, he would take Howard's Ime in 
 reverse and not in front. "Tell General Rodes," said 
 he, suddenly wheeling his horse to a courier, "to move 
 across the plank road and halt when he gets to the old 
 turnpike. I will join him there." And then he rode 
 rapidly back. 
 
 The cavalry, supported by Paxton's brigade of infan- 
 try, was placed a short distance down the plank road 
 to mask the march of the remainmg troops across it. 
 Jackson's troops reached the old turnpike at 4 p. m. 
 Two hours were consumed in getting the command up 
 and organizing for the attack. At this point Jackson 
 wrote his last note to General Lee : 
 
 Near 3 P. M., May 2, 1863. 
 General : The enemy has made a stand at Chancellors,* 
 which is about two miles from Chancellorsville. I hope as soon 
 as practicable to attack. I trust that an ever-kind Providence 
 will bless us with great success. Respectfully, 
 
 T. J. Jackson, Lieutena7it General. 
 The leading division is up, and the next two appear to be well 
 closed. T. J. J. 
 
 General R. E. Lee. 
 
 As the different divisions arrived they were formed at 
 right angles to the road, Rodes's in front, Trimble's divi- 
 sion, under Colston, in the second line two hundred yards 
 in the rear, and A. P. Hill's in supporting distance in col- 
 umn. At 6 p. M., all being ready, Jackson ordered the 
 advance. His men burst with a cheer upon the startled 
 enemy, and, like a disciplined thunderbolt, swept down 
 the line and captured cannon before they could be re- 
 
 * Also known as Dowdall's Tavern. 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 249 
 
 versed to fire on them. Howard had two regiments and 
 two guns, under Von Gilsen, at right angles to his main 
 line. The Confederate rush first struck him, and he 
 called for re-enforcements. Howard told him he must 
 " hold his post with the men he had and trust to God ! " 
 His command of fourteen hundred did not hold on long, 
 as they only lost one hundred and thirty-three killed, 
 wounded, and missing. Rabbits and squirrels ran and 
 flocks of birds flew in front of the advance of these 
 twenty-six thousand men who had dropped so suddenly 
 into their forest haunts, giving in some instances the 
 first notice of an unusual disturbance there. 
 
 The Union commander, whose surprised troops were 
 about to be overwhelmed, was recalled to the period 
 when, as a youth, he says, he watched the appearance of 
 contending winds, when the clouds, black and blacker, 
 swift and swifter, rose high and higher as they pushed 
 forward their angry front. He heard the low rumbling 
 from afar, and, as the storm came nearer, the woods bent 
 forward and shook furiously their thick branches. The 
 lightning zigzagged in flashes. The deep-bassed thun- 
 der echoed more loudly, till there was scarcely an inter- 
 val between its ommous crashing discharges. 
 
 One half of the eleven thousand five hundred of How- 
 ard's corps were Germans, and occupied the exposed 
 flank. Devens's, Steinwehrs's, Schurz's, Schimmelfen- 
 nig's, and Kryzancerski's troops were rolled over and 
 under by this rapid "rolling reconnoissance." Quickly 
 there was a blind panic and great confusion. Sickles, 
 who had moved to the front from his place in line to 
 attack Jackson's marching flank, and to whom Howard 
 had sent re-enforcements "to make a grand attack with 
 brilliant results," was near the furnace, and came near 
 being severed from his army. The air was filled with 
 noise and smoke; the mighty current of panic-stricken 
 men grew momentarily deeper and wider. Dickinson, 
 one of Hooker's staff, implored Howard to fire on his 
 own men to stop their flight. The surging, seething sea 
 swept away all barriers. Many of the officers attempted 
 to turn back the human tide, but as well might Pharaoh 
 have tried to resist the walls of the Red Sea. Rider- 
 less horses and men without arms were everywhere, 
 
250 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and guns, caissons, forges, ambulances, battery wagons 
 rolled and tumbled like runaway wagons in a thronged 
 city. Mules tied in couples (a device of Hooker's to 
 carry ammunition) added unearthly brays to the uproar 
 and scattered the ammunition. One pair of them en- 
 tangled around a tree, was struck by a shell which ex- 
 ploded their load and blew them to pieces. Into all 
 Jackson's ranks blazed a ceaseless fire. Lee's brilliant 
 tactics had succeeded, and Hooker's right had been fairly 
 turned and rolled in a sheet of flame upon his center. 
 
 Rodes, who led with so much spirit, says : '' The 
 enemy, taken in flank and rear, did not wait for an at- 
 tack." Colston's division followed so rapidly that it 
 went over the enemy's works at Dowdall's with Rodes's 
 troops, and both divisions fought with mixed ranks un- 
 til dark. In a piece of woods the line was then halted 
 to reform. There was no apparent line of battle be- 
 tween them and Chancellorsville, and Crutchfield's guns 
 were turned on Chancellorsville. They were immedi- 
 ately responded to by a terrific fire from twenty-two guns 
 on the plank road, loaded with double canister. Jack- 
 son was most impatient to work to Hooker's rear and 
 cut him off from the United States Ford, his line of 
 retreat, and drive him on the lines of McLaws and 
 Anderson, where Lee was. These lines, from the na- 
 ture of the country, had been greatly strengthened 
 with axe and spade. To " huddle " in confusion Hook- 
 er's army in the tangled wilderness and surround it 
 seemed possible. 
 
 A. P. Hill was now ordered to the front to take charge 
 of the pursuit. While he was engaged in forming his 
 lines, Jackson, who was a little in advance, sent a staff 
 officer to order Hill to move forward as soon as possi- 
 ble, and then, accompanied by Captain Wilbourn, of the 
 Signal Corps, Captain Boswell, and some of his signal 
 men and couriers, rode slowly along the road toward 
 the enemy to reconnoiter for Hill's advance, thinking 
 perhaps a skirmish line was in his front. He had not 
 proceeded far before he came upon a line of Federal 
 infantry lying on their arms. Fired at, he turned 
 his horse, but unfortunately rode a little outside of 
 the route toward the front of some of his own troops, 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 251 
 
 who, ignorant that Jackson had passed out of the 
 lines and mistaking his party for a squad of Union 
 cavalry, fired upon it, kilhng his engineer officer, Cap- 
 tain Boswell, and Sergeant Cunliff, of the Signal Corps. 
 Jackson immediately crossed the road to avoid the fire 
 and enter his lines at another point, when, again mis- 
 taken by his troops, he received at a few paces another 
 volley from the right company of Pender's North Caro- 
 lina Brigade. Three balls penetrated him at the same 
 time. A round ball from a smooth-bore Sprmgfield mus- 
 ket passed through his right hand, and was cut out that 
 night under the skin. Another entered the outside of 
 his left forearm near the elbow, coming out near the 
 wrist, while still another struck hmi three inches below 
 the left shoulder joint, divided the artery, and fractured 
 the bone. Reeling in his saddle and losing hold of his 
 bridle rein, he was caught by Captain Wilbourn and 
 placed on the ground. A. P. Hill was soon at his side, 
 as well as his two aids, Smith and Morrison. The two 
 latter placed him in a litter, and then in an ambulance 
 he was carried from the field amid the shrieks of the 
 shells, the whistling of the bullets, and the groans of the 
 wounded and dying. His last order, after being so fear- 
 fully wounded, was to tell General Pender to hold his 
 ground. ''You must hold your ground, sir," said he. 
 
 The ambulance which carried to the field hospital at 
 Wilderness Tavern this great soldier contained his chief 
 of artillery, Crutchfield, also dangerously wounded, and 
 each seemed more concerned about the other's injuries 
 than his own. Here Jackson's left arm was amputated 
 two inches below the shoulder, and three days afterward 
 he was taken to the Chandler House, near Guinea Sta- 
 tion, on the railroad from Fredericksburg to Rich- 
 mond, where he died on the following Sunday. " Order 
 A. P. Hill to prepare for action," he cried in the delir- 
 ium just before death. " Pass the infantry to the front 
 
 rapidly. Tell Major Hawkes " He stopped, and 
 
 then with a feeling of relief he said : " Let us cross 
 over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." 
 The sword which carved his name upon the shield of 
 fame had returned forever to its scabbard. His w^ish 
 was fulfilled. " I have always desired to die on Sunday," 
 
25: 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 he had said. When Lee received a notification of his 
 being wounded he wrote to Jackson that, could he have 
 directed the course of events, he would have chosen for 
 the good of his country to have been disabled in his 
 stead. '^ I congratulate you," he added, " upon the vic- 
 tory which is due to your skill and energy." Howard 
 thought his death was providential, *' for in bold plan- 
 ning, in energy of execution, in indefatigable activity 
 and moral ascendency, he was head and shoulders above 
 his confreres y 
 
 During the flank march of his great lieutenant, Lee 
 reminded the troops in his front of his position by fre- 
 quent taps on different points of their lines, and when 
 the sound of cannon gave notice of Jackson's attack, 
 Lee ordered that Hooker's left be strongly pressed to 
 prevent his sending re-enforcements to the point as- 
 sailed. Sunday, May 3d, was an eventful day. Jack- 
 son's corps must complete its work; but who should 
 lead it ? A. P. Hill, the next in rank, had been disabled 
 shortly after Jackson was struck down. Rodes, as 
 modest as he was daring, was next in rank to Hill, but 
 in a conference with JNIajor Pendleton, Jackson's chief 
 of staff, and some of the general officers, quickly acqui- 
 esced in a suggestion that General J. E. B. Stuart be 
 sent for, because he was satisfied the good of the service 
 demanded it. Stuart was at Ely's Ford with the cavalry 
 and Sixteenth North Carolina Infantry, having gone 
 there to watch Averell, who, having returned from his 
 raid, was reported to be at that point. At 10.30 p. m. 
 Captain Adams, of Hill's staff, summoned him to the 
 command of Jackson's corps. Upon Stuart's arrival 
 upon the battlefield, Jackson had been taken to the rear, 
 but A. P. Hill, still there, turned over the command to him. 
 With the assistance of Colonel E. P. Alexander, of the 
 artillery, he was engaged all night in preparations for 
 the morrow. At early dawn on the 3d Stuart pressed 
 the corps forward — Hill's division in the first line, Trim- 
 ble's in the second, and Rodes's in the rear. 
 
 As the sun lifted the mist, the hill to the right was 
 found to be a commanding position for artillery. Quick- 
 ly thirty pieces, under Colonels T. H. Carter and Hillary 
 P. Jones, were firing from it, and their fire was very 
 
CHANXELLORSVILLE. 
 
 253 
 
 effective. Hooker was standing on the steps of the 
 portico of the Chancellor House, giving directions about 
 the battle, which was now raging with great fury, when 
 a solid shot struck the pillar near him, splitting it in 
 two, and throwing one half longitudinally against him. 
 He says for a few moments he was senseless, and the 
 report spread that he had been killed. To correct the 
 impression, as soon as he revived he insisted on mount- 
 ing his horse and riding back toward a white house, 
 which subsequently became the center of his new posi- 
 tion. Just before reaching it the pain from the wound 
 became so intense that he was obliged to dismount, and 
 was laid upon a blanket spread out upon the ground. 
 He was revived by brandy and assisted to remount. He 
 had hardly risen from the blanket when a solid shot 
 struck in the very center of it, where a moment before 
 he had been lying, and tore up the earth in a savage 
 way. Pleasonton says, when he saw him, about 10 a. m., 
 he was lying on the ground, usually in a doze, except 
 when awakened to attend to some important dispatch. 
 General Couch was temporarily called to the command 
 of the army. 
 
 In the meanwhile Stuart was pressing the attack. At 
 one time his left was so strongly resisted that his three 
 lines were merged into one. To a notice sent him that 
 the men v/ere out of ammunition, he replied that they 
 must hold their ground with the bayonet. About this 
 time Stuart's right connected with Anderson's left, 
 uniting thus the detached portions of General Lee's 
 army. He then massed infantry on his left and stormed 
 the Federal works. Twice he was repulsed, but the 
 third time Stuart placed himself on horseback at the 
 head of the troops, ordered the charge, carried the in- 
 trenchments, and held them, singing with ringing voice, 
 "Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the wilder- 
 ness?" An eye-witness says he could not get rid of the 
 impression that Harry of Navarre led the charge, except 
 that Stuart's plume was black, for everywhere the men 
 followed his feather. Anderson at the same time moved 
 rapidly upon Chancellorsville, while McLaws made a 
 strong demonstration in his front. At 10 a. m. the 
 position at Chancellorsville was won, and Hooker had 
 
254 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 withdrawn to another line nearer the Rappahannock. 
 Preparations were at once made by Lee to attack again, 
 when further operations were arrested by intelligence 
 received from Fredericksburg. 
 
 Sedgwick, after the departure of the First and Third 
 Corps from his position below Fredericksburg, was still 
 left with twenty-nine thousand three hundred and forty- 
 two troops, which included Gibbon's division of five 
 thousand, but excluded his reserve artillery. On May 
 2d, at 9.55 A. M., Hooker telegraphed him : " You are all 
 right. You have but Early's division in your front — 
 balance all up here." To oppose Sedgwick, Early had 
 his division of seventy-five hundred officers and men, 
 and Barksdale's brigade of fifteen hundred, making nine 
 thousand. In addition. Early had Andrew's battalion 
 of artillery of sixteen guns, Graham's four guns, a Whit- 
 worth gun posted below the Massaponax, and portions 
 of Walton's, Cabell's, and Cutts's battalions of artillery, 
 under General Pendleton, making in all some forty-five 
 or fifty guns. At 9 p. m. on the 2d Hooker telegraphed 
 Sedgwick to cross the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg 
 and move toward Chancellorsville until he connected with 
 him, destroying Early in his front. He tells him that 
 he " will probably fall upon the rear of the troops com- 
 manded by General Lee, and between us Lee must be 
 used up." This order was issued under the impression 
 that Sedgwick was on the north side of the river, but it 
 found him below Fredericksburg on the south side. He 
 moved up during the night, and on the morning of the 
 3d, after three assaults, carried Marye's Hill, capturing 
 eight pieces of artillery upon that and the adjacent 
 heights. Wilcox, who was at Banks's Ford, threw him- 
 self in front- of Sedgwick's advance up the plank road 
 and gallantly disputed it, falling slowly back until he 
 reached Salem Church, five miles from Fredericksburg. 
 When Lee heard that Sedgwick, with thirty thousand 
 men, was marching on his rear, he stopped his projected 
 attack on Hooker and dispatched McLaws with his 
 division and one of Anderson's brigades to re-enforce 
 Wilcox, that Sedgwick might be kept back. McLaws 
 arrived in time to assist Wilcox to repulse Sedgwick's 
 further advance. On the morning of the 4th Early ad- 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 255 
 
 vanced along the telegraph road and regained Marye's 
 and the adjacent hills. 
 
 General Lee now determined to crush Sedgwick if 
 possible; so leaving Stuart with Jackson's corps in 
 Hooker's front, he marched to McLaws and Early's as- 
 sistance with Anderson's division. Anderson reached 
 Salem Church about noon, but the attack did not begir 
 until about six, owing, General Lee says, to the difficulty 
 of getting the troops in position. When the signal was 
 given, Anderson and Early moved forward at once in 
 gallant style, drivmg Sedgwick across the plank road 
 in the direction of the Rappahannock. The approach- 
 ing darkness, we are told by General Lee, prevented 
 McLaws from perceiving the success of the attack, until 
 the enemy began to cross the river below Banks's Ford. 
 When the morning of the 5th dawned, Sedgwick had 
 made good his escape and removed his bridges. Fred- 
 ericksburg was also evacuated. Early was left to hold 
 the lines as before, while Anderson and McLaws returned 
 to Chancellorsville, which place they reached on the 
 afternoon of the 5th in a violent thunderstorm. At day- 
 light on the 6th these two divisions were ordered to as- 
 sail the enemy's works in conjunction with Jackson's 
 corps, but during the storm of the night before. Hooker 
 retired over the river. One can hardly conceive a 
 greater risk than -that taken by General Lee in these 
 operations. For two days Hooker's immense army was 
 kept in place by Jackson's corps, while General Lee as- 
 saulted Sedgwick. 
 
 The Confederate cavalry operations, from smallness 
 of numbers, were much circumscribed. Stuart only had 
 five regiments at Chancellorsville, three of them being on 
 Lee's left and two on his right, while two more had been 
 left to contend as best they could with Stoneman's ten 
 thousand troopers. Stoneman accomplished nothing. 
 Hooker's official report says that no officer ever made 
 a greater mistake in construing his orders, and no one 
 ever accomplished less in so doing. He returned to the 
 army on the 4th, the day Sedgwick was disposed of. 
 General Lee's official report said that " the conduct 
 of the troops can not be too highly praised. Attacking 
 largely superior numbers in strongly intrenched posi- 
 
256 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 tions, their heroic courage overcame every obstacle of 
 Nature and of art, and achieved a triumph most honor- 
 able to our arms." 
 
 Hooker's General Order No. 49, of May 6th, con- 
 gratulates his army on its achievements, saying that, 
 in withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahan- 
 nock before delivering a general battle, the army has 
 given renewed evidence of its confidence in itself and 
 its fidelity to the principles it represents. That the 
 Army of the Potomac was profoundly loyal, and confi^- 
 dent of its strength, and would give or decline battle 
 when its interests or its honor might demand. "The 
 events of last week," said he, " might well swell with 
 pride the heart of every officer and soldier of this army." 
 And then in a letter to Mr. Lincoln, dated May 13th, 
 1863, Hooker says: "Is it asking too much to inquire 
 your opinion of my Order No. 49 ? If so, do not answer 
 me. Jackson is dead, and Lee beats McClellan with his 
 untruthful bulletins." It is not known whether Mr. 
 Lincoln ever answered this question. The truth is, the 
 Army of the Potomac was woefully mismanaged. Its 
 commander guided it into the mazes of the Wilderness 
 and got it so mixed and tangled that no chance was 
 afforded for a display of its mettle. General Paxton 
 was killed while leading his brigade with conspicuous 
 courage in the assault of the 3d. Generals A. P. Hill, 
 Nichols, McGowan, Heth, Hoke, and Pender were 
 wounded. 
 
 Chancellorsville is inseparably connected in its glory 
 and gloom with Stonewall Jackson. General Lee offi- 
 cially writes: "I do not propose to speak here of the 
 character of this illustrious man, since removed from the 
 scene of his eminent usefulness by the hand of an in- 
 scrutable but all-wise Providence. I nevertheless de- 
 sire to pay the tribute of my admiration to the match- 
 less energy and skill that marked this last act of his 
 life, forming, as it did, a worthy conclusion of that long 
 series of splendid achievements which won for him the 
 lasting gratitude and love of his country." 
 
 Jackson's purely military, genius resembled Caesar's 
 and Napoleon's. Like the latter, his success must be 
 attributed to the rapid audacity of his movements and 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 257 
 
 to his masterly control of the confidence and will of his 
 men. He had the daring temper and fiery spirit of Caesar 
 in battle. Caesar fell at the base of Pompey's statue, 
 which had been restored by his magnanimity, pierced 
 by twenty-three wounds at the hands of those he had 
 done most for. Jackson fell at the hands of those who 
 would have cheerfully joined their comrades in the dis- 
 mal, silent bivouacks, if his life could have been spared. 
 With Wolfe, Nelson, and Havelock he takes his place in 
 the hearts of English-speaking people. 
 
 General Lee wrote Mrs. Lee from camp near Fred- 
 ericksburg, May II, 1863: "In addition to the death of 
 friends and officers consequent upon the late battle, you 
 will see we have to mourn the loss of the good and great 
 Jackson. Any victory would be dear at such a price. 
 His remains go to Richmond to-day. I know not how 
 to replace him, but God's will be done. I trust He will 
 raise some one in his place." 
 
 The battle of Chancellorsville increased immensely 
 General Lee's fame. The difference in the numbers of 
 the contestants was very marked. The three corps 
 originally crossed to Lee's front at Fredericksburg were 
 about equal in numbers to the whole of his army, so 
 that Hooker's right flanking wing of four corps repre- 
 sented his numerical superiority. 
 
 The tactical and strategical operations of Chancel- 
 lorsville is a remarkably interesting military study. Two 
 armies seek, like the knight La Mancha, a foe to combat. 
 One is much stronger than the other, and in quarter- 
 master, commissary, and ordnance supplies is vastly su- 
 perior. The larger army assumes the offensive, and 
 plans to hold the smaller in place with one of its wings, 
 while making a three or four days' detour with the other 
 and greater portion to attack it in reverse. The flank- 
 ing movement is arrested, while the identical tactics 
 proposed are adopted by the other army, which in turn 
 successfully assails their flank and rear, and holds them 
 in the close embrace of a portion of the assailing troops, 
 while two divisions which had been in their original front 
 are countermarched and added to the division left at 
 Fredericksburg. The three then attack and drive over 
 the river the troops which were attempting to get in 
 
238 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 thein rear at Chancellorsville, after which they are 
 marched back to join in the expected battle around 
 Chancellorsville next day, which did not take place be- 
 cause their opponents retreated across the river during 
 the night. The bold conception of Lee was faultlessly 
 executed by officers and men. It is true the wretched 
 terrene assisted him in holding the lines in front of 
 Hooker, for his axes could quickly make it defensible; 
 that the forest concealed Jackson's march, and that an 
 unpardonable negligence permitted twenty-five or thirty 
 thousand troops to pass near a line of battle for many 
 hours and mass for attack a short distance behind one 
 of its flanks. 
 
 Had Hooker kept the ten thousand sabers of Stone- 
 man, which he sent away on a fruitless mission, and 
 placed them on the right or in front of his flank, his in- 
 fantry would not have been surprised ; or had he con- 
 tinued his advance on Fredericksburg when first moving 
 out of Chancellorsville, and, pushed his cavalry along 
 the route toward Todd's Tavern and Spottsylvania 
 Court House, the chances of success would have been in 
 his favor. General Lee fought the battle in the only 
 way it could have been won, but the risks assumed were 
 very great. To say that he committed faults is only to 
 say that he. made war. Once more the armies surveyed 
 each other from their old camps; twice had one of them 
 attempted the offensive. It was but fair that the Con- 
 federates should make the next move. 
 
 Lee devoted the few weeks of rest and recuperation 
 which now followed in placing his army in better condi- 
 tion and reorganizing it. He now divided it into three 
 corps instead of two — three divisions to the corps — com- 
 manded respectively by Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. 
 Hill. Ewell had been next in command to Jackson, par- 
 ticipating in the glories of his Valley campaign, and main- 
 taining his reputation as an excellent assistant to his 
 great chief. He graduated at West Point in 1840, and 
 served twenty-one years in the United States Army ; 
 was in Mexico, and brevetted for gallantry at Contreras 
 and Churubusco ; served on the frontier in the dragoons ; 
 was forty-three years old; ^had lost a leg at second 
 Manassas, and was just able to rejoin the army. He 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 259 
 
 succeeded to much of Jackson's spirit and the quick- 
 ness and ardor of his strokes in battle, was kind-hearted, 
 eccentric, and absent-minded. It has been said this 
 last trait came very near being fatal to him, for, forget- 
 ting he had lost his leg, he suddenly started one day to 
 walk and came down on the stump, imperfectly healed, 
 which produced a violent haemorrhage. '' Virginia never 
 had a truer gentleman, a braver soldier, nor an odder, 
 more lovable fellow." 
 
 A. P. Hill's promotion to a corps commander was 
 bestowed on account of meritorious service. He had 
 graduated at West Point seven years later than Ewell, 
 and was an artillery officer in the United States Army. 
 His bravery at the first Manassas, around Richmond — 
 where he drew the first blood — at second Manassas, 
 Harper's Ferry, and at Sharpsburg, had been conspicu- 
 ous, and drew to him the attention of his commanding 
 general.* 
 
 The artillery arm consisted of fifteen battalions of 
 four batteries each, besides the batteries of horse artil- 
 lery, and to each infantry corps was assigned its own 
 battalions of artillery, commanded by its own chief, 
 while the reserve artillery of the whole army was in 
 charge of General Pendleton, Lee's chief of artillery. 
 This arm of the service was well commanded, and was 
 rapidly asserting its claim to the front rank of the artil- 
 lery armament of an army. Parrott, Napoleon, Whit- 
 worth, and Armstrong guns, acquired by capture and 
 foreign purchase, were replacing the 6- and 12-pound 
 howitzers. Longstreet's two absent divisions had re- 
 turned under their distinguished commander. The 
 cavalry had again been brought together, and was more 
 numerous and effective than ever. At the end of May, 
 
 * In October, 1862, eight months before the army was reorganized, 
 General Lee wrote Mr. Davis, recommending that- Generals Long- 
 street and Jackson be made corps commanders, and saying : " Next to 
 these two officers I consider A. P. Hill the best commander with me ; 
 he fights his troops well and takes good care of them, but two corps 
 are enough for the present." In a published article since the war, 
 General Longstreet has stated that General Lee would not recom- 
 mend General D. H. Hill or McLaws, both of whom ranked A. P. 
 Hill for the Third Corps, because they were not Virginians, which is 
 not true, and does General Lee very great injustice. 
 
26o GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Lee commanded a splendid army, numbering present 
 for duty, by the returns of May 31, 1863, 54,356 in- 
 fantry, 9,536 cavalry, and 4,460 artillery, or a total of 
 68,352, with over two hundred guns. Its efficiency, 
 confidence, and morale made it worthy of being led by a 
 great chief. 
 
 The time for active operations to be resumed had 
 arrived. Lee would have preferred that Hooker should 
 assume the offensive, but as he showed no disposition 
 to do it, the financial condition of the South and the 
 scarcity of supplies made time too precious to wait 
 longer for such action on his part. 
 
 Moltke, with his impassive student face, his bent 
 figure, and his periodic pinches of snuff, directing opera- 
 tions as if they were certain calculations, was not more 
 diligent than Lee, as under his canvas shelter he planned 
 the Pennsylvania campaign, and designated, it is said, 
 Gettysburg or its vicinity as the place of battle. It is cer- 
 tain that at that time he foretold his enemy's movements, 
 knew his own, and predicted a meeting in Pennsylvania 
 east of the mountains. Among the results to be reached 
 by a march to Pennsylvania was the relief of the Con- 
 federate commissariat. Indeed, when making requisi- 
 tion for a supply of rations, the commissary general is 
 reported to have said, " If General Lee wants rations 
 let him seek them in Pennsylvania." Among other re- 
 sults of a decisive successful battle on Northern soil, 
 might be a recognition of the Confederacy by foreign 
 powers and a lasting peace. 
 
 General Lee had been accustomed to expose himself 
 unnecessarily on the field of battle, and about this time 
 his son W. H. F. Lee wrote to him : " I hear from every 
 one of your exposing yourself. You must recollect, if 
 anything should happen to you the cause would be very 
 much jeopardized. I want very much to see you. May 
 God preserve you, my dear father, is the earnest prayer 
 of your devoted son." Lee remarked upon one occa- 
 sion, when remonstrated with about endangering his 
 life : " I wish some one would tell mie my proper place 
 in battle. I am always told I should not be where I 
 am." On May 20, 1863, from camp near Fredericksburg, 
 the general writes to Mrs. Lee in Richmond : '' I learn that 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 261 
 
 our poor wounded are doing very well. General Hooker 
 is airing himself north of the Rappahannock and again 
 threatening us with a crossing. It was reported last 
 night that he had brought his pontoons to the river, but 
 I hear nothing of him this morning. I think he will 
 consider it a few days. He has published a gratu- 
 latory order to his troops, telling them they have cov- 
 ered themselves with new laurels, have destroyed our 
 stores, communications, thousands of our choice troops, 
 captured prisoners in their fortifications, filling the coun- 
 try with fear and consternation. 'Profoundly loyal and 
 conscious of its own strength, the Army of the Potomac 
 will give or decline battle whenever its interests or 
 honor may demand. It will also be the guardian of its 
 own history and its own honor.' All of which is signed 
 by our old friend S. Williams, A. A. G. It shows at 
 least he is so far unhurt, and is so far good, but as to 
 the truth of history I will not speak. May the great 
 God have you all in his holy keeping and soon unite us 
 again ! "• On the 31st of May, two days before he began 
 his campaign, he writes : " Camp Fredericksburg, May 31, 
 1863. — General Hooker has been very daring the past 
 week, and quite active. He has not said what he intends 
 to do, but is giving out by his movements that he designs 
 crossing the Rappahannock. I hope we may be able to 
 frustrate his plans in part if not in whole. He has General 
 Heintzelman's corps now, on whom the Northern papers 
 seem to place great reliance. I pray that our merciful 
 Father in Heaven may protect and direct us ! In that 
 case I fear no odds and no numbers." 
 
 Three days before. Hooker had dispatched to Secre- 
 tary Stanton that he was certain important movements 
 were being made, and that he was in doubt as to the direc- 
 tion Lee would take, " but probably the one of last year, 
 however desperate it may appear." As Hooker could 
 not be attacked except at a disadvantage. General Lee 
 determined to draw him from his position and transfer 
 the scene of hostilities beyond the Potomac. 
 
 This embraced the expulsion from the Valley of Vir- 
 ginia of the Federal force under General Milroy. On the 
 2d of June Ewell's Corps marched for Culpeper Court 
 House, and a day or two afterward Lee followed with 
 18 
 
262 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Longstreet's Corps. Hill's Corps was left to watch 
 Hooker and follow as soon as he should retire. A dar- 
 ing commencement of a campaign ! Hill, with less than 
 twenty thousand troops, was between Hooker and Rich- 
 mond, sixty miles away, while Lee, with the other two 
 corps, was at Culpeper Court House, some thirty miles 
 distant in another direction. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln and Halleck would not let Hooker at- 
 tack Hill, as General Lee supposed, because it was 
 *' perilous to allow Lee to move on the Potomac while 
 your army is attacking an intrenched position on the 
 other side of the Rappahannock," wrote Halleck. " If 
 left to me," said Mr. Lincoln, " I would not go south of 
 the Rappahannock upon Lee's moving north of it. 
 Lee's army, not Richmond, is your true objective point. 
 Fight him when opportunity offers; if he stays where 
 he is, fret him and fret him." 
 
 Hill would have retarded Hooker's progress, falling 
 back toward the defenses of Richmond, while Lee would 
 have taken Washington before Hooker could have coun- 
 termarched and interposed ; or he could have placed his 
 troops in Richmond from Culpeper by railroad in time 
 to support Hill. " No," reiterated the Union President 
 to Hooker, " I would not take any risk of being entan- 
 gled upon the river like an ox jumped half over the 
 fence and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear with- 
 out a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." 
 
 Lee's two infantry and his cavalry corps were con- 
 centrated around Culpeper by the yth of June. Hooker 
 knew Stuart was at Culpeper and thought he meant mis- 
 chief, so determined to break him up, if possible, by 
 sending all of his cavalry against him, stiffened by three 
 thousand infantry. 
 
 General Lee reports that on the 9th of June the cav- 
 alry under General Stuart was attacked by a large force 
 of Federal cavalry, supported by infantry, which crossed 
 the Rappahannock at Beverly's and Kelly's Fords. 
 After a severe engagement from early in the morning 
 until late in the afternoon, " the enemy was compelled 
 to recross the river with heavy loss, leaving about five 
 hundred prisoners, three pieces of artillery, and several 
 colors in our hands." On the other hand, Hooker dis- 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 263 
 
 patched that " Pleasonton pressed Stuart three miles, 
 capturing two hundred prisoners and a battle flag. Our 
 cavalry made many hand-to-hand combats, always driv- 
 ing the enemy before them." 
 
 General Lee wrote Mrs. Lee the day of the battle 
 at Culpeper, June 9, 1863 : " I reviewed the cavalry 
 in this section yesterday. It was a splendid sight. The 
 men and horses looked well. They had recuperated 
 since last fall. Stuart was in all his glory. Your sons 
 and nephews are well and flourishing. The country 
 here looks very green and pretty, notwithstanding the 
 ravages of war. What a beautiful world God in his lov- 
 ing kindness to his creatures has given us ! What a 
 shame that men endowed with reason and knowledge of 
 right should mar his gifts I " 
 
 And again on the nth of the month, from the 
 same place, he wrote: "My supplications contmue to 
 ascend for you, my children, and my country. When I 
 last wrote I did not suppose that Fitzhugh (his son) 
 would so soon be sent to the rear disabled, and I 
 hope it will be but for a short time. I saw him the 
 night after the battle — indeed, met him on the field 
 as they were bringing him from the front. He is 
 young and healthy, and I trust will soon be up again. 
 He seemed to be more concerned about his brave 
 men and officers who had fallen in the battle than him- 
 self." 
 
 The day after the conflict between Pleasonton and 
 Stuart, Ewell left Culpeper, and crossed the Shenandoah 
 near Front Royal, where Jenkins's cavalry brigade joined 
 him, while at the same time Imboden's cavalry was moved 
 to Romney to keep the troops guarding the Baltimore 
 and Ohio Railroad from re-enforcing Milroy. On the 
 13th Ewell was in line of battle in front of Winchester, 
 and next day he stormed and carried the works there, 
 Milroy, the Union commander, and a few of his men 
 alone escaping. Four thousand prisoners, twenty-eight 
 pieces of superior artillery, wagons, horses, small arms, 
 ordnance, commissary and quartermaster stores were 
 captured. Ewell then entered Maryland. How very 
 daring these movements were! On June 12th, .when 
 Ewell was at Winchester, Longstreet was at Culpeper 
 
264 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and Hill at Fredericksburg, while Hooker was still, with 
 the larger part of his army, in front of Hill. 
 
 Hooker, having at last found that General Lee had 
 left, determined to move too, and issued orders on the 
 13th for four corps to rendezvous at Manassas Junc- 
 tion. At five o'clock next afternoon Hooker was at 
 Dumfries, some twenty miles north of Fredericksburg, 
 on the road to Washington, and Mr. Lincoln asked him 
 by telegraph if he thought it " possible that fifteen thou- 
 sand of Ewell's men can now be at Winchester.^" and 
 later tells him that the enemy have Milroy surrounded 
 at Winchester, and Tyler at Martinsburg, and asks him 
 if he could help them if they could hold out a few days, 
 and then with habitual humor said : " If the head of 
 Lee's ^rmy is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the 
 plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, 
 the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you 
 not break him ? " 
 
 There was nothing now for the Union commander 
 to do except to keep interposed between his enemy and 
 Washington, and Hooker therefore concentrated his 
 troops along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. The 
 movement of the Army of the Potomac depended on 
 that of the Army of Northern Virginia. As Lee pro- 
 ceeded north, so did Hooker, on parallel lines. Five 
 days after Ewell's departure from Culpeper Court House 
 Longstreet left. His route was east of the Blue Ridge 
 with Stuart's cavalry in his front and on his right flank 
 to mask his position. Hill, who had joined Lee again, 
 was then passed into the Valley behind Longstreet's 
 lines. Hooker was mystified, and pushed his cavalry on 
 Stuart to see what was going on. He thought Stuart 
 was preparing for a raid, " which may be a cover to 
 Lee's re-enforcing Bragg or moving troops to the west." 
 Stuart and Pleasonton had frequent encounters for 
 three days, but the cavalry mask was not torn away, 
 and no information gained by Hooker. 
 
 General Lee wrote Stuart, June 22d, that he thought 
 Pleasonton's efforts were made to arrest the progress of 
 his army and ascertain its location, and that " perhaps 
 he is satisfied " that he was afraid the Federals would 
 " get across the Potomac before we are aware " ; and 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 265 
 
 that if he found Hooker moving northward, and " two 
 brigades can guard the Blue Ridge and take care of 
 your rear, you can move with the other three into 
 Maryland and take position on General Ewell's right." 
 The same day Ewell was ordered toward the Susque- 
 hanna and told " if Harrisburg comes within your 
 means, capture it." Stuart was to go to Ewell's right 
 flank on the Susquehanna, provided (Lee wrote Long- 
 street) he could be spared from his front, and that he 
 CQuld move across the Potomac if Longstreet thought 
 he could do so without disclosing Lee's plans. He was 
 then guarding Longstreet's front and flank, which 
 brought him under that officer's command. General 
 Lee suggested that Stuart move through Hopewell Gap 
 in the Bull Run Mountains, pass in rear of Hooker, and 
 then cross the Potomac. Longstreet wrote Stuart that 
 if he " crossed by our rear at Shepherdstown it would in 
 a measure disclose our plans," and that he " had better 
 not leave us unless you can take the proposed route in 
 rear of the enemy." The next day Stuart received from 
 Lee an order to cross the Potomac with three brigades, 
 either at Shepherdstown or " east of the mountains in 
 rear of the enemy," and that he must " move on and feel 
 the right of Ewell's troops," then marching toward the 
 Susquehanna. Stuart marched through Hopewell Gap, 
 as suggested by General Lee, and took the route in 
 rear of the enemy as directed by Longstreet. He 
 crossed the Potomac at Seneca, thirteen miles above 
 Washington, the day Lee was at Chambersburg and 
 Ewell at Carlisle. This officer has been unjustly criti- 
 cised for not being in front of Lee's army at Gettys- 
 burg, but Lee and Longstreet must be held responsible 
 for his route. Lee crossed the Potomac west of the 
 Blue Ridge, Hooker east of it, and Stuart between him 
 and Washington. 
 
 General Lee continued to march his columns over 
 the river into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Ewell, the 
 first of the invaders, with Jenkins's cavalry brigade 
 and White's battalion under its fine commander, was 
 in advance. His march was directed by Hagerstown 
 to Chambersburg, Pa., and Carlisle, where he arrived 
 on June 27th with two of his divisions. His remain- 
 
266 GENERAL LEE, 
 
 ing division, under Early, was sent to York to break 
 the railroad between Harrisburg, Pa., and Baltimore, 
 and seize the bridge over the Susquehanna at Wrights- 
 ville. Longstreet and Hill encamped near Chambers- 
 burg the day Ewell reached Carlisle. Lee was spread- 
 ing over Northern territory in order to collect as large 
 an amount of supplies as possible, as well as to draw the 
 Army of the Potomac away from Washington before de- 
 livering battle. Under the supposition that the Union 
 army was still in Virginia guarding the approaches to 
 Washington, Lee had issued orders to move upon Har- 
 risburg. Stuart captured a wagon train at Rockville, 
 on the direct road from Washington to Hooker's army, 
 the nearest wagon being taken four miles from Wash- 
 ington city, burned a large number, and marched away 
 with two hundred wagons and their teams, burned the 
 railroad bridge at Sykesville, cut the telegraph wires, 
 drove the Delaware cavalry in confusion out of West- 
 minster, fought Kilpatrick's cavalry at Hanover, Pa., 
 prevented two infantry corps from reaching Meade 
 until the second day at Gettysburg, and drew in pur- 
 suit of his three cavalry brigades two Federal cavalry 
 divisions, and after ceaseless combats and night marches 
 reached Dover, Pa., on July ist. Whole regiments slept 
 in their saddles, their faithful animals keeping the road 
 unguided. Without rations for men, and with horses ex- 
 hausted, Stuart arrived at Carlisle the day Hill and 
 Ewell were engaged at Gettysburg. He wanted to 
 levy a contribution for rations on Carlisle, but the Fed- 
 eral General " Baldy " Smith, with his Pennsylvania re- 
 serves, would not surrender the place. Its probable cap- 
 ture the next day was prevented by news received for the 
 first time of General Lee's position and intentions. Stu- 
 art did not know until he received a dispatch from Gen- 
 eral Lee on the night of July ist where he was, for the 
 Union army had been between his march and his own 
 army. Leaving Carlisle, he marched at once for Gettys- 
 burg, prevented a movement of the enemy's cavalry on 
 Lee's rear by way of Hunterstown, and took his posi- 
 tion on the York and Heidelburg roads on the left of 
 his army late on the evening of July 2d. 
 
 Cavalry raids are dazzling, but do not generally ac- 
 
CHANCELLORSVILLE. 267 
 
 complish enough to compensate for the number of 
 broken-down horses and men. The cavalry chief could 
 not tell Lee when and where Hooker's army crossed 
 the Potomac, because, when it was crossing, he was in 
 its rear, moving to cross the day afterward lower down 
 the same stream, and after that he had no opportunity. 
 It was left to an adventurous scout to report to General 
 Lee, on the night of June 28th. that Hooker had crossed 
 the Potomac and was approaching the south mountains. 
 The information obliged him to draw in his advance and 
 concentrate his army east of the mountain, to prevent 
 his communications from being intercepted. Had Lee 
 had all of his cavalry in Pennsylvania, the irrepressible 
 conflict would not have taken place at Gettysburg, but 
 possibly on Pipe Creek ; and had Hooker not detached 
 his cavalry out of his reach, the battle fought at Chan- 
 cellorsville would possibly have taken place on the con- 
 fines of Fredericksburg. 
 
 On the 29th Hill's corps was directed to move toward 
 Cashtown and Longstreet to follow next day, leaving 
 Pickett's division at Greenwood as a rear guard until 
 Imboden should get up with his cavalry brigade, while 
 Ewell was recalled from Carlisle to Cashtown or (Gettys- 
 burg, as circumstances might require. As the Army of 
 Northern Virginia was ordered to concentrate in a 
 southerly direction, while Hooker slowly advanced his 
 columns north, it was manifest the two armies must 
 meet. Topographically, Gettysburg was a strategic 
 point, available for concentration by both armies. 
 Roads from Washington, Baltimore, and all points in 
 the section south of it, where the Union army lay in its 
 fan-shaped position, entered it, as well as the roads 
 from Chambersburg, twenty miles off, via Cashtown, and 
 from Carlisle and York. 
 
 Lee was coming south to guard his communications 
 and fight if opportunity presented. Hooker was going 
 north to prevent the occupation of so much territory 
 by the detached parts of Lee's army and to deliver bat- 
 tle when opportunity offered. Each army was manoeu- 
 vring for defensive combat, but each was prepared to 
 assume the offensive if occasion required, and neither 
 intended to decline an encounter. There was a cry too 
 
268 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 for blood from noncombatants everywhere — as strong 
 as once resounded in the Roman Coliseum. 
 
 The night that Lee heard of the Federal advance 
 crossing the Potomac, a new commander was in the sad- 
 dle. " Fighting Joe Hooker " had fought his last bat- 
 tle as an army commander. Halleck, after the battle of 
 Chancellorsville, did not want to trust Hooker with the 
 management of another battle, and had been sustained 
 in his opinion by Mr. Lincoln and Secretary Stanton at 
 a council held between them. It was even said that 
 politics was dragged into the subject, and that the 
 friends of Mr. Chase, a prospective presidential candi- 
 date, were bound up in the fortunes of Hooker, and that 
 they interposed to prevent his removal, for " the gen- 
 eral who should conquer the rebellion would have the 
 disposal of the next presidency." I'he friends of presi- 
 dential aspirants were on the lookout for the right mili- 
 tary alliance, and it was stated that if it should be 
 Hooker's fortune to bring the war to a successful close 
 nothing would induce him to accept other than military 
 honors in recognition of his services. At any rate, it is 
 certain Hooker naturally resented interference in the 
 field from a general safely shut up in his office in Wash- 
 ington, and properly contended that one man should 
 command all the troops whose operations could be com- 
 bined against Lee. Halleck not consenting, the diffi- 
 culty culminated when Hooker requested that Maryland 
 Heights, the gate to Harper's Ferry, be evacuated, that 
 he might mobilize the ten thousand troops there. Hal- 
 leck refused, and Hooker, now at Frederick, Maryland, 
 finding he was not allowed to manoeuvre his army in 
 the presence of the enemy, asked to be relieved from 
 command, which, being in accordance with the views of 
 the Washington authorities, was promptly done. 
 
HARRI^iBURa 
 
 CUMEERUND 
 
 SECTION OF 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 COLUMBIA 
 
 SECTION OF 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GETTYSBURG. 
 
 The fifth commander of the Army of the Potomac 
 was Major-General George Gordon Meade, then in com- 
 mand of the Fifth Corps. This officer was born in 
 Cadiz, Spain, in December, 1815, and was consequently 
 forty-six years old. He graduated at West Point in 
 1835, and was assigned to the artillery arm of the service. 
 A year afterward he resigned from the army, but after 
 six years was reappointed second lieutenant of the 
 Topographical Engineers, and was in Mexico on Gen- 
 eral Patterson's staff. Meade's father served as a pri- 
 vate soldier in the Pennsylvania troops to suppress the 
 " Whisky Insurrection " in western Pennsylvania, and 
 therefore was under General Lee's father, who com- 
 manded the forces raised for that purpose. He was 
 afterward a merchant, a shipowner, and a navy agent 
 in Cadiz, but shortly after his son's birth returned to 
 the United States. 
 
 In justice to this officer, it may be said that he pro- 
 tested against being placed in command of an army that 
 had been looking toward Reynolds as Hooker's suc- 
 cessor, but, loyal to authority, he assumed the command 
 in obedience to orders. His position was environed with 
 difficulties, for he was ignorant of Hooker's plans. Awak- 
 ened from sleep by General Hardee, the War Depart- 
 ment messenger, he had not much time to get any 
 knowledge of them from Hooker, while a battle in the 
 next few days could not be avoided. He determined 
 to continue the move northward through Maryland into 
 Pennsylvania, and force Lee to give battle before he 
 could cross the Susquehanna. 
 
 (269) 
 
270 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 After two days' march, he received information that 
 Lee was concentrating and coming toward him, and he 
 at once began to prepare the line of Pipe Creek to await 
 his approach and fight a defensive battle. On the night 
 of June 30th his headquarters and reserve artillery w^ere 
 at Taneytown ; the First Corps, at Marsh Creek, six miles 
 from Longstreet and Hill at Cashtown ; the Eleventh 
 Corps, at Emmittsburg ; Third, at Bridgeport; Twelfth, 
 at Littletown ; Second, at Uniontovvn ; Fifth, at Union 
 Mill ; Sixth, at Winchester, Md., with Gregg's cavalry, 
 that being his extreme right. Kilpatrick's cavalry 
 division was at Hanover, Pa., while Buford's cavalry 
 guarded his left. 
 
 Lee was rapidly concentrating. Longstreet and Hill 
 were then near Cashtown, Hill's advance (Heth's divi- 
 sion) being seven miles from Gettysburg, and Ewell at 
 Heidelburg, nine miles away. Had Lee known of the 
 defensive position at Gettysburg, he could have easily 
 massed his whole army on July 1st there; but he was in 
 no hurry to precipitate a battle, and would have pre- 
 ferred to fight at some point not so far from his base. 
 
 On the 30th Pettigrew, commanding a brigade of 
 Heth's division, Hill's corps, was directed to march 
 to Gettysburg to get shoes for the barefooted men of 
 the division, but returned the same evening without 
 them and reported that Gettysburg was occupied by 
 the Federal cavalry, and that drums were heard beating 
 on the other side of the town. So Heth told Hill if he 
 had no objection, he would take his whole division there 
 the next day, July ist, and^'get the shoes," to which 
 Hill replied, " None in the world." 
 
 Buford, with his cavalry division, reached Gettys- 
 burg on the day Pettigrew made his visit, and threw 
 out his pickets toward Cashtown and Hunterstown. In 
 an order of march for July ist, Meade, not knowing Lee 
 was so near, directed the First and Eleventh Corps, 
 under that excellent officer Reynolds, to Gettysburg; 
 Third, to Emmittsburg ; Second, Taneytown ; Fifth, 
 Hanover; Twelfth to Two Taverns; while the Sixth was 
 to remain at Manchester, thirty-four miles from Gettys- 
 burg, and await orders. 
 
 Heth, after his coveted shoes, reached McPherson's 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 271 
 
 Heights, one mile west of Gettysburg, at 9 a. m. on July 
 1st, deployed two brigades on either side of the road, 
 and advanced on the town. Promptly the few sputter- 
 ing shots which first announced the skirmish line's open- 
 ing told him that Buford's dismounted cavalry were 
 blocking the way ; and the great struggle which was to 
 determine, like Waterloo, the fate of a continent, and 
 whether there should be one or two republics on this 
 continent, had commenced. Precipitance was neither 
 desired by Meade nor Lee, but " shoes " took command 
 that day, and opened a contest which drew in its bloody 
 embrace one hundred and seventy thousand men. For 
 Reynolds, hearing Euford's guns, hastened to him with 
 the First Corps, Wadsworth's division leading. Hill, 
 who had followed Heth with Pender's division, sent it 
 rapidly to his support, while the Eleventh Corps has- 
 tened to the First Corps's assistance. Ewell, with his 
 leading division (Rodes's), at 2.30 p.m. came to Heth's 
 and Pender's support, while Early's division, at about 
 3.30 p. xM., moved in such a way as to attack the Federal 
 flank, and at 4 p.m. the Federal force was in full retreat 
 through the town of Gettysburg, toward the heights to 
 the south of it, where a brigade of How^ard's had been 
 posted as a reserve and rallying point in case of disaster 
 when his corps marched to the battlefield. A well-con- 
 tested combat had occured between two infantry corps, 
 a cavalry division, and the artillery on one side, and 
 four divisions of infantry, with the artillery, on the 
 other. 
 
 Fifty thousand men fought (after all were up), about 
 equally divided in numbers between the contestants.* 
 For six hours the battle raged. General Lee reached 
 McPherson Heights about 2.30 p.m., and, getting off 
 his horse, swept with his field glasses the country in his 
 front ; he saw the Union troops retreating over the hills 
 south of the town, and ordered Walter Taylor, of his 
 staff, to ride to Ewell and tell him to move on and oc- 
 cupy them, but that he did not want to bring on a gen- 
 
 * Federals — First Corps, 10,089 ; Eleventh, 9,893 ; Buford's cav- 
 alry, 3,000. Total, 22,982. Confederates — Two thirds of Ewell's corps, 
 two thirds of Hill's — four divisions — 26,000. 
 
2/2 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 eral engagement until Longstreet arrived. A false re- 
 port, however, caused Ewell to send out first one, then 
 another brigade to guard his flank, and while waiting 
 for them and his remaining division under Johnson to 
 get up, the shades of coming night covered his proposed 
 field of operations. Lee had made a good beginning; 
 his troops had captured more than five thousand prison- 
 ers, including two general officers, exclusive of a large 
 number of the wounded, and three pieces of artillery. 
 Heth had been slightly, General Scales seriously, wound- 
 ed, and General Archer captured ; his enemy had been 
 driven through Gettysburg with great loss, and General 
 Reynolds, their commander, killed. 
 
 The death of this splendid officer was regretted by 
 friend and foe. Able, brave, with military talents of 
 the highest order, his place could not well be filled. His 
 Government recognized his merit, and he was next on 
 the list for the command of the army. Napier's eulogy 
 on Ridge has been happily applied to him: "No man 
 died on that field with more glory than he, yet many 
 died, and there was much glory ! " 
 
 The Confederate success was not followed up. Lee 
 wanted Longstreet's troops to be present before deliver- 
 ing a general battle, and, perhaps, did not make his order 
 for pursuit positive. He says Ewell was directed to pur- 
 sue "if practicable." Had Ewell decided to go forward 
 on the ist of July, the Southern troops would have been 
 in line of battle on Cemetery Heights that afternoon, 
 and Meade would have been occupied during the night 
 in forming defensive lines on Pipe Creek, ten or twelve 
 m.iles distant, or elsewhere. Heth lost on the ist twenty- 
 five hundred killed, wounded, and missing, which left him 
 forty-three hundred. The losses in the other division 
 were not so heavy. Allowing them forty-five hundred 
 effectives at the close of the action, would give the four 
 divisions seventeen thousand eight hundred to pursue. 
 
 A letter of Hancock's, the officer dispatched by 
 Meade, on hearing of Reynolds's death, to supersede 
 Howard, his senior in command at Gettysburg, says : 
 " When I arrived upon the field, about 3 p. m. or between 
 that and 3.30 p. m., I found the fighting about over; the 
 rear of our troops were hurrying through the town, pur- 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 273 
 
 sued by the Confederates. There had been an attempt 
 to reform some of the Eleventh Corps as they passed 
 over Cemetery Hill, but it had not been very successful. 
 I presume there may have been one thousand or twelve 
 hundred organized troops of that corps in position on 
 the hill." Twenty-four hundred and fifty men, the shat- 
 tered remains of the First Corps, were there too, and Bu- 
 ford's cavalry were drawn up upon the plain, making a 
 total of six thousand troops, which could not have 
 offered much resistance against the victorious seventeen 
 thousand of Ewell and Hill, and two hours must elapse 
 before they could receive re-enforcements, and then only 
 at 6 p. M., of two divisions of the Twelfth Corps; but 
 Johnson's division of Ewell's corps reached the town at 
 six, and Anderson's, of Hill's, could have been there too 
 if necessary, which would have maintained the original 
 status. 
 
 At sunset two brigades of Sickles's Third Corps ar- 
 rived ; Sickles in person reached the field an hour ear- 
 lier. They would have been too late, and would have 
 been recalled to Pipe Creek, with all other troops then 
 in motion toward Gettysburg. Two brigades of Pen- 
 der's and one of Early's division had scarcely fired a 
 shot. Dole's, Hoke's, and Hays's brigades were in good 
 condition. " The artillery was up, and had an admi- 
 rable position to cover an assault, which could have been 
 pushed under cover of the houses to within a few rods 
 of the Union position." The impartial military critic 
 will admit Confederate camp fires would have blazed at 
 night and Confederate banners waved in the afternoon 
 from the high places south of Gettysburg had Ewell 
 and Hill marched again on the broken and vanquished 
 Federal battalions. 
 
 Gettysburg is a small town near the Pennsylvania 
 and Maryland boundary line, ten miles east of the south 
 range of mountains — "the eastern wall of the Cumber- 
 land Valley " — and through whose passes Lee's army de- 
 bouched. The intervening section is described as full 
 of long ridges running north and south, as the mountains 
 do. On Lee's route from Cashtown to Gettysburg one 
 of these ridges is crossed at right angles one and a half 
 mile west of Gettysburg, and a little farther on an- 
 
274 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Other; Willoughby Run flows between them, and here 
 the combat of July ist opened. Closer to the town and 
 about half a mile west of it is the now famous Seminary 
 Ridge, so called from a Lutheran theological seminary 
 on it, upon which were located the battle lines of por- 
 tions of two of Lee's corps on the 2d and 3d of July. 
 
 Directly south of Gettysburg is the beginning of an- 
 other series of heights, hills, and depressions which, run- 
 ning in a southerly direction for three miles, terminate 
 in " a lofty, wooded, rocky peak" called Round Top. 
 Adjoining this peak on its north side is Weed's Hill, bet- 
 ter known as Little Round Top — a spur to Round Top — 
 "rough and bald." Round Top is at the southern ex- 
 tremity of this ridge. A cemetery at the northern point 
 gives to the ridge its name. Upon this ridge the Fed- 
 eral line of battle was formed. An undulating valley 
 stretches up to Seminary Ridge, a mile distant, and on 
 the elevated tableland between the two runs the Em- 
 mittsburg road. 
 
 Gettysburg lies at the base of Cemetery Hill, where 
 the ridge bends in a curve, east, and then southeast, to 
 an elevation called Gulp's Hill. On Gulp's Hill and 
 around this curve, and then south to Round Top for 
 three miles, was the Union battle line. Its shape has 
 been not inaptly compared to a fish hook, with long 
 side and curve. The formation was convex, allowing 
 the Union commander to operate tactically on interior 
 lines, so that he could rapidly re-enforce along his rear 
 the threatened points. The ground in rear of this splen- 
 did battle Ime fell in gradual slope to Rock Greek, af- 
 fording capital shelter for reserves and trains. 
 
 Five hundred yards west of Little Round Top, and 
 one hundred feet lower, is Devil's Den, ''a bold, rocky 
 height, steep on its eastern face, but prolonged as a 
 ridge to the west." It lies between two streams in the 
 angle where they meet. The northern extremity is cov- 
 ered with huge bowlders and rocks, forming crevices and 
 holes, the largest of which gives the name to the ridge. 
 Gettysburg is the hub of the wheel, and the Baltimore, 
 York, Harrisburg, Carlisle, Mummasburg, Ghambersburg, 
 Millerstown, Emmittsburg, and Taneytown roads the 
 spokes. Lee's troops were distributed over a larger 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 275 
 
 " fishhook," surrounding the smaller or inner one ; his 
 extreme left was in front of Meade's refused right at 
 Gulp's Hill. Johnson's, Early's, and Rodes's divisions, 
 in order named, were located on the curve and through 
 the town to Seminary Ridge from left to right; then 
 came Hill's corps, stretching south, and later, Long- 
 street's was formed on its right. 
 
 The army smallest in numbers had the longest or 
 outside line, while the largest force occupied in its front 
 a superb defensive position. Lee's army was practically 
 concentrated on the night of the ist, except his cavalry 
 and Pickett's infantry division, Ewell and Hill in front 
 of the enemy, and Longstreet in camp only four miles 
 in, the rear. Meade and his Second Corps were at Taney- 
 town, in Maryland, when the sun went down on the ist, 
 thirteen miles distant; the Fifth Corps, at Union Mills, 
 twenty-three miles distant and the Sixth Corps, sixteen 
 thousand men, thought to be the largest and finest in 
 the army, was at Manchester, thirty-four miles away. 
 Both Meade and Lee would have preferred to postpone 
 the battle a few days, but were face to face sooner than 
 contemplated. 
 
 Meade received Hancock's report on the evening of 
 the ist, and determined in consequence to fight the bat- 
 tle at Gettysburg, and issued orders for the movement 
 of his troops at 7.30 p. m. that evening. In two hours 
 he left Taneytown, and arrived on Cemetery Ridge at 
 I A. M. There is testimony that he did not like his posi- 
 tion, and his chief of staff says he was directed to pre- 
 pare an order to withdraw the army from it. 
 
 The Union commander was uncertain whether he 
 could bring his two fine corps, the Fifth and Sixth, on 
 the field in time, and was solicitous about his depot of 
 supplies at Westminster. 
 
 As late as 3 p. m. on the 2d, and before he was at- 
 tacked, he telegraphed in cipher to Halleck that if his 
 enemy did not attack, and he "finds it hazardous to do 
 so, or is satisfied the enemy is endeavoring to move to 
 my rear and interpose between me and Washington, 1 
 shall fall back to my supplies at Westminster." 
 
 Lee, impressed with the idea of whipping his opponent 
 in detail, on the other hand, was practically ready and 
 
2/6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 eager for the contest next day, and so was his confident 
 army. He was under no obligation, as has been affirmed, 
 to any one to fight a defensive battle; he sought the 
 enemy's soil to gain a victory, whether by offensive or 
 defensive tactics, and his objective point was the Army 
 of the Potomac. He knew the Union army had not yet 
 concentrated, and was anxious to attack before it could. 
 He had already talked with Longstreet, who, following 
 Hill's corps, joined him, at 5 p. m., the afternoon of July 
 ist, on Seminary Ridge, where both made a careful sur- 
 vey with glasses of the hostile heights opposite, and, it 
 is presumed, attempted to impress him with the impor- 
 tance of an early attack next day, and later that night 
 saw him again. On the same evening he rode into the 
 town of Gettysburg, and met, in an arbor attached to a 
 small house on the Carlisle road north of the town, Ewell, 
 Early, and Rodes. 
 
 The Confederate commander was anxious at first 
 that Ewell and Hill should commence the battle, and 
 seemed apprehensive that Longstreet might not get into 
 position as soon as the conditions demanded, but finally 
 yielded to the opinion expressed, that Longstreet should 
 commence the battle by a forward movement on Hill's 
 right, seize the commanding positions on the enemy's 
 left, and envelop and enfilade the flank of the troops in 
 front of the other two corps. Lee left the conference, 
 Early states, with the " distinct understanding that 
 Eongstreet would be ordered to make the attack early 
 next morning," General W. N. Pendleton, his chief of 
 artillery and his honored and trusted friend, has put on 
 record that General Lee told him that night, after he 
 [Pendleton] returned from a reconnoissance on the right 
 flank, that he "had ordered General Longstreet to attack 
 on the flank at sunrise next morning." 
 
 Hill, in his official report, says, " General Longstreet 
 was to attack the flank of the enemy and sweep down 
 his line." And General Long, of Lee's staff, writes, in 
 his opinion orders were issued for the movement to 
 begin on the enemy's left as early as practicable. 
 
 Lee's plan of battle was simple. His purpose was to 
 turn the enemy's left flank with his First Corps, and 
 after the work began there, to demonstrate against his 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 277 
 
 lines with the other two in order to prevent the threat- 
 ened flank from being re-enforced, these demonstrations 
 to be converted into a real attack as the flanking wave 
 of battle rolled over the troops in their front. 
 
 Lee did not like Ewell's bent line — his left was too 
 far around the curve of the fishhook — and decided to 
 draw him more to his right. But that fine old soldier had 
 seen that Gulp's Hill was the key to the Federal right, 
 and was told that it was unoccupied at dark, by two 
 staff officers who said they were on its top at that time. 
 At his request he was allowed to remain to secure the 
 hill at daybreak. Hancock, however, reports that he 
 ordered Wadsworth's division with a battery of artillery 
 to take post there in the afternoon. The Federal right 
 was very strong. The woods on Gulp's Hill enabled its 
 defenders, with a multitude of axes and spades, to con- 
 vert it promptly into a fort. 
 
 When Lee went to sleep that night he was convinced 
 that his dispositions for battle next day were under- 
 stood by the corps commanders, for he had imparted 
 them to each one in person. On the morning of July 
 2d Lee was up before light, breakfasted, and was "ready 
 for the fray," but his chariot of war had hardly started 
 before he found his corps team were not pulling to- 
 gether; the wheel horse selected to start it was balky 
 and stubborn, and, after stretching his traces, did not 
 draw his share of the load with rapidity enough to be 
 effective. 
 
 We hear from General Longstreet that on the even- 
 ing of the ist he was trying to induce Lee not to attack, 
 but manoeuvre, and on the 2d he "went to General Lee's 
 headquarters at daylight and renewed my views against 
 making an attack ; he seemed resolved, however, and 
 we discussed results." 
 
 In consequence of the reluctance of the officer next 
 in command to fire the opening gun, Lee was induced to 
 send Golonel Venable, of his staff, to Ewell at sunrise to 
 see whether, after viewing the position in his front by 
 daylight, he could not attack from his flank, but the 
 work of thousands of men during the night made the 
 hills too strong to assault ; indeed, Meade was then 
 massing there to attack Ewell. Later, Lee rode there 
 19 
 
2/8 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 himself, not wishing to drive his right corps commander 
 into battle when he did not want to go, but saw nothing 
 could be done, so at eleven o'clock gave a positive 
 order to Longstreet to move to his right and attack. 
 
 It was clearly the duty of Longstreet to carry out 
 his commander's views and not lapse into refractori- 
 ness. Lee might possibly have moved toward Freder- 
 ick on the 2d, and thus forced Meade to fall back to 
 Westminster, but he could not hope to reach Baltimore 
 or Washington, or a point between these cities before 
 Meade. From Westmmster cars could have conveyed 
 the Union troops more rapidly than his could have 
 marched, and if Meade had followed him toward Wash- 
 ington he would have been caught between the power- 
 ful works then defended by thirty or forty thousand 
 troops and General Meade's army, while the change of 
 base would have greatly endangered his lines of com- 
 munication. 
 
 The closer the two armies approached Westminster 
 the larger the numbers of the Unionists would grow. 
 Lee could not move around now and manoeuvre, or scat- 
 ter his legions to gather supplies as he had done, because 
 his opponent was uncomfortably near. He could not 
 march en masse^ with a host subsisting by pillage, and to 
 concentrate was to starve. There was no alternative — 
 he must fight. 
 
 He was obliged to adopt the tactics of William the 
 Conqueror when he invaded England, who, similarly situ- 
 ated, assumed the offensive and defeated Harold at Hast- 
 ings. Napoleon waited at Waterloo for the ground to 
 dry and lost hours, during which he might have defeated 
 Wellington before the arrival of re-enforcements. Why 
 should Lee lose the advantages of his more rapid con- 
 centration ? His ''superb equipoise" was not threat- 
 ened by "subdued excitement." His unerring sagacity 
 told him he would catch General Meade partially in 
 position, but he was disturbed because one of his prin- 
 cipal officers had not the faith and confidence necessary 
 to win success. 
 
 Longstreet's troops not long after daybreak stacked 
 arms near the battlefield. Hood reports he was in front 
 of the heights of Gettysburg shortly after daybreak. 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 279 
 
 General Lee was there walking up and down under the 
 large trees near him, and seemed full of hope, but at 
 times buried in deep thought. He seemed anxious that 
 Longstreet should attack, says Hood. " The enemy is 
 here," Lee said, ''and if we don't whip him he will whip 
 us." Hood states that Longstreet afterward said, seat- 
 ing himself near the trunk of a tree by his side: " The 
 general is a little nervous this morning. He wishes me 
 to attack. I do not want to do so without Pickett. I 
 never like to go into battle with one boot off." 
 
 McLaws says that his orders w^ere to leave his camp 
 at 4 A. M., but were afterward changed to sunrise ; that he 
 reached Gettysburg at a very early hour, and halted the 
 head of his column withm a hundred yards of where Gen- 
 eral Lee was sitting on a fallen tree with a map beside 
 him; that he went to Lee, who pointed out to him on 
 the map the road to his right as the one he wanted him 
 to place his division across, and that he wished him to 
 get there, if possible, without being seen by the enemy ; 
 that the line pointed out was perpendicular to the Em- 
 mittsburg road, about the position he afterward occu- 
 pied, and that " Longstreet was then walking back and 
 forth some little distance from General Lee, but came 
 up and, pointing to the map, showed him how he wanted 
 his division located, to which General Lee replied : ' No, 
 general, I wish it placed just the opposite,'" and "that 
 Longstreet appeared as if he were irritated and an- 
 noyed, but the cause I did not ask." 
 
 McLaws, while waiting, reconnoitered in his front, 
 and was soon convinced that by crossing the ridge where 
 he was then his "command could reach the point indi- 
 cated by General Lee in half an hour without being 
 seen." McLaws then went back to the head of his col- 
 umn and sat on his horse, he says, and " saw in the dis- 
 tance the enemy commg, hour after hour, on to the battle 
 ground." Wilcox's brigade of Anderson's division. Hill's 
 corps, which had been left on picket on Marsh Creek, east 
 of which stream Longstreet's corps bivouacked the night 
 of the ist, left its post after sunrise, passed through 
 Hood's and McLaws's divisions, whose arms were stacked, 
 and went into line of battle on Anderson's right at 9 a. m. 
 Wilcox's right rested in a piece of woods, and seven 
 
28o GENERAL LEE. 
 
 hours afterward, at 4 p. m., McLaws formed in these 
 same woods. 
 
 Longstreet admits that he w^as ordered at eleven to 
 move to the right to attack with the portion of the com- 
 mand then up, but delayed, on his own responsibility, to 
 await General Laws's brigade, which had been detached 
 on picket. His disobedience of orders in failing to march 
 at once with his command then present, many believe, 
 lost to Lee the battle of Gettysburg. With a corps com- 
 mander who knew the value of time, obeyed orders with 
 promptness and without argument, Lee's movement on 
 Meade's left could have commenced at seven or eight 
 o'clock A. M., with all the chances for success, and there 
 would probably have been no combat on the 3d. The 
 Third Federal Corps was not all up at the hour the at- 
 tack should have been made, or a division of the Fifth, 
 or the reserve artillery, or the Sixth Corps. 
 
 When McLaws and Hood advanced, eight or nine 
 hours afterward, the conditions had changed ; Meade, 
 having relinquished his design to attack from his right, 
 had been steadily strengthening his left, and his whole 
 army'was concentrated on a splendid defensive line, for 
 Lee had waited, as if he did not purpose to take advan- 
 tage of his being first prepared to fight. The fine Fed- 
 eral position would have been useless to Meade had 
 Longstreet attacked only a few hours earlier, as he might 
 have done, for in that case he would have secured 
 Round Top, six hundred and sixty-four feet high, and 
 one hundred and sixteen feet higher than Little Round 
 Top, one thousand yards north of it, and crowned it 
 with artillery. " Little Round Top would have been un- 
 tenable, and Little Round Top was the key point of my 
 whole position," said Meade; "and if they" (his oppo- 
 nents) " had succeeded in occupying that, it would have 
 prevented me from holding any of the ground I subse- 
 quently held to the last." 
 
 Lee to the strong courage of the man united the 
 loving heart of the woman. His "nature was too epi- 
 cene," said an English critic, " to be purely a military 
 man." He had a reluctance to oppose the wishes of 
 others, or to order them to do anything that would be 
 disagreeable and to which they would not consent. 
 
GETTYSBURG. 28 1 
 
 " Had I Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg, I would have 
 won a great victory," he said to Professor White, of the 
 Washington and Lee University, after the war, because 
 he knew it would have been sufficient for Jackson to 
 have known his general views without transmitting posi- 
 tive orders, and that Stonewall, quick and impatient, 
 would have been driving in the enemy's flank ere the 
 rays of the morning sun lifted the mists from the Round 
 Tops. If Lee had issued by his chief of staff his battle 
 order for the 2d in writing, as is customary, Longstreet 
 would have carried it out probably in good faith, and 
 not have wasted most valuable time in attemptmg to 
 convince his commander it was faulty. 
 
 The attack on the right, commencing five or six 
 hours after the positive order had been given, even then 
 had some elements of success. Sickles, with the Third 
 Corps, had become dissatisfied with his location, and 
 had moved out about twelve o'clock nearly a mile in his 
 front and taken a new alignment, which became a salient 
 to the main line. Lee was deceived by it, and gave gen- 
 eral orders to " attack up the Emmittsburg road, par- 
 tially enveloping the enemy's left," which Longstreet 
 " was to drive in." There was much behind Sickles, and 
 Longstreet was attacking the Marye Hill of the position 
 only. " Sickles's right was three fourths of a mile in 
 front of Hancock's left," says Meade, "and his left one 
 quarter of a mile in front of the base of the Little Round 
 Top, leaving that key point unoccupied," which should 
 have been seized by Longstreet before Meade did so 
 with the Fifth Corps. 
 
 Sickles's right rested on the Emmittsburg road, and 
 then his line was refused in the direction of the Round 
 Top, making an angle at that point, his corps facing 
 westerly and southerly. Lee wanted to get possession 
 of this point to assail and carry the more elevated 
 ground beyond, but the Fifth Corps had then been 
 placed on the ground referred to, and the Sixth Corps, 
 under sturdy old Sedgwick, had arrived, having marched 
 thirty-four miles since 9 p. m. the previous night, and 
 was in position before the two divisions of Lee's First 
 Corps, which were in bivouac only four miles in rear 
 of the field. The tired troops of the Sixth Corps were 
 
282 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 massed on the Taneytown road, in the rear of Little 
 Round Top. When that gallant officer, Hood, was in- 
 formed by his Texas scouts, that instead of attacking 
 Sickles's left he could turn Round Top, he sent three 
 officers, at different intervals of time, to Longstreet, 
 asking to do it, but in every case was answered, " Gen- 
 eral Lee's orders are to attack up the Emmittsburg 
 road." As he was going into battle Longstreet rode up, 
 and Hood again asked permission to make the move, 
 but was told, " We must obey General Lee's orders." 
 A strange acknowledgment from one who a few hours 
 before had disregarded them. 
 
 In twenty minutes Hood was borne from the field 
 badly wounded. The immense bowlders of stone so 
 massed as to form narrow openings offered great ob- 
 struction to the advance of Hood's right, and he was 
 exposed to a heavy fire from the crest of the high range 
 adjoining Little Round Top. Had Lee known the situa- 
 tion Hood would have been thrown more to his right. 
 He would not have succeeded in getting around the 
 Union left rear, for the Sixth Corps would have blocked 
 his way, but he would have secured and held Round 
 Top, and in all probability Little Round Top too, for 
 a plunging fire from big Round Top would have cleared 
 its crest and sides of Federal troops. 
 
 The Fifteenth Alabama, under the brave Colonel 
 Gates, was on the extreme right of Hood's line, and ad- 
 vanced up the southern slope of the Round Top in the 
 face of an incessant fire from behind rocks and crags 
 that covered the mountain side " thicker than grave- 
 stones in a city cemetery." Gates pushed forward until 
 he reached the top of Round Top; the Forty-seventh, 
 Alabama, on his left, also reached the top, where both 
 regiments rested a short time, and were then ordered 
 forward, and went down the north side of the mountain. 
 Gates saw at a glance the great value of the position, 
 but was obliged to obey orders and move on. 
 
 With the whole division there, some higher officer 
 with authority to act would have quickly placed artillery 
 on its summit, and the next day from that point Lee 
 would have been master of the situation. 
 
 The Alabamians, after reaching the level ground, came 
 
GETTYSBURG. 283 
 
 upon a second line behind excellent fortifications of ir- 
 regular rocks, from which was poured a murderous fire 
 into their very faces. After a prolonged and most cour- 
 ageous contest, these brave men were forced back and 
 retreated to the top of the mountain, losing out of six 
 hundred and forty-two men and forty-two officers in 
 the Fifteenth Alabama, three hundred' and forty-three 
 men and nineteen officers, killed and wounded. When 
 nearly dark they fell back to the point from which they 
 advanced. This is ample proof that big Round Top was 
 not occupied by Northern troops at dark on the even- 
 ing of the 2d. Buford's cavalry from that flank had been 
 sent away early in the day to guard supplies at West- 
 minster. Over the splendid scene of human courage 
 and human sacrifice at Gettysburg there arises in the 
 South an apparition, like Banquo's ghost at Macbeth's 
 banquet, which says the battle was lost to the Confed- 
 erates because "some one had blundered." 
 
 Longstreet's two divisions made a superb record, if 
 late when they began to fight. The attack on Sickles's 
 corps was bravely made and bravely resisted ; Sickles's 
 left was turned, and had it not been that Warren sent a 
 brigade of the Fifth Corps and battery on Little Round 
 Top, that most important point might have been seized, 
 and, if held, decided the battle. For its possession there 
 was furious fighting. Sickles first, and then Warren, 
 Meade's chief engineer, called Meade's attention to 
 Little Round Top, and Sykes's column, then in mo- 
 tion, was hurried forward to save it. Sykes, Meade re- 
 ports, was fortunately able " to throw a strong force on 
 Little Round Top, where a most desperate and bloody 
 struggle ensued to drive the enemy from it and secure 
 our foothold upon that important position." Longstreet 
 did not engage Sickles alone, for the Fifth Corps, part 
 of the Second, two regiments of the Twelfth, and a 
 brigade of the First Corps re-enforced him, while he re- 
 ceived assistance from Anderson's division of Hill's 
 corps, which went into action with the left of McLaws's 
 division. Lee intended Ewell to make a diversion in 
 his front when he heard the guns of Longstreet, to be 
 converted into a genuine attack if opportunity offered; 
 but Ewell's infantry were under fire as soon as the 
 
284 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 bugles blew the advance, so a demonstration could only 
 be made by artillery, which was done. 
 
 If an early attack on the Union right had been suc- 
 cessful, and Ewell, in consequence, had discovered con- 
 fusion in his front, or that his enemy had weakened his 
 line in his front, then his orders required him to at- 
 tack because the " opportunity offered "; but Longstreet 
 had not enveloped the enemy's left, and the Federal 
 main line behind Sickles's outlying corps was intact. 
 After the partial success there, Lee direc<;ed Ewell to 
 assault with his whole corps. Johnson on the slopes of 
 Gulp's Hill to start first, then Early up Cemetery Hill, 
 and Rodes to advance on Early's right. 
 
 Johnson had in front a rugged and rocky mountain 
 difficult of ascent — " a natural fortification, rendered 
 more formidable by deep intrenchments and thick abatis." 
 His left brigade carried a line of breastworks of the 
 Twelfth Corps, which (with the exception of Greene's 
 brigade) had gone to support Sickles against Long- 
 street's attack, and captured prisoners and colors. The 
 firing continued until late at night. 
 
 Early had only two of his brigades in the attack, and 
 they made a brilliant charge. His Louisianians and 
 North Carolinians continued to ascend the hill in the 
 face of a blaze of fire, reached and entered the Union 
 works, and while fighting for the battery were at- 
 tacked by Carroll's brigade and three regiments of fresh 
 troops, and forced to retire, but not in disorder. Had 
 Rodes, as expected, been on his right, with Hill's troops 
 co-operating, permanent possession of the line might have 
 resulted, for Hancock would have been kept busy in 
 his own front, and could not have sent troops to help 
 Howard to hold Gulp's Hill. 
 
 Rodes reports : " He had commenced to make the 
 necessary preparations, but he had to draw his troops 
 out of town by the flank, change the direction of the line 
 of battle, and traverse a distance of twelve or fourteen 
 hundred yards, while Early had to move only half that 
 distance, without change of front, and before he drove 
 in the enemy's skirmishers General Early had been 
 compelled to withdraw." Gregg, with a division of Fed- 
 eral cavalry and horse artillery, was in position east 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 285 
 
 of Slocum, and with dismounted cavalry and artillery 
 made Johnson detach Walker's brigade to meet him. 
 
 When night stopped Johnson he was but a short dis- 
 tance from Meade's headquarters and the Union reserve 
 artillery. A strong night attack then in conjunction 
 with Stuart, who had at last reached the battlefield, 
 would have secured the Baltimore pike in Meade's rear, 
 and perhaps been productive of great results, all of 
 which is easy to see now, but was difficult to know then. 
 
 The sentinel stars set their watch over a ghastly 
 field of dead, dying, and wounded soldiers, lying in blue 
 and gray heaps everywhere. Both contestants sought 
 rest, but battlefields are not pleasant couches when 
 dyed in the blood of numerous brave men, who, sleep- 
 ing their last sleep, lie cold and quiet, while the piteous 
 moans of the wounded pierce the ear and reach the 
 heart. The armies rested without pleasant anticipations 
 of the morrow, knowing well that at the roll call next 
 evening many would not respond. The pickets alone 
 were on duty, the surgeons alone at work. 
 
 W^hen Lee summed up his day's work he found on 
 his right that he had gained possession of Devil's Den 
 and its woods, the ridge on the Emmittsburg road with 
 its fine positions for artillery, and made lodgments on 
 the bases of the Round Tops. On his left he had occu- 
 pied a portion of the Federal works, which gave him an 
 outlet on the Baltimore pike, and was partially success- 
 ful against the Federal center by penetrating it with 
 Anderson's division of Hill's corps, though ultimately 
 expelled. His cavalry was all up except Jones's and 
 Robertson's brigades; and J. E. B. Stuart was again in 
 the saddle near him. The result of the day's operations, 
 Lee reported, "induced the belief that with proper con- 
 cert of action, and with the increased support that the 
 positions gained on the right would enable the artillery 
 to render the assaulting columns, we should ultimately 
 succeed, and it was accordingly determined to continue 
 the attack." 
 
 His opponent was doubtful what he should do next 
 day ; his efforts to prevent an entrance into his lines 
 had been, on the whole, successful, but there had been 
 moments when an unwelcome intrusion seemed inevi- 
 
286 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 table. So he called another council of war at night, hav- 
 ing called one before the fighting began. In a little 
 front room not twelve feet square in the Liester House 
 his commanders assembled. " Should the army attack 
 or wait the attack of the enemy ? " was the written ques- 
 tion they were required to answer; and they voted — as 
 they should have done, being in superior position, with 
 interior lines — to wait, as Lee had done at Fredericks- 
 burg, for another attack, and found him more accommo- 
 dating than Burnside. 
 
 General Lee had a difficult task : the lines of his 
 enemy had grown stronger during the night ; Slocum, 
 Howard, Newton (in Reynolds's place), Hancock, Sickles, 
 Sykes, and Sedgwick's troops were all before him, and 
 on his right and left flank was a division of cavalry un- 
 der Gregg and Kilpatrick respectively. The Union 
 flanks, five miles apart on Gulp's Hill and the Round 
 Tops, were almost impregnable and difficult to turn. 
 Lee's strategy at Chancellorsville was bold, but his de- 
 termination to assault the left center of the Union army 
 with his right corps and its supports was consummate 
 daring. " Longstreet, re-enforced by Pickett's three bri- 
 gades, which arrived near the battlefield during the 
 afternoon of the 2d, was ordered to attack next morn- 
 ing," said Lee, "and General Ewell was directed to as- 
 sail the enemy's right at the same time." During the 
 night General Johnson was re-enforced by two brigades 
 from Rodes and one from Early. 
 
 " General Longstreet's dispositions were not com- 
 pleted as early as was expected," continues Lee, and 
 before he could notify Ewell the enemy attacked John- 
 son, was repulsed, and Johnson, thinking the fighting was 
 going on elsewhere, attacked in his turn and forced the 
 Union troops to abandon part of their intrenchments, 
 but " after a gallant and prolonged struggle " was not 
 able to carry the strongly fortified crest of the hill. 
 " The projected attack on the enemy's left not having 
 been made," Lee states, " he was enabled to hold his 
 right with a force largely superior to that of General 
 Johnson, and finally to threaten his flank and rear, ren- 
 dering it necessary for him to retire to his original posi- 
 tion about I p. M." The delay to attack on the right 
 
GETTYSBURG. 287 
 
 was but a repetition of the preceding day's tactics. It 
 was impossible to move from different flanks a slow offi- 
 cer and a prompt one "at the same time." Longstreet 
 was delayed, General Lee's report tells us, by a force 
 occupying the high rocky hills* on the enemy's extreme 
 left from which his troops could be attacked in reverse 
 as they advanced, and he deemed it necessary to defend 
 his flank and rear with the divisions of Hood and Mc- 
 Laws. *' He was therefore re-enforced by Heth's divi- 
 sion and two brigades of Pender's (Hill's corps), to the 
 command of which Major-General Trimble was as- 
 signed, and General Hill was ordered to afford General 
 Longstreet further assistance if requested, and avail 
 himself of any success that might be gained." 
 
 Meade had sent Kilpatrick's division of cavalry — two 
 brigades — under Merritt and Farnsworth, to his left ; they 
 arrived there about 12 m., and may have looked, mounted 
 and dismounted, formidable on Longstreet's flank, but 
 were not. Nothing could be gained by charging Long- 
 street's infantry in the position they held, and later the 
 same day, when it was attempted, the cavalry were 
 easily driven off and held at bay by two or three regi- 
 ments of Law's brigade on the extreme right. Cavalry 
 charges against infantry can not be made as formerly, 
 because the improved range and rapidity of fire of can- 
 non and small arms mow them down before they get to 
 close quarters. 
 
 The Federal cavalry rendered the greatest assistance, 
 however, to Meade, and his thanks are due to them for 
 keeping out of the fight the fine infantry divisions of 
 Hood and McLaws. The assaulting column was at last 
 formed : Pickett's division of three brigades, five thou- 
 sand men, was formed in two lines, Kemper on the 
 right, Garnett on his left, and Armistead in the rear. 
 Hill's troops — six small brigades — having passed through 
 the fiery furnace of J:wo days' battles, did not number 
 seven thousand men ; they were sent to support Long- 
 street's corps, but, curiously, were placed in an attack- 
 ing column that had no support. 
 
 Four brigades — Pettigrew's, Davis's (a nephew of the 
 
 * There were none except on the Federal main line. 
 
288 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Southern President), Brockenbrough's, and Archer's (of 
 Heth's division, under that fine officer Pettigrew, Heth 
 having been wounded the day before) — were placed on 
 Pickett's left, and two, Lane's and Scales's, about twenty- 
 five hundred men of Pender's division, under Trimble, 
 in a second line, while Wilcox's was to march on the ex- 
 treme right to protect their flank. Thirteen thousand 
 five hundred, or at most fourteen thousand troops, had 
 been massed to attack an army, but with no more hope 
 of success than had the Spartans at Thermopylae, the 
 English cavalry at Balaklava, or the " Old Guard " of 
 the French at Waterloo. 
 
 Pickett's division formed at 10.30 a. m. in line nearly 
 parallel and in rear of the rise upon which runs the 
 Emmittsburg road, but rather diagonally to the Union 
 position at the contemplated point of attack. Kemper's 
 right was one thousand eight hundred and sixty yards 
 distant from it, while Pettigrew prolonged the line some- 
 what en echelon. Pickett's first formation was in one 
 line, Armistead, Garnett, and Kemper from left to right. 
 Garnett's troops were twenty yards only in rear of Wil- 
 cox's brigade of Anderson's division, which had been 
 sent out to the front between daylight and sunrise to 
 protect guns then being put in position by Colonel E. P. 
 Alexander, of the artillery. Wilcox states that the four 
 brigade commanders were together nearly all the time 
 before the artillery opened "in the yard near the Span- 
 gler House," and that there was no officer present in 
 that open field at any time higher in rank than a brigade 
 general, which differs with an account by the right 
 corps commander, who has said that Lee rode with him 
 " twice over the line to see that everything was arranged 
 according to his wishes, and that there was no room for 
 a misconstruction of his orders." Lee's object was to 
 cut the Federal army at its left center as Marlborough 
 split that of Vendome in the same month one hundred and 
 fifty-five years before, thinking perhaps its right wing 
 could be destroyed first, or driven so far out of the way 
 that he could turn in whole or part against the left wing 
 before it could disentangle itself from the rocks and 
 woods of the Round Tops. 
 
 It is fortunate three of General Lee's trusted staff 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 289 
 
 officers — Taylor, Venable, and Long — have recorded 
 that the plan of assault involved an attack by Long- 
 street's whole corps, supported by one half of Hill's, 
 or all of it if he called for it, or upon the bright 
 shield of the Southern chieftain there might have been 
 a lasting blot. Taylor, the adjutant general of the 
 army, says it was originally intended to make the at- 
 tack with Hood and McLaws, re-enforced by Pickett, 
 and it was only because of the apprehensions of General 
 Longstreet that his corps was not strong enough that 
 General Hill was called on to support him ; and Hill, 
 in an official report, states that his troops were sent to 
 Longstreet " as a support to his corps." Lee " rode along 
 a portion of the line held by A. P. Hill's corps, and 
 finally took a position about the Confederate center on 
 an elevated point, from which he could survey the field 
 and watch the result of the movement." Long says 
 the order for the assault by the whole corps was given 
 verbally by General Lee in his presence and that of 
 Major Venable and other officers of the army.* Vena- 
 able states that he heard the orders given to support Pick- 
 ett's attack by McLaws and Hood, and that when he 
 called General Lee's attention to it afterward he said : 
 " I know it, I know it." 
 
 A consummate master of war such as Lee would 
 not drive en masse a column of fourteen thousand men 
 across an open terrene thirteen or fourteen hundred 
 yards, nearly every foot of it under a concentrated and 
 converging fire of artillery, to attack an army, on forti- 
 fied heights, of one hundred thousand, less its two days' 
 losses, and give his entering wedge no support ! Why, 
 if every man in that assault had been bullet proof, and 
 if the whole of those fourteen thousand splendid troops 
 had arrived unharmed on Cemetery Ridge, what could 
 have been accomplished ? Not being able to kill them, 
 there would have been time for the Federals to have 
 seized, tied, and taken them off in wagons, before their 
 supports could have reached them. Amid the fire and 
 smoke of this false move these troops did not know 
 " some one had blundered," but had a right to feel that 
 
 * Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, by Long, p. 294. 
 
290 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 the movement had been well considered, and ordered 
 because it had elements of success. But there was no 
 chance to write victory upon their fluttering flags. The 
 pages of history which record the magnificent exhibition 
 of human courage drip with the useless sacrifice of blood. 
 
 At I p. M, on July 3, 1863, two signal guns were fired 
 by the Washington Artillery, and mstantly the brazen 
 throats of nearly one hundred and fifty cannon barked 
 defiance at the grim, blue battle line in the distance. 
 Two hours before, Colonel E. P. Alexander, of Long- 
 street's artillery, reported he was ready to open fire. 
 Seventy-five guns were in position from the peach or- 
 chard on the right to the woods on the left, where the 
 Third Corps rested, and near by, the other corps had as 
 many more, under R, L, Walker. Salvos by battery 
 were practiced, to secure greater deliberation and power. 
 The Union batteries, under the alert and able chief of 
 artillery. Hunt, were ready to return the greeting with 
 seventy-seven guns [Meade had two hundred and twelve 
 guns with his seven infantry corps, fifty with the cav- 
 alry, and one hundred and eight in reserve — three hun- 
 dred and seventy in all], which were placed on the Sec- 
 ond Corps line within the space of a mile. It was a grand 
 spectacle, never before witnessed on this continent. 
 Hunt reported he could see "from Cemetery Hill the 
 Southern guns stretched, apparently in one unbroken 
 mass, from opposite the town to the peach orchard, the 
 ridges of which were planted thick with cannon. It 
 was a cannonade to crush our batteries and shake our 
 infantry previous to an assault." Most of the projectiles, 
 he states, passed overhead and swept the ground in his 
 rear. The Union batteries along the Second Corps 
 front suffered heavily, however ; wounded soldiers, dead 
 and dying horses, and exploded caissons were on every 
 side. Meade's headquarters, a little to the rear, had 
 been plowed up by the swift-flying missiles, and had 
 been abandoned, forcing Meade to go over to Powers 
 Hill and seek shelter at Slocum's headquarters. The 
 horses of many of his staff were killed. This sublime 
 exhibition, with its great roar, throwing out huge black 
 smoke clouds, was protracted for nearly two hours. 
 
 For waste of ammunition on both sides without com- 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 291 
 
 pensating results it stands unequaled, and towers in un- 
 rivaled superiority above all similar displays. One hun- 
 dred and fifty Southern guns raining metallic tons on 
 the Northern infantry for two hours ought to have made 
 a desert of their lines wide and broad enough to admit 
 an army, but three days' work on a strong, natural, and 
 defensive ridge had placed the infantry under cover, 
 and resting securely, they were not " shaken," as those 
 who participated m the charging column can testify. 
 Hunt, with a soldier's instinct, knew so much noise meant 
 a fight with other arms. Anticipating Meade's orders, 
 he gave instructions to cease firing, to let his guns cool, 
 ran up fresh batteries, replenished his limber chests 
 and caissons, and '' cleared decks " for the real work to 
 follow. Amid the clamor produced by fiery flashes 
 from nearly three hundred guns, the gray heroes select- 
 ed to destroy an army lay close under the cover of a 
 friendly ridge. 
 
 Longstreet was disappointed when he received the 
 order to make this attack, and wanted to move to the 
 Federal left, but Lee knew his relations with Meade 
 had been too intimate during the last two days and the 
 relative hosts too close for such tactical folly. His 
 right corps chief says he took Pickett, who was to com- 
 mand the charge, to the crest of Seminary Ridge, point- 
 ed out the direction to be taken and the point to be 
 assaulted, that he " could see the desperate and hopeless 
 nature of the charge and the cruel slaughter it would 
 cause," and that his ^' heart was heavy" when he left 
 Pickett ; that his objections to Pickett's battle had been 
 overruled, and that the day was one of the saddest of 
 his life, tor he foresaw what his men would meet, and 
 would gladly have given up his position rather than 
 share in the responsibilities of that day. Lee, au con- 
 traire^ was impatiently waiting to see Longstreet's corps 
 and one half of Hill's, or, if necessary, all of it, break, 
 with the force of the tempest which strands navies, 
 through the hostile lines, if the testimony of his staff 
 officers is worthy of credence. 
 
 The details of the attack were properly left to the 
 officer who was to make it. Lee did not care whether 
 Hood and McLaws attacked, re-enforced by Pickett and 
 
292 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Hill's troops, as at first intended, or whether Pickett 
 led and the remainder followed ; but he wanted the 
 muskets numerous enough to plant the victory upon his 
 standards. To fight to a finish a protracted struggle 
 was a bold conception ; to give in audacious form a coup 
 de grace to his enemy was the acme of daring. But Lee, 
 calm, quiet, conservative, and self-controlled, was fear- 
 less when occasion demanded, as a study of his cam- 
 paigns will demonstrate. 
 
 Colonel E. P. Alexander, the commander of a bat- 
 talion of artillery of a division of the First Corps, but 
 whose functions had been enlarged that day, a well- 
 equipped, intelligent, and active officer, was directed by 
 Longstreet to station himself at a point where he could 
 observe the effect of the great cannonade; and when he 
 discovered the Federal batteries crippled or silenced to 
 send word to Pickett, who, upon receipt of such notice, was 
 to move forward. At twelve o'clock Alexander, with a 
 courier of Pickett's, stood on a favorable spot on the 
 left side of his guns, and was loaded, like them, with a 
 terrible responsibility. In a short time a note from 
 Longstreet told him if the artillery fire did not drive off 
 the enemy or greatly demoralize them, he would "pre- 
 fer he should not advise Pickett to make the charge," 
 that he relied a great deal on his good judgment to de- 
 termine the matter, and expected him to let Pickett 
 know when the moment arrived. That the responsibil- 
 ity and fate of a great battle should be passed over to 
 a lieutenant colonel of artillery, however meritorious he 
 might be, is, and always will be, a subject of grave com- 
 ment. 
 
 Alexander replied that he could only judge of the 
 effect of the enemy's fire by the return fire, that his in- 
 fantry was but little exposed to view, and that if there 
 was any alteration to this attack it should be carefully 
 considered before opening fire, for it would take all the 
 artillery ammunition left to test this one, and leave 
 none for another effort. To this Longstreet responded 
 in another note that " the intention is to advance the 
 infantry if the artillery has the desired effect of driving 
 the enemy off, or the effect is such as to warrant us in 
 making the attack ; when the moment arrives, advise 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 293 
 
 General Pickett, and of course advance such artillery as 
 you can use in aiding the attack." 
 
 With Alexander at the time was General Wright, of 
 Georgia, commanding a brigade in Anderson's division 
 of Hill's corps, who practically told him to "brace up," 
 that " it is not so hard to go there as it looks. 1 was 
 nearly there with my brigade yesterday. The trouble 
 is to stay. The whole Yankee army is there in a 
 bunch." He was further stiffened by hearing "a camp 
 rumor that General Lee had said he was going to send 
 every man he had upon that hill," Afterward it occurred 
 to him that he w^ould ride over and see Pickett and feel 
 his pulse, as it were, and how he felt^feout the charge. 
 He ascertained that Pickett " seemed very sanguine, and 
 thought himself in luck to have the chance." 
 
 By this time Alexander had risen to the height of 
 the great occasion, and felt that he could not let the 
 attack suffer through indecision on his part, ''General," 
 he then wrote to Longstreet, " when our artillery fire is 
 at its best I shall order Pickett to charge." It was a 
 fearful order for a subaltern to give, but what could he 
 do ? Pendleton, the chief of artillery of the army, 
 offered him nine howitzers from Hill's corps, and Alex- 
 ander put them in a safe place, to wait until he sent 
 for them, intending to take these guns in advance of 
 Pickett's infantry, nearly to musket range ; but they 
 could not be found when he wanted them. 
 
 General Pendleton had sent for a part of them, think- 
 ing Alexander would not need them; and those remain- 
 ing had moved to another place, and his courier did 
 not find them. At first Alexander thought he would 
 turn the infantry loose in twenty minutes after the fir- 
 ing began ; but when he looked at the enemy's batter- 
 ies and knew his infantry was protected from the artil- 
 lery by stone walls and swells of ground, " it seemed 
 madness to launch men into that fire with three quarters 
 of a mile to go at midday under a July sun," and he 
 "could not bring himself to give the word," Then he 
 wrote Pickett, who was in view and in rear of his ob- 
 servation point : " If you are coming at all you must 
 come at once, or I can not give you proper support ; 
 but the enemy's fire has not slackened," 
 
294 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Two minutes afterwcird the Federal fire ceased, and 
 some of his guns limbered up and vacated their posi- 
 tibns. Then he wrote to Pickett, " For God's sake, come 
 quick." Pickett had taken his first note to Longstreet 
 and asked him if the time for his advance had come, and 
 Longstreet bowed his assent; he could not speak, be- 
 cause he says he was convinced that Pickett was going 
 to lead his troops to useless slaughter. Longstreet then 
 rode to Alexander's position, and, upon being told the 
 artillery ammunition might not hold out, directed Alex- 
 ander to stop Pickett and replenish it; but was told 
 there "was very little to replenish with," and that the 
 enemy would recdK^er from the effect of the fire if there 
 was further delay, and just then, says he, Pickett swept 
 out and showed the full length of the gray ranks and 
 shining bayonets — as grand a sight as ever man looked 
 on — and that on the left Pettigrew stretched farther than 
 he could see. General Garnett, just out of the sick ambu- 
 lance and buttoned up in an old blue overcoat, riding at 
 the head of his brigade, passed just then, and saluted 
 Longstreet. Alexander had served with him on the 
 Plains before the war, and they " wished each other luck 
 and a good-by " — a last farewell for Garnett. Alexan- 
 der followed Pickett with eighteen of his guns which 
 had most ammunition, whose fire was very effective 
 against Stanard's Vermont troops. The small thunder- 
 bolt had been discharged, and the red-crested wave of 
 assault rolled forward, destined to break into fragments 
 on the murderous rocks athwart its path. 
 
 At the word of command, in compact form, with fly- 
 ing banners and brave hearts, the Southern column 
 sprang to the attack. It was a magnificent and thrilling 
 spectacle. " It is well war is so terrible," said Lee at 
 Fredericksburg; "we should grow too fond of it." No 
 such inspiring sight was ever witnessed in this country. 
 Two long lines of angry men, who for two days had 
 been trying to destroy each other, lay within cannon 
 range. Their mutual roar of defiance had ceased when 
 suddenly there swept into the intermediate space nine 
 small brigades of infantry, whose " tattered uniforms 
 and bright muskets," as the smoke of the battle lifted, 
 were plainly in view of both. 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 295 
 
 The divisions of Hood and McLaws, one half of Hill's 
 corps, and the whole of Ewell's stood like the fixed stars 
 in the heavens as their comrades marched into the " jaws 
 of death." Over the ridge, then a slight wheel to the 
 left, and down the slope with confident step they ad- 
 vanced. The Codori farm building had been passed, 
 and the guides instructed to take a directing point for 
 the Union left center held by the Second Corps, expos- 
 ing by the move their right flank to an enfilade fire from 
 the batteries near and on little Round Top. 
 
 In an instant the masses in their front were preparing 
 for the shock of battle. " Here they come ! Here they 
 come ! Here comes the infantry ! " was heard on every 
 side. At an average of eleven hundred yards the Union 
 batteries began to open, and solid shot first tore 
 through their ranks, but with no more effect than firing 
 a pistol at the rock of Gibraltar. The skirmish lines, 
 composed of the Sixteenth Vermont and One Hun- 
 dred and Sixty-sixth Pennsylvania, and parts of Hall's 
 brigade, were next encountered and brushed from 
 their front, as the hurricane sweeps the breast of the 
 mountain. 
 
 Screaming shells broke in front, rear, on both sides, 
 and among them ; but the devoted band, with their ob- 
 jective point steadily in view, kept step to their music. 
 The space between them and the Federal lines grew 
 rapidly less, and soon they were in the "mouth of hell " 
 within range of the well-protected infantry, and then 
 there came a storm of bullets on every side, before 
 which men dropped in their ranks as ripe fruit from a 
 shaken tree. Still they closed the gaps and pressed for- 
 ward, though canister was now raining on flanks and 
 front with a terrible destructive fire. Brave men along 
 the Union line could scarcely refrain from cheering at 
 the perfect order and splendid courage exhibited by the 
 Southern soldiers as they staggered on amid death and 
 destruction, like a great pugilist, whose fast-failing 
 strength denotes the loss of the contest, but resolves to 
 stand in front of his antagonist to the last. What was 
 left of the right of the assaulting troops struck the por- 
 tion of the Federal lines held by Webb's brigade, Sec- 
 ond Corps, and from the stone wall drove two Pennsyl- 
 
296 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 vania regiments, capturing the three guns in charge of 
 Lieutenant A. H. Gushing and mortally wounding this 
 brave young officer, who had been fighting for an hour 
 and a half after being wounded in both thighs by the 
 cannonade. 
 
 The Confederate advance had been thrust into the 
 Federal works, and from the top of the stone wall their 
 battle flags were victoriously flying ; the wedge had en- 
 tered, but the power to drive it through was nearly a 
 mile distant and motionless. What could this handful 
 of heroes accomplish ? A second line and a second 
 stone wall was in front of them, while from every side 
 hostile regiments rushed to overwhelm them. Their 
 three brigade commanders had fallen as the brave fall, 
 every field officer, except one, killed or wounded, while 
 their route was red with the blood of their dead and 
 dying. Kemper had been shot down, Garnett killed with- 
 in twenty-five yards of the stone wall, while Armistead 
 and Lieutenant-Colonel Martin, of the Fifty-third Vir- 
 ginia, fell thirty-three yards beyond Webb's line, mov- 
 ing on with a few courageous followers to attack the 
 second line, which had been hurriedly formed. Brave 
 old Armistead's behavior deserves more than a passing 
 word. When the troops halted at the captured line, see- 
 ing still another force m his front, he drew his sword 
 for the first time and placed his hat on its point, so that 
 his men could see it through the dense smoke of the un- 
 equal combat, and sprang over the wall, crying : '* Boys, 
 we must use the cold steel. Who will follow me?" It 
 is said that when the head of what had been so grand 
 an attack got within a few yards of the second defensive 
 line it consisted of Armistead, his lieutenant, Golonel 
 Martin, and five men; with the destruction of the head 
 the body perished, and one half of those who crossed 
 the ro^d and followed Armistead were killed. To the 
 left of Pickett the four brigades under Pettigrew and 
 the two under Trimble charged. Archer's brigade, un- 
 der Golonel B. D. Fry, of the Thirteenth Alabama, was 
 on the right and was the directing brigade of the whole 
 force. They made their assault in front of Hays's and 
 Gibbon's division. Second Gorps, in the vicinity of 
 Ziegler's Grove. "Stormed at with shot and shell," this 
 
EXPLANATION 
 — — I n c L nea 
 •s^^sss-tn (/I DJenses 
 -—^SoulfetiL s 
 
 •" itityi * I >,■>■ V/ ^ 
 
 / Ilanway 
 hiUan 
 
 / - 'm:^ 
 
 A Tro'atle 
 
 ■^\ 
 
 // 
 
 / .. 
 
 _\^ 
 
 The Battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa., July i, 2, and 3, 1863. 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 297 
 
 column moved steadily on, closing up the gaps made 
 and preserving the alignment. 
 
 " They moved up splendidly," wrote a Northern 
 officer, " deploying as they crossed the long sloping 
 interval. The front of the column was nearly up the 
 slope and within a few yards of the Second Corps's 
 front and its batteries, when suddenly a terrific fire 
 from every available gun on Cemetery Ridge burst 
 upon them. Their graceful lines underwent an instan- 
 taneous transformation in a dense cloud of smoke and 
 dust ; arms, heads, blankets, guns, and knapsacks were 
 tossed in the air, and the moan from the battlefield 
 was heard amid the storm of battle." Sheets of missiles 
 flew through what seemed a moving mass of smoke, 
 human valor was powerless, and the death-dealing guns 
 were everywhere throwing blazing projectiles in their 
 very faces. No troops could advance and live. The 
 fiery onslaught was repulsed as Pickett's division had 
 been, and then the survivors of both came back to their 
 former positions, but not one half of the fourteen thou- 
 sand. The famous charge was over. 
 
 Pickett's column had gone to the front four hundred 
 yards, when Wilcox, whose brigade had not formed part 
 of the attacking column, was ordered by Longstreet to 
 advance in rear of Pickett's right. His twelve hundred 
 Alabamans moved promptly, but were soon subjected 
 to a concentrated fire from the artillery of the Feder- 
 als ; the distance between his left and the smoke-envel- 
 oped force which had preceded them increased ; his 
 own flank was threatened ; he could not see, he reports, 
 what had become of Pickett, so halted and returned, 
 losing two hundred and four killed, wounded, and miss- 
 ing of his five regiments. 
 
 Lee was bitterly disappointed at the day's results. 
 He had confidently expected to hurl at least one half 
 of his army on his enemy, cut him in two, and then 
 with a portion of it wheel to the left, annihilate Meade's 
 right, and before troops of his left could recover and 
 unite with the remainder of the army he proposed to 
 give support to that portion of the attacking column 
 holding them at bay. He was playing for big stakes and 
 a decisive victory, which would bring in its train peace 
 
298 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 to his people and success to his cause. Reasoning, 
 doubtless, that the tendency of separated wings of an 
 army is to seek a reunion in the rear, he had thrown 
 J: E. B. Stuart, with four brigades of cavalry and three 
 batteries of horse artillery, around the Union right rear, 
 so as to be in position to reach his opponent's lines of 
 communication when driven from Cemetery Heights. 
 Between Stuart and the Baltimore pike, two and a half 
 miles off, directly in the rear of General Meade's cen- 
 ter were three brigades of Union cavalry, some five or 
 six thousand troops, with horse batteries, under General 
 Gregg, both commands being between the York and 
 Hanover roads. 
 
 Stuart had hardly reached the point where he pro- 
 posed to rest and await developments before he saw, 
 advancing to his front, a heavy line of dismounted 
 sharpshooters, and a cavalry combat followed, credit- 
 able to the courage and skill of the contestants. 
 Charges and countercharges were made on both sides, 
 and in the resulting melee there was hand-to-hand fight- 
 ing, during which the brave and distinguished General 
 Wade Hampton was seriously wounded twice. Both 
 sides claim a victory, but neither were driven beyond the 
 positions originally occupied, to which they mutually 
 retired from a midway charging ground — Stuart to 
 watch his opportunity if Pickett was successful, as first 
 contemplated ; Gregg to watch Stuart. One of Stuart's 
 brigades, under Jenkins, had only ten rounds of ammu- 
 nition, and was therefore ineffective. The great battle 
 of Gettysburg should be an object lesson to students of 
 military science — first, as illustrating the difficulty of 
 carrying strong positions behind which sheltered troops 
 shoot with the latest improved guns ; second, the great 
 advantage of celerity of execution after carefully con- 
 sidered plans have matured — a qualification so conspicu- 
 ous in the careers of Napoleon and Stonewall Jackson. 
 
 " This has been a sad day to us," said Lee, " but we 
 can not always expect to win victories." It was a sad 
 day for the South, for at that time it was "within a 
 stone's throw of peace." Fate was against Lee; the 
 high-water mark of Southern independence had been 
 reached, and from that hour it began to ebb from the 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 299 
 
 mountains of Pennsylvania until lost in the hills of 
 Appomattox. " It is all my fault," Lee exclaimed, and 
 proceeded in person to rally and reform his shattered 
 troops. ''There was much less noise, fuss, or confusion 
 of orders than at any ordinary field day ; the men were 
 •brought up in detachments, quietly and coolly," said an 
 English colonel who rode by his side. 
 
 With that wonderful magnanimity which Lee so 
 fully possessed he took all the responsibility on his own 
 broad shoulders, and some of it must be put there. First, 
 the discretion allowed, which separated him from his 
 cavalry; second, the omission of positive orders to 
 Ewell to advance on the evening of the ist,* and the 
 failure to replace an officer who opposed his plans with 
 one who would have entered into them heartily, and 
 readily cooperated with him to *' whip the enemy in de- 
 tail." 
 
 In justice to Stuart, it may be said that he did not 
 foresee that a marching, intervening, hostile army would 
 keep him away from Lee so long, or that he would be 
 required before he could get to the Susquehanna, and 
 it is fair to Ewell to recall his instructions about not 
 bringing on a general battle, the absence of a division 
 of his corps, and the false alarm of an advance on his 
 left, after the battle of the ist was over; but it will be 
 difficult to comprehend how two thirds of his right 
 corps, which lay four miles behind a battlefield the night 
 before, did not get into action until 4 p. m. on the suc- 
 ceeding day, in spite of the "subdued excitement," the 
 earnest aggressiveness, and the reported utterances of 
 the commanding general ; and hard to palliate the con- 
 duct of a corps commander, who acknowledged the re- 
 ception of a direct order at 11 a.m. to attack with his 
 troops then up, and did not get into action for five 
 hours thereafter, because he took the responsibility of 
 waiting for one of his brigades to arrive — a delay which 
 
 * General Meade told General Ewell, after the war, had he occu- 
 pied Gulp's Hill at 4 p. M., July 1st, it would have produced the with- 
 drawal of the Federal troops by the Baltimore pike, Taneytown, and 
 Emniittsburg roads. See letter to Colonel G. G. Benedict, Burlington, 
 Vt., March 16, 1876. 
 
300 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 allowed the remaining Union troops to reach the battle- 
 field before he did. 
 
 The delay in getting two or three miles to the right, 
 after the early hour Longstreet's command got near 
 Lee's headquarters, can not be wholly laid at the door 
 of his guide — Lee's engineer officer, Colonel S. P. John- 
 ston. That officer states he called attention to the 
 fact that the road they were following would pass over 
 a hill in view of the Federal line, and pointed out a 
 shorter route across a field screened from observation ; 
 but the corps commander preferred the road, and fol- 
 lowed It to the top of the hill, then halted, and changed 
 the position of his divisions in column. At that time 
 the distance to the place Hood occupied was only a 
 mile and a half, and could have been reached, Johnston 
 says, in less than an hour. And, finally, if the positive 
 assertions of Lee's staff officers can be believed — and 
 they must be, from their w^ell-known high characters — 
 he disobeyed orders when he attacked with one third 
 and not with his whole corps. Lee knew all the facts, 
 for, in addition to what was said to Ewell, Early, and 
 Pendleton, he told Governor Carroll, of Maryland, " that 
 the battle would have been gained if General Long- 
 street had obeyed the order given him and attacked 
 early instead of late ; that Longstreet was a brilliant 
 soldier when once engaged, but the hardest man to move 
 in my army." 
 
 At I A. M. on the 4th General Imboden was sent for 
 by Lee to get orders about the movements of the trains 
 and ambulances which his command was to escort to 
 the Potomac, and says that Lee, after expressing his 
 admiration for the splendid behavior of the troops in 
 " the grand charge," added, " and if they had been sup- 
 ported as they were to have been, but, for some reason 
 not yet fully explained to me, were not, we would have 
 held the position and the day would have been ours." 
 Military critics are not able to understand why the offi- 
 cial head of the officer did not "drop in the basket." 
 They do not know Lee or his great heart, or that self- 
 denying for himself, self-suffering for others, which 
 made him live in a tent for fear of incommoding the 
 occupants of houses, eat the most frugal food, or sit in 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 30 ] 
 
 the most uncomfortable chair, lest some other person 
 might get it. 
 
 He could not harden himself to hew to the strict 
 military line in whatever directions the chips might fall, 
 but tried to believe that the reasons given for noncom- 
 pliance with implied or direct instructions might pos- 
 sibly have some force, that the delays on the 2d could 
 not be foreseen, and that the right flank of the assault- 
 ing column on the 3d might have suffered if not pro- 
 tected by two fine divisions of infantry. Captain Man- 
 gold, a German officer, Instructor of Artillery and 
 Engineer in the Royal Academy, Berlin, and a distin- 
 guished and active military student, says the defect in 
 General Lee's military character was a too kindly con- 
 sideration for incompetent oiiiicers, resulting from an 
 excess of good-nature. 
 
 The intelligent and impartial critic must admit the 
 offensive dispositions of Lee skillful ; the Union left on 
 the 2d to a late hour was most vulnerable, and upon it 
 the attack was designed; while the assault on the 3d, if 
 not surrounded with as many chances of success as on 
 the former day, was made at a point where, if success- 
 ful, he would have secured the great roads to Baltimore 
 and Washington. It was not unlike Napoleon's tactics 
 at \Vaterloo ; the artillery fire was opened there on the 
 allied right, and Reille directed to carry Hougoumont, 
 but the real plan of the great soldier was to break 
 through Wellington's left center, which he ordered to 
 be assaulted with D'Erlon's whole corps supported by 
 Loban's, to drive back the allies on their own right, and 
 secure the great road to Brussels before the helmets of 
 the Prussian squadrons could be seen on the heights of 
 St. Lambert. Lee, too, was infused with the confidence 
 of the fighting power of an army " trembling with eager- 
 ness to rush upon the enemy," though occupying very 
 strong positions and with a numerical superiority of at 
 least thirty thousand. 
 
 The numbers on each side in this great contest have 
 been variously given. Colonel Walter Taylor, Lee's 
 adjutant general, among whose duties was the con- 
 solidation of the corps returns into the army returns, 
 and who, after the war, examined the Federal archives 
 
302 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 with much care, puts Meade's army at one hundred and 
 five thousand and Lee's at sixty-two thousand, and in his 
 Four Years with General Lee gives his reasons. The dif- 
 ference in these numbers is forty-three thousand, so the 
 statement that the Army of the Potomac had thirty 
 thousand more than the Army of Northern Virginia at 
 the battle of Gettysburg, seems conservative. Meade 
 did not use them all. His largest corps — the Sixth, 
 some sixteen thousand men — was in reserve and re- 
 mained intact, only losing two hundred and forty-two 
 in killed, wounded, and missing. Lee had no reserve ^ 
 
 The loss in each army was aboiit the same, Meade's 
 killed being 3,072; wounded, i4,477 ; missing, 5,434. 
 Lee's report claims nearly 7,000 prisoners, which makes 
 a total of 23,003. In Lee's, killed, 2,592 ; wounded, 
 12,709; missing, 5,150; total, 20,451. It will thus be 
 seen that not only is the aggregate loss nearly equal, 
 but that the killed, wounded, and missing respectively 
 does not vary much. Lee's loss was the greatest on the 
 two last days of the combat, Meade's the first day. In 
 the great struggle thirty thousand men were killed and 
 wounded in both armies. The killed, wounded, and 
 missing of the French at Waterloo have been reported 
 at twenty-five thousand, the Anglo-Belgians at fifteen 
 thousand. Napoleon having seventy-two thousand men, 
 and Wellington sixty-eight thousand, a total of one hun- 
 dred and forty thousand, while the total of the Army of 
 the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia was 
 about one hundred and sixty thousand. 
 
 Both armies mourned the death of brave men and 
 competent officers. In the Army of the Potomac four 
 general officers were killed — Reynolds, Vincent, Weed, 
 and Zook — and thirteen wounded, viz., Hancock, Sickles, 
 Gibbon, Warren, Butterfield, Barlow, Doubleday, Paul, 
 Brook, Barnes, W^ebb, Stanard, and Graham. In the Army 
 of Northern Virginia five general officers were killed — 
 Pender, Garnett, Armistead, Barksdale, and Semmes — 
 and nine wounded, viz., Hood, Hampton, Heth, J. M. 
 Jones, G. T. Anderson, Kemper, Scales, and Jenkins. 
 
 Meade showed no disposition to assume the offensive 
 after Pickett's repulse. Ij jce Lee at Fr edericksburg, he 
 did not want to lose the advantages ot posTtion, and was 
 
GETTYSBURG. 303 
 
 not certain the battle was over. The relative numbers 
 
 ineSc h aiiiiy were still about the same, for their losses 
 did not vary much, and the greater part of Lee's army 
 was ready to receive him; he might have been repulsed 
 in turn, producing perhaps other combinations and other 
 results. Lee's ammunition was short, it is true — a fact 
 which was unknown to him when the assault was made, 
 but there was sufficient to still make " many tongues of 
 flame." The natal day of American liberty broke upon 
 both armies occupying nearly the same position, except 
 that Lee had drawn in his left and retired it to a new 
 line out of the town covering his lines of communication, 
 and at the same time strengthened his right by defen- 
 sive works at right angles to his main line to guard 
 against any flank attack there. 
 
 The Southern leader knew on the night of the 3d 
 that he could no longer resume the offensive, and there 
 was nothing to be done except to withdraw from Meade's 
 front. While not declining but rather inviting an attack 
 on the 4th, he had started his long trains, his prisoners 
 and such of his wounded as could bear transportation, 
 back to the Potomac at Williams[ ort under a cavalry 
 escort, and was busy in burying his dead and gathering 
 up the badly wounded for treatment. At dark, in the 
 midst of a heavy rain storm, the army was put in motion 
 by the Fairfield road which crossed the South Mountain 
 range seven miles south of Cashtown, being the direct 
 road to Williamsport ; but the rain and mud so impeded 
 progress that the rear corps — Ewell's — did not leave 
 Gettysburg until late in the forenoon of the 5th. With 
 the exception of the loss of some wagons and ambulances 
 by cavalry attacks, there was no interruption to the retro- 
 grade movement. 
 
 Lee reached Hagerstown, Md., on the 6th, the same 
 day his trains arrived at Williamsport, a few miles dis- 
 tant. On account of the swollen condition of the Poto- 
 mac from recent rains, and the destruction of the pon- 
 toon bridge at Falling Waters, a short distance below, 
 by a roving detachment sent by French at Harper's 
 Ferry, Lee could not cross his impedimenta or his army 
 over the river, but sent the wounded and prisoners over 
 in boats. Calm and quiet as usual, he had a line of de- 
 
304 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 fense skillfully traced to cover the river from Williams- 
 port to Falling Waters, and confidently awaited the sub- 
 sidence of the angry flood and the approach of his 
 opponent. His cavalry had guarded his flanks in the 
 retreat and had saved his trains at Williamsport from 
 an attack of the Union cavalry before his army reached 
 there, and had a creditable affair at Hagerstown. 
 
 Six days after his arrival, Meade, marching from 
 Gettysburg by a different route from that pursued by 
 Lee, began to deploy his legions in his front. Lee's 
 position was not altogether agreeable, a rapid, roll- 
 ing, impassable river sweeping by his rear and a 
 powerful army going into line of battle in his front. 
 Meade was very deliberate and circumspect at Gettys- 
 burg, for he did not forget the bullet holes through his 
 hat when he attacked on his left at Fredericksburg, or 
 the knowledge gained of the unfavorable conditions 
 always surrounding an attacking force. He was still 
 waiting further demonstrations from Lee, and when 
 night appeared without a movement he called a coun- 
 cil of his corps commanders, and in writing asked : 
 First, ''Shall the army remain here?" Second, "If we 
 remain here shall we assume the offensive?" And 
 then wanted to know if they deemed it expedient to 
 move toward Williamsport through Emmittsburg, or if 
 his enemy was retreating, should he pursue on the direct 
 line of his retreat. The majority of the responses to 
 his first question were in favor of remaining at Gettys- 
 burg, but all voted against assuming the offensive, for 
 councils of war rarely, if ever, decide to fight. Pleason- 
 ton, his cavalry commander, was very clamorous the day 
 before, for he says he rode up to Meade after the re- 
 pulse of Pickett and said: " General, 1 will give you an 
 hour and a half to show yourself a great general ; order 
 the army to advance while I take the cavalry, get in 
 Lee's rear, and we will finish the campaign in a week." 
 
 While this advice, if followed, might have been of 
 great benefit to Lee, its most remarkable feature was its 
 presumption. Thirty-six hours after Lee abandoned the 
 field of Gettysburg, Meade, recalling Sedgwick, who had 
 gone toward Fairfield, marched from Gettysburg south 
 to Frederick, Md., thence slowly around by Middletown 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 305 
 
 and the old Sharpsburg battlefield to Lee's position. 
 While he was moving around the horseshoe, General 
 Lee, with a good start, had gone across from heel to 
 heel, and, had it not been for high water, would have 
 been in Virginia before the last of the Army of the Po- 
 tomac left the battlefield of Gettysburg. 
 
 Meade telegraphed Halleck on the 6th that if he 
 could get the Army of the Potomac in hand he would 
 attack Lee if he had not crossed the river, but hoped if 
 misfortune overtook him that a sufficient number of his 
 force would reach Washington and, with what was already 
 there, make it secure. Halleck, from his office in Wash- 
 ington, urged him to " Push forward and fight Lee be- 
 fore he can cross the Potomac." And Mr. Lincoln was 
 cramming him with the comforting information that 
 Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, had surrendered to Grant 
 on July 4th, and that if " Lee's army could be de- 
 stroyed, the rebellion would be over." 
 
 While waiting at Williamsport General Lee received 
 the news of the capture (by raiding Federal cavalry) of 
 his son, General W. H. F. Lee, who was wounded at 
 Brandy Station on June loth, and had been taken to 
 Hickory Hill, the residence of the Wickhams, near 
 Hanover Court House. He wrote Mrs. Lee : " I have 
 heard with great grief that Fitzhugh has been captured 
 by the enemy. Had not expected that he would have 
 been taken from his bed and carried off ; but we must 
 bear this additional affliction with fortitude and resig- 
 nation, and not repine at the will of God. It will 
 eventuate in some good that we know not of now. We 
 must all bear our labors and hardships manfully. Our 
 noble men are cheerful and confident. I constantly re- 
 member you in my thoughts and prayers." 
 
 On July 1 2th, in camp near Hagerstown, Lee heard 
 his son had been carried to Fort Monroe, and wrote : 
 " The consequences of war are horrid enough at best 
 surrounded by all the amelioration of civilization and 
 Christianity. I am very sorry for the injuries done 
 the family at Hickory Hill, and particularly that our 
 dear old Uncle Williams in his eightieth year should 
 be subjected to such treatment. But we can not help 
 it and must endure it. You will, however, learn be- 
 
306 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 fore this reaches you that our success at Gettysburg 
 was not so great as reported. In fact, that we failed to 
 drive the enemy from his position, and that our army 
 withdrew to the Potomac. Had the river not unexpect- 
 edly risen all would have been well with us; but God in 
 his all-wise providence willed otherwise, and our commu- 
 nications have been interrupted and almost cut off. The 
 waters have subsided to about four feet, and if they con- 
 tinue, by to-morrow I hope our communications will be 
 open. I trust that a merciful God, our only hope and 
 refuge, will not desert us in this hour of need, and will 
 deliver us by his almighty hand, that the whole world 
 may recognize his power, and all hearts be lifted up in 
 adoration and praise of his unbounded loving-kindness. 
 We must, however, submit to his almighty will whatever 
 that may be. May God guide and protect us all is my 
 constant prayer." 
 
 The Federal commander could not decide to attack 
 Lee, though he had been heavily re-enforced, and called 
 another council of war on the 13th. All his corps com- 
 manders opposed attacking except two. Later that day 
 Halleck telegraphed him to "call no council of war. It 
 is proverbial that councils of war never fight. Don't let 
 the enemy escape." The Washington assaults had been 
 so continuous that the Union commander, in spite of the 
 council's decision, advanced his army on the 14th with 
 a view of attacking, if justified by a closer examination ; 
 but on the night of the 13th the Army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia recrossed the river at Williamsport, and on the 
 pontoon bridge at Falling Water, which had been re- 
 paired. " The escape of Lee's army without another bat- 
 tle has created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the 
 President," said Halleck, "and it will require an ener- 
 getic pursuit on your part to remove the impression that 
 it has not been sufficiently active heretofore." To a 
 high-minded, meritorious, conscientious officer like 
 Meade this censure was irritating. His request to be 
 immediately relieved was declined on the ground that 
 the dispatch was intended as a "stimulus." 
 
 The river was still deep though fordable. Ewell 
 crossed by 8 a. m. on the 14th, but the passage of 
 Longstreet and Hill was not completed until i p. m. 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 307 
 
 Had Meade made a vigorous attack in the forenoon 
 he might have defeated and captured the portion of 
 Lee's army which had not yet crossed. About 11 a.m. 
 his cavalry, supported by artillery, appeared in front of 
 Heth's division, which, acting as rear guard, was first 
 encountered, and Brigadier-General Pettigrew, "an offi- 
 cer of great promise and merit," was killed. As soon as 
 the bridge was clear Hill began to cross. The advance 
 of the Federals cut off some of Hill's troops, who fell 
 into their hands, as well as men from various commands, 
 who, Lee reported, " lingered behind overcome by pre- 
 vious labors and hardships and the fatigues of a most 
 trying night march, supposed to amount in all to about 
 five hundred men, together with a few broken-down 
 wagons and two pieces of artillery which the horses 
 were not able to draw through the mud." 
 
 The Union commander made no effort to follow the 
 Army of Northern Virginia across the river, except with 
 Gregg's cavalry, which was attacked by two of Stuart's 
 brigades and driven back with loss. Lee proceeded to 
 Bunker Hill and its vicinity, intending to cross the 
 Shenandoah and move into Loudoun County, Va. ; but 
 that river was past fording, and when it subsided, Meade, 
 who had crossed the Potomac east of the Blue Ridge, 
 seized the passes Lee designed to use and moved along 
 the eastern slope of the mountains, as if to cut off Lee's 
 communications with his capital. To prevent this, Lee 
 crossed Chester Gap and went into Culpeper, his ad- 
 vance reaching Culpeper Court House July 24th. After- 
 ward, with a view of placing his force in a position to 
 move readily to oppose the enemy, should he proceed 
 south, and to better protect Richmond, he made the 
 Rapidan his defensive Ime. While at Bunker Hill he 
 wrote Mrs. Lee on July 15th: " The army has returned 
 to Virginia. Its return is rather sooner than I had orig- 
 inally contemplated, but, having accomplished much of 
 what I proposed on leaving the Rappahannock — namely, 
 relieving the Valley of the presence of the enemy, and 
 drawing his army north of the Potomac — I determined 
 to recross the latter river. The enemy, after centering 
 his forces in our front, began to fortify himself in his 
 position and bring up his troops, militia, etc., and those 
 
3o8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 around Washington and Alexandria. This gave him 
 enormous odds. It also circumscribed our limits for pro- 
 curing subsistence for men and animals, which, with the 
 uncertain state of the river, rendered it hazardous for 
 us to continue on the north side. It has been raining 
 a great deal since we first crossed the Potomac, making 
 the roads horrid and embarrassing our operations. The 
 night we recrossed it rained terribly ; yet we got all over 
 safe, save such vehicles as broke down on the road 
 from the mud, rocks, etc. We are all well. I hope we 
 will yet be able to damage our adversaries when they 
 meet us, and that all will go right with us. That it 
 should be so we must implore the forgiveness of God for 
 our sins and the continuance of his blessings. There is 
 nothing but his almighty power that can sustain us. 
 God bless you all." 
 
 And from Camp Culpeper, July 26, 1863: "After 
 crossing the Potomac, finding that the Shenandoah was 
 six feet above fording stage, and having waited a week 
 for it to fall so that I might cross into Loudoun, fear- 
 ing that the enemy might take advantage of our po- 
 sition and move upon Richmond, I determined to ascend 
 the Valley and cross into Culpeper. Two corps are 
 here with me. The third passed Thornton's Gap, and, I 
 hope, will be in striking distance to-morrow. The army 
 has labored hard, endured much, and behaved nobly. 
 It has accomplished all that could be reasonably ex- 
 pected. It ought not to have been expected to perform 
 impossibilities, or to have fulfilled the anticipations of 
 the thoughtless and unreasonable." Meade crossed 
 the Potomac at Harper's Ferry and Berlin on pontoon 
 bridges, moved through Loudoun and Fauquier, forcing 
 Lee to conform to his movements, so that when he 
 eventually took up the line of the Rappahannock, Lee 
 occupied a parallel line on the Rapidan. From his 
 tent in Culpeper he wrote Mrs. Lee on August 2d : 
 " I have heard of some doctor having reached Rich- 
 mond who had seen our son at Fort Monroe. He said 
 that his wound was improving, and that he himself 
 was well and walking about on crutches. The ex- 
 change of prisoners that had been going on has for 
 some cause been suspended, owing to some crotchet 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 309 
 
 or other, but I hope will soon be resumed, and that we 
 shall have him back soon. The armies are in such 
 close proximity that frequent collisions are common 
 along the outposts. Yesterday the enemy laid down 
 two or three pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock 
 and crossed his cavalry and a large force of his infantry. 
 It looked at first as if it were the advance of his army, 
 and, as I had not intended to deliver battle, I directed 
 our cavalry to retire slowly before them and to check 
 their too rapid pursuit. Finding later in the day that 
 their army was not following, I ordered out the infantry 
 and drove them back to the river. I suppose they in- 
 tended to push on toward Richmond by this or some 
 other route. I trust, however, they will never reach 
 there." 
 
 The Army of the Potomac seeming reluctant to ad- 
 vance, General Lee, having made his campaign, did not 
 then propose to do so. In the rest following, his 
 thoughts turned to the operations at Gettysburg, and 
 the difficulties and dangers of the campaign. He grew 
 sensitive under press criticisms, it bemg charged that 
 nothing had been accomplished, and began to depreciate 
 himself and rate too low his high military abilities. He 
 had voluntarily assumed the faults of his subordinates. 
 "The twin disasters of Gettysburg and Vicksburg," 
 with a surrender of thirty thousand men at Vicksburg, 
 were dispiriting, and the thought that he was held in 
 some degree responsible for one of them seized him. 
 
 Gradually the conclusion was reached that perhaps 
 he was occupying a position which might be filled by 
 one who could render greater service with the means at 
 command. On August 8th, from his camp in Orange, 
 General Lee wrote the Southern President " that the 
 general remedy for the want of success in a military 
 commander is his removal," and that his reflections had 
 prompted him " to propose to your Excellency the pro- 
 priety of selecting another commander for this army"; 
 that he did not know how far the expressions of discon- 
 tent in the public journals extended in the army ; his 
 brother officers had been too kind to report it, and so 
 far the troops too generous to exhibit it. He begged 
 Mr. Davis to take measures to supply his place, because 
 21 
 
3IO 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 he could not accomplish what he himself desired ; how, 
 then, could he fulfill the expectations of others ? He 
 confessed his sight was not good, and that he was so 
 dull that in making use of the eyes of others he was 
 frequently misled. 
 
 " Everything, therefore," he wrote, " points to the 
 advantages to be derived from a new commander, and I 
 the more anxiously urge the matter upon your Excel- 
 lency from my belief that a younger and abler man 
 than myself can readily be obtained. I know that he 
 will have as gallant and brave an army as ever existed 
 to second his efforts, and it would be the happiest day 
 of my life to see at its head a worthy leader — one that 
 would accomplish more than I can perform and all that 
 I have wished. I hope your Excellency will attribute 
 my request to the true reason — the desire to serve my 
 country and to do all in my power to insure the success 
 of her righteous cause. 
 
 " I have no complaints to make of any one but my- 
 self. I have received nothing but kindness from those 
 above me, and the most considerate attention from my 
 comrades and companions in arms. To your Excel- 
 lency I am specially indebted for uniform kindness 
 and consideration. You have done everything in your 
 power to aid me in the work committed to my charge 
 without omitting anything to promote the general wel- 
 fare. I pray that your efforts may at length be crowned 
 with success, and that you may long live to enjoy the 
 thanks of a grateful people." 
 
 The reply of Mr. Davis is refined in sentiment and 
 tender in phrase: "I admit the propriety of your con- 
 clusions that an officer who loses the confidence of his 
 troops should have his position changed, whatever may 
 be his ability ; but when I read the sentence I was not 
 at all prepared for the application you were about to 
 make. Expressions of discontent in the public journals 
 furnish but little evidence of the sentiment of the army. 
 I wish it were otherwise, even though all the abuse of 
 myself should be accepted as the results of honest ob- 
 servation. Were you capable of stooping to it, you 
 could easily surround^ yourself with those who would 
 fill the press with your laudations, and seek to exalt 
 
GETTYSBURG. 3II 
 
 you for what you had not done, rather than detract 
 from the achievements which will make you and your 
 army the subject of history and the object of the 
 world's admiration for generations to come. But sup- 
 pose, my dear friend, that I were to admit, with all 
 their implications, the points which you present, where 
 am I to find the new commander who is to possess the 
 greater ability which you believe to be required ? I do 
 not doubt the readiness with which you would give 
 way to one who could accomplish all that you have 
 wished, and you will do me the justice to believe that if 
 Providence should kindly offer such a person for our 
 use 1 would not hesitate to avail myself of his services. 
 
 " My sight is not sufficiently penetrating to discover 
 such hidden merit, if it exists, and I have but used to 
 you the language of sober earnestness when I have im- 
 pressed upon you the propriety of avoiding all unneces- 
 sary exposure to danger, because I felt our country 
 could not bear to lose you. To ask me to substitute 
 you for some one, in my judgment, more fit to command, 
 or who would possess more of the confidence of the 
 army or of the reflecting men of the country, is to de- 
 mand an impossibility. It only remains for me to hope 
 that you will take all possible care of yourself, that 
 your health and strength will be entirely restored, and 
 that the Lord will preserve you for the important 
 duties devolved upon you in the struggle of our suf- 
 fering country for the independence which we have en- 
 gaged in war to maintain," 
 
 The commanding generals of both armies, upright 
 in character and scrupulous in the performance of their 
 respective duties, were naturally sensitive to criticism, 
 and the curious spectacle was presented that, after a 
 gigantic and fierce contest against each other, both 
 should ask to be relieved from their commands. Fancy 
 the -grim veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia 
 paraded in their camp grounds in that month of August, 
 1863, to hear the announcement that Mr. Davis had ac- 
 cepted General Lee's resignation. There would have 
 resounded from flank to flank " Z^ roi est mori!'' but 
 when the " younger and abler man " assumed command, 
 the mummies of the Nile, or the bones beneath the ruins 
 
312 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of Pompeii, could not be more silent than the refusal 
 of these heroes to shout to Robert E. Lee's successor, 
 " Vive le roi ! " 
 
 The Angel of Peace would have appeared in the hour 
 General Lee bid farewell to the Army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia and mounted Traveler to ride away, for the rapid 
 termination of the war would have simplified the duties 
 of " the younger and abler man." Traveler, the most 
 distinguished of the general's war horses, was born near 
 the Blue Sulphur Springs, in West Virginia, and was pur- 
 chased by General Lee from Major Thomas L. Broun, 
 who bought him from Captain James W. Johnston, the 
 son of the gentleman who reared him. General Lee saw 
 him first in West Virginia and afterward in South Caro- 
 lina, and was greatly pleased with his appearance. As 
 soon as Major Broun ascertained that fact the horse was 
 offered the general as a gift, but he declined, and Major 
 Broun then sold him. He was four years old in the spring 
 of 1861, and therefore only eight when the war closed. 
 He was " greatly admired for his rapid, springy walk, 
 high spirit, bold carriage, and muscular strength." When 
 a colt he took the first premium at the Greenbrier Fair, 
 under the name of Jeff Davis.* The general changed 
 his name to Traveler. He often rode him in Lexington 
 after the war, and at his funeral Traveler followed the 
 hearse. He was appraised by a board in August, 1864, 
 at $4,600 in Confederate currency. 
 
 Though Lee was ready to cover his face with his 
 mantle and die like the Athenian, it would have broken 
 his heart to have separated himself from troops who, 
 with empty haversacks, shoeless feet, tattered uniforms, 
 but full cartridge boxes and bright bayonets, had with 
 such undaunted courage nobly supported him at all 
 times. And where would the Southern President have 
 found an officer who was superior in vigorous strategy, 
 fertility of resource, power of self-command, influence 
 over others, patient endurance, or one more composed in 
 victory or dignified in defeat ? 
 
 An English officer described him in the Pennsylvania 
 campaign as having courtly manners and being full of 
 
 * General Grant also had a horse called Jeff Davis. 
 
GETTYSBURG. 
 
 3^3 
 
 dignity; that he had none of the small vices — such as 
 smoking, drinking, chewing — and his bitterest enemy 
 never accused him of any of the greater ones ; that 
 Lee was the handsomest man of his age that he ever 
 saw — "broad shoulders, well made, well set up, a thor- 
 ough soldier in appearance." He generally wore a 
 long gray jacket with three stars on the collar, blue 
 pants tucked into his Wellington boots, and a high felt 
 hat. He never carried arms,* was always neat in 
 dress and person, and on the most arduous marches 
 looked smart and clean, and, "what is very pleasing to 
 an Englishman, he rides a handsome horse, which is 
 extremely well groomed." The removal from the com- 
 mand of the Union army of such an excellent officer as 
 Meade would have been an act of kindness to the Con- 
 federates, the appreciation of which would have been 
 increased if Halleck had been appointed his successor. 
 
 The season of repose which now followed was much 
 enjoyed by both sides. Lee was employed in looking 
 after the welfare of his troops, for their rations and 
 clothing were both getting scarce. He took great in- 
 terest in the religious progress of his soldiers, and did 
 everything in his power to promote sacred exercises in 
 his camps. The relative location of the hostile forces 
 made partial reduction of their numbers comparatively 
 safe. If the Army of the Potomac did not want a bat- 
 tle, it could fall back on the defenses of Washington. 
 If the Army of Northern Virginia declined the encoun- 
 ter, it could withdraw to the Richmond line. 
 
 At this period it was determined to re-enforce Gen- 
 eral Bragg in the West with two divisions of Long- 
 street's corps, to enable him to defeat the Federal Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans, which he did at Chickamauga, while the 
 third division — Pickett's — should be detached for duty 
 south of the James River. 
 
 Meade then crossed over the Rappahannock and 
 occupied Culpeper and the country between the two 
 
 * He always carried a pistol in the holster on the left of his sad- 
 dle, because more convenient to reach when dismounted, and ammu- 
 nition in the right holster. This pistol always hung over his bedpost 
 in Lexington after the war and was discharged after his death — not a 
 barrel missing fire. 
 
314 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 rivers, so as to be closer to Lee should he decide to re- 
 sume offensive operations, but his plans were set aside 
 by troops being detached from him also. The Eleventh 
 and Twelfth Corps under Hooker were sent West, and 
 a considerable number to South Carolina and New York 
 — to this latter place to prevent riots resulting from an 
 enforcement of the recruiting draft. Meade and Lee 
 for some weeks, with reduced forces, simply observed 
 each other. From his camp near Orange Court House, 
 August 23, 1863, General Lee wrote Mrs. Lee that he 
 hears his son is " doing well, is walking about, and has 
 everything he wants except his liberty. You may see 
 that a distinguished arrival at Washington is chronicled 
 in the papers of that city — Miss Catherine Burke. She 
 is reported to have given interesting accounts of the 
 Lee family. (This was one of the colored servants from 
 Arlington.) My camp is near Mr. Erasmus Taylor's 
 house, who has been very kind in contributing to our 
 comfort. His wife sends us every day buttermilk, loaf 
 bread, ice, and such vegetables as she has. I can not 
 get her to desist, though I have made two special visits 
 to that effect. All the brides have come on a visit to 
 the army — Mrs. Ewell, Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Heth, etc. 
 General Meade's army is north of the Rappahannock, 
 along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. He is very 
 quiet." And again, September 4, 1863: "You see I am 
 still here. When I last wrote, the indications were that 
 the enemy would move against us any day ; but this past 
 week he has been very quiet, and seems at present to 
 continue so. I was out looking at him yesterday from 
 Clark's mountain. He has spread himself over a large 
 surface, and looks immense, but I hope will not prove 
 as formidable as he looks. He has, I believe, been 
 sending off some of his troops to re-enforce Rosecrans, 
 and has been getting up others; among them several 
 negro regiments are reported. I can discover no diminu- 
 tion." And on September 18, 1863, from the same camp 
 he tells her: "The enemy state that they have heard of 
 a great reduction in our forces here, and are now going 
 to drive us back to Richmond. I trust they will not 
 succeed. But our hope and refuge is in our merciful 
 Father in heaven." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. BRISTOL STATION. MINE 
 
 RUN. — WILDERNESS. 
 
 For three weeks Lee waited, hoping to be attacked, 
 and then suddenly, on October 9th, put his own army 
 in motion with a design of making a wide circuit around 
 his antagonist's right, to manoeuvre him out of Culpeper 
 to his rear, and force him to deliver battle by intercept- 
 ing his march toward Washington. He left a small force 
 of infantry and cavalry to hold his old line on the Rapi- 
 dan, which the Union cavalry attacked the next day, and 
 was repulsed and pursued rapidly toward Culpeper Court 
 House, where Stuart was driving Meade's rear guard 
 under Kilpatrick. 
 
 The Army of Northern Virginia, numbering, with- 
 out Longstreet's corps, forty-four thousand, was placed 
 by a wide swing, via Madison Court House, around 
 Meade's right, and in forty-one miles reached Cul- 
 peper Court House to find the Army of the Potomac 
 had been promptly withdrawn to the north bank of the 
 Rappahannock. Lee then essayed another swing around 
 the circle, and forced a passage over the Rappahannock 
 at the White Sulphur Springs on the 12th, roughly hand- 
 ling Gregg's cavalry division, which guarded Meade's 
 right, marching eighteen miles that day; but while Lee 
 was moving north, Meade, not hearing from him, re- 
 crossed the river and moved south to Culpeper again, 
 leaving one corps on the river. As soon as Gregg re- 
 ported Lee's position, the Union troops were counter- 
 marched in haste, and on the morning of the 13th, after 
 a night march, were again north of the Rappahannock. 
 That morning Lee only went to Warrenton — seven 
 miles. He was still the nearer to Washington, and 
 
 (315) 
 
3i6 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ahead. A five-mile march from Warrenton to Auburn, 
 or nine miles to Warrenton Junction, or fourteen to 
 Bristoe, would have placed him in position to strike as 
 Meade's columns marched South. The 13th, after a 
 march of a few miles, was passed at Warrenton by 
 Lee, while Meade's rear, under Warren, bivouacked five 
 miles away at Auburn. That delay, which General Lee 
 says was due to being out of rations, allowed Meade to 
 pass beyond him. 
 
 The next morning, the 14th, Ewell was sent via Auburn 
 to Bristoe, and A. P. Hill by New Baltimore to the same 
 place. The former struck Warren's rear, the latter the 
 head of his column at Bristoe, and attacked it with only 
 two brigades, which were repulsed by the masterly man- 
 agement of Warren, who seized with Hays's division a 
 cut on the railroad. So skillfully was this done that War- 
 ren captured from Hill four hundred and fifty prisoners, 
 five pieces of artillery, and two stand of colors, and 
 passed his whole corps across the broad run, following 
 Meade's rear without further molestation, though one 
 half of Lee's army might have been hammering his head 
 and the other half his tail. 
 
 The adventurous Stuart got caught near Auburn on 
 the night of the 13th between two marching parallel 
 columns of Federal infantry, and, with a portion of his 
 cavalry and some guns, lay perdue during the night 
 within a mile or two of Meade's headquarters and 
 some four hundred yards from General Warren's rear 
 division, but dexterously extricated his whole command 
 next morning. 
 
 While Lee lay at Warrenton on the 13th, Meade was 
 twenty miles south of Bristoe, but, in spite of his night 
 march on the 12th, succeeded in placing his whole army 
 beyond Lee on the 13th, except Warren, who stopped 
 opposite him and only a few miles away. Meade fell 
 back to Centreville and its vicinity, where he prepared 
 to offer battle. The position might have been turned, 
 as in the case of Pope, but the immense works around 
 Washington held out hospitable arms in case Meade 
 again declined the contest. Nothing was accomplished 
 except to demonstrate that the army which first left 
 Gettysburg first assumed the offensive m Virginia. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 317 
 
 When General Lee retired, Meade followed, and his ad- 
 vance cavalry, under Kilpatrick, was routed by Stuart 
 wheeling about and attacking it in front, while another 
 portion of his horsemen assailed their flank at Buckland 
 on the Warrenton road in an affair christened " Buck- 
 land races." 
 
 *' I have returned to the Rappahannock," wrote Gen- 
 eral Lee to his wife, October 19, 1863; "I did not 
 pursue with the main army beyond Bristoe or Broad 
 Run. Our advance went as far as Bull Run, where 
 the enemy was intrenched, extending his right as far 
 as Chantilly, in the yard of which he was building a 
 redoubt. I could have thrown him farther back, but 
 I saw no chance of bringing him to battle, and it would 
 have only served to fatigue our troops by advancing 
 farther. If they had been properly provided with 
 clothes I would certainly have endeavored to have 
 thrown them north of the Potomac; but thousands 
 were barefooted, thousands with fragments of shoes, 
 and all without overcoats, blankets, or warm clothing. 
 I could not bear to expose them to certain suffering 
 on an uncertain issue." The L^nion troops around 
 Warrenton waited for the railroad which the Confeder- 
 ates had torn up to be repaired. 
 
 From Camp Rappahannock, October 28, 1863, the 
 General said to Mrs. Lee : " I moved yesterday into a 
 nice pine thicket, and Perry is to-day engaged in con- 
 structing a chimney in front of my tent which will make 
 it warm and comfortable. I have no idea when F. [his 
 son, W. H. F. Lee] will be exchanged. The Federal au- 
 thorities still resist all exchanges, because they think it 
 is to our interest to make them. Any desire expressed 
 on our part for the exchange of any individual magni- 
 fies the difficulty, as they at once think some great bene- 
 fit is to result to us from it. His detention is very griev- 
 ous to me, and, besides, I want his services. I am glad 
 you have some socks for the army. Send them to me. 
 They will come safely. Tell the girls to send all they 
 can. I wish they could make some shoes, too. We 
 have thousands of barefooted men. There is no news. 
 General Meade, I believe, is repairing the railroad, and 
 I presume will come on again. If I could only get 
 
3i8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 some shoes and clothes for the men I would save him 
 the trouble." 
 
 On November ist Lee reviewed his cavalry corps, 
 much to the delight of J. E. B. Stuart, who, like Murat, 
 was not averse to the pomp of war. The cavalry chief 
 was in all his glory with his " fighting jacket " and danc- 
 ing plume. The cavalry corps numbered — by the re- 
 turns of the day before — seven thousand nine hundred 
 and seventeen. Many squadrons were absent on picket 
 and other detached duty, but at least five thousand sabers 
 passed his front. It was an inspiring sight. The pri- 
 vates, who were graceful riders, owned the horses, which 
 were generally good. 
 
 From Camp Rappahannock, November i, 1863, he 
 wrote Mrs. Lee : " I have just had a visit from my neph- 
 ews, Fitz, John, and Henry. They looked very well. The 
 former is going on a little expedition. As soon as I was 
 left alone I committed them in a fervent prayer to the 
 care and guidance of our heavenly Father. I think my 
 rheumatism is better to-day. I have been through a 
 great deal with comparatively little suffering. I have 
 been wanting to review the cavalry for some time, and 
 appointed to-day with fear and trembling. I had not 
 been on horseback for five days previously and feared I 
 would not get through, but, to my surprise, I got along 
 very w^ell. The Governor was here and told me Mrs. 
 Letcher had seen you recently." 
 
 Meade now decided to get closer to Lee so as to be 
 in a position where he in turn could take the offensive, 
 and began to advance on November 7th. His left wing of 
 three corps, under French, was directed to cross the Rap- 
 pahannock at Kelly's Ford; his right, under Sedgwick, 
 at Rappahannock Station. French progressed without 
 much opposition, but Sedgwick found a tete-de-pont with 
 lines of rifle trenches on the north side of his crossing 
 point. This was a fort or redoubt, being in part some 
 old intrenchments, but without a ditch and open to the 
 south, with which it was connected by a pontoon bridge. 
 It was occupied by two of Early's brigades under Colo- 
 nels Penn and Godwin, with four pieces of artillery. 
 Daylight was fast disappearing; Russell's division of 
 the Sixth Corps was in line of battle in its front, with 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 319 
 
 Upton's brigade deployed as skirmishers. Russell 
 thought he could carry the work, so Sedgwick gave 
 the order. The conditions were favorable to success; 
 the wind blowing strong from south to north, the firing 
 could not be heard by the supporting batteries on the 
 south side, so Russell stormed the redoubt with so 
 much dash that it was captured before the Southern 
 force on the south side knew it. 
 
 It was a brilliant coup de main, reflecting credit on 
 those engaged, particularly the Maine and Wisconsin 
 regiments. The troops assailed by a division amounted 
 to one thousand six hundred and seventy-four, and so 
 rapid was the Federal rush that only six were killed and 
 thirty-nine wounded ; eight captured flags were carried 
 to Meade's headquarters by Russell and Upton, preceded 
 by a band, and then sent in charge of Russell to the War 
 Department at Washmgton, after the manner Napoleon's 
 trophies went sometimes to Paris, but the Secretary sent 
 the gallant officer word he was too busy to see him, so 
 the concluding ceremony was not as ostentatious as 
 planned. Lee withdrew on the night of the 8th to his 
 lines behind the Rapidan, while Meade reoccupied his 
 camp between the rivers. Both sides wanted a battle, 
 but on ground of their own selection. 
 
 About this time the city of Richmond presented Gen- 
 eral Lee with a house. In consequence, the President 
 of the City Council received the following letter, dated 
 November 12, 1863 : " I assure you, sir, th»t no want of 
 the appreciation of the honor conferred upon me by this 
 resolution, or insensibility of the kind feeling that 
 prompted it, induces me to ask, as I most respectfully 
 do, that no further proceedmgs be taken with reference 
 to the subject. The house is not necessary for the use 
 of my family, and my own duties will prevent my resi- 
 dence in Richmond. I shall therefore be compelled to 
 decline the generous offer, and trust that whatever 
 means the City Council may have to spare for this pur- 
 pose may be devoted to the relief of the families of our 
 soldiers in the field who are now in need of assistance, 
 and more deserving of it than myself." 
 
 The general was still worried about his imprisoned 
 son, who was an affectionate, lovable fellow, as well as a 
 
320 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 fine officer, and wrote: "Camp, November 21, 1863. — I 
 see by the papers that our son has been sent to Fort La- 
 fayette. Any place would be better than Fort Monroe 
 with Butler in command. His long confinement is very 
 grievous to me, yet it may all turn out for the best." 
 
 The people of Richmond, not being able to do any- 
 thing for General Lee, doubled their acts of kindness to 
 his wife. She was deeply grateful for their love and 
 friendship, and so informed her husband, who replied 
 from camp, November 25, 1863 : " The kindness exhibited 
 toward you as well as myself by our people, in addition 
 to exciting my gratitude, causes me to reflect how little 
 I have done to merit it, and humbles me in my own eyes 
 to a painful degree. I am very sorry the weather was so 
 bad that I could not give the President a review. I want- 
 ed him to see the troops, and wanted them to see him." 
 
 Over two weeks elapsed, after the Army of the Poto- 
 mac and the Army of Northern Virginia were face to face 
 along the Rapidan, before Meade executed a well-con- 
 sidered plan to turn Lee's right and either throw him 
 nearer to his capital or beat him before he could con- 
 centrate his force, which was much scattered, in order to 
 secure supplies more easily. At dawn on November 26th 
 his columns were put in motion to cross the Rapidan at 
 its lower fords, reach the country south of the river and 
 east of Orange Court House, and there be directed to 
 Orange Court House on the roads leading from Fred- 
 ericksburg to that point. He was in light marching or- 
 der, well supplied with ten days' rations, and his wagons 
 were left north of the Rapidan ; but around his Cul- 
 peper camp hovered Southern cavalry scouts, and Lee 
 early knew Meade's preparations and movements. 
 
 Flowing northerly into the Rapidan and almost at 
 right angles was Mine Run, on whose western banks 
 Lee rapidly deployed a line of battle, his great engineer- 
 ing talent assisting him in locating his troops, and with 
 great rapidity breastworks were constructed too strong 
 to be assailed. When Meade reached the line of Mine 
 Run en j^oute to Orange Court House, Lee's army con- 
 fidently blocked his way. He could not make a direct 
 assault, so the Union commander resolved to attack both 
 wings, by Sedgwick on Lee's left, by Warren on his 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 32 1 
 
 right ; but the latter, formerly an engineer officer, who 
 was to begin, reported that closer reconnoissance dis- 
 closed his enemy's lines too were well defended. There 
 was no alternative left Meade except to withdraw, 
 which he did during the night. 
 
 To Mrs. Lee the general gave his account of the af- 
 fair from Camp Rapidan, December 4, 1863 : "You will 
 probably have seen that General Meade has retired to 
 his old positions on the Rappahannock without giving 
 us battle. I had expected, from his movements and all 
 that I had heard, that it was his intention to do so, and 
 after the first day, when I thought it necessary to skir- 
 mish pretty sharply with him on both flanks to ascertain 
 his views, I waited patiently his attack. On Tuesday, 
 however, I thought he had changed his mind, and that 
 night made preparations to move around his left next 
 morning and attack him. But when day dawned he 
 was nowhere to be seen. He had commenced to with- 
 draw at dark Tuesday evening. We pursued to the 
 Rapidan, but he was over. Owing to the nature of the 
 ground, it was to our advantage to receive rather than 
 to make the attack, and as he about doubled us in 
 numbers, I wished to have that advantage. I am greatly 
 disappointed at his getting off with so little damage, but 
 we do not know what is best for us. I believe a kind 
 God has ordered all things for our good." 
 
 In the latter part of December General W. H. F. Lee, 
 still in prison, was overtaken by a great calamity. His 
 wife and his two children died. When General Lee 
 was informed of their death he wrote : 
 
 Sunday Mornings December 27, 1863. 
 Custis's dispatch which I received last night demolished all 
 the hopes in which I had been indulging during the day of dear 
 Charlotte's recovery. It has pleased God to take from us one 
 exceedingly dear to us, and we must be resigned to his holy will. 
 She, I trust, will enjoy peace and happiness forever, while we 
 must patiently struggle on under all the ills that may be in store 
 for us. What a glorious thought it is that she has joined her lit- 
 tle cherubs and our angel Annie [his daughter] in heaven ! Thus 
 is link by link of the strong chain broken that binds us to earth, 
 and smoothes our passage to another world. Oh, that we may be 
 at last united in that haven of rest, where trouble and sorrow 
 never enter, to join in an everlasting chorus of praise and glory to 
 
322 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 our Lord and Saviour ! I grieve for our lost darling as a father 
 only can grieve for a daughter, and my sorrow is heightened by 
 the thought of the anguish her death will cause our dear son, and 
 the poignancy it will give to the bars of his prison. May God in 
 his mercy enable him to bear the blow he has so suddenly dealt 
 and sanctify it to his everlasting happiness ! 
 
 Rations and clothing for his men and forage for his 
 animals were sources of great anxiety to him. In the 
 midst of winter many of his brave men were without 
 blankets and barefooted. From camp, January 24, 1864, 
 he wrote: " I have had to disperse the cavalry as much 
 as possible to obtain forage for their horses, and it is 
 that which causes trouble. Provisions for the men, too, 
 are very scarce, and with very light diet and light 
 clothing I fear they suffer; but still they are cheerful 
 and uncomplaining. I received a report from one divi- 
 sion the other day in which it was stated that over four 
 hundred men were barefooted and over a thousand 
 without blankets." 
 
 Difficulties surrounded him on every side ! From 
 camp, February 6, 1864, he wrote Mrs. Lee : " I received 
 your letter some days ago, and last night your note 
 accompanying a bag of gloves and socks and a box of 
 coffee. Mrs. Devereux sent the coffee to you, not to 
 me, and I shall have to send it back. It is so long 
 since we have had the foreign bean that we no longer 
 desire it. We have a domestic article, which we pro- 
 cure by the bushel, that answers very well. You must 
 keep the good things for yourself. We have had to 
 reduce our allowance of meat one half, and some days 
 we have none. The gloves and socks are very ac- 
 ceptable, and I shall give them out this morning. The 
 socks of Mrs. Shepherd are very nice, but I think it is 
 better to give them to the soldiers than to dispose of 
 them as you suggest. The soldiers are much in need. 
 We have received some shoes lately, and the socks will 
 be a great addition. Tell ' Life' [his youngest daugh- 
 ter] I think I hear her needles rattle as they fly through 
 the meshes." 
 
 The very day after this letter was written these 
 destitute men joyfully sprang to arms. General Butler, 
 at Fort Monroe, but commanding the Department of 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 323 
 
 Virginia and North Carolina, thought, from what he had 
 heard, he could capture Richmond with cavalry from 
 the Peninsula — the general ability of Butler was great, 
 his military qualifications small. Brigadier-General 
 Wister marched from New Kent Court House to the 
 Chickahominy and marched back again. A portion of 
 the Army of the Potomac, in pursuance of Butler's plan, 
 were to cross the Rapidan and threaten Lee, to prevent 
 him from dispatching troops to Richmond by rail. 
 This Army-of-the-Potomac diversion was under gallant 
 old Sedgwick, who was commanding the army during 
 Meade's temporary absence. 
 
 General Lee gives his account of the diversion in a 
 letter dated Camp, Orange County, February 14, 1864: 
 " This day last week we were prepared for battle, but I 
 believe the advance of the enemy was only intended to 
 see where we were and whether they could injure us. 
 They place their entire loss in killed, wounded, and 
 missing at twelve hundred, but I think that is exag- 
 gerated. Our old friend Sedgwick was in command. 
 In reference to Rob " (his youngest son, who was a pri- 
 vate in the Rockbridge artillery battery, and who Mrs. 
 Lee desired to be with his father), ''his company would 
 be a great pleasure and comfort to me, and he would be 
 extremely useful in various ways, but I am opposed to 
 officers surrounding themselves with their sons and rela- 
 tives. It is wrong in principle, and in that case selec- 
 tions would be made from private and social relations 
 rather than for the public good. There is the same ob- 
 jection to going with Fitz Lee. I should prefer Rob's 
 being in the line in an independent position, where he 
 could rise by his own merit and not through the recom- 
 mendation of his relatives. I expect him here soon, 
 when I can better see what he himself thinks. The 
 young men have no fondness for the society of the old 
 general. He is too heavy and sombre for them." 
 
 Again Lee's rest was disturbed by a diversion on his 
 left flank by infantry and cavalry, in order to allow 
 Kilpatrick, with some four thousand horsemen, to ride 
 past his right, make a dash for Richmond, release the 
 Union prisoners, and disturb the peace generally. It 
 accomplished nothing. The idea originated in Wash- 
 
324 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ington, it is said, for Meade disapproved it. Upon one 
 of Kilpatrick's officers — Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, who 
 was killed — some remarkable papers were found, in- 
 cluding a sort of an address to the soldiers to burn 
 Richmond, " kill Jeff Davis and Cabinet," and do many 
 other horrible things. The United States Government 
 promptly disclaimed any knowledge of such orders, and 
 so did Meade. Dahlgren was a daring, dashing young 
 fellow, but was too enthusiastic. It is certain the 
 papers published at the time were taken from his per- 
 son. The Southern President laughed as he read over 
 the originals in his office, and turning to Mr. Benja- 
 min, his Secretary of State, who was with him, said, 
 when he reached the word Cabinet, "That is intended 
 for you, Mr. Benjamin." 
 
 Lee was now making every effort to promote the 
 efficiency of his army for the great struggle he knew 
 must come in the spring. On March i8, 1864, he 
 wrote: "I arrived safely yesterday." (He had been 
 on a short visit to Richmond.) *' There were sixty- 
 seven pairs of socks in the bag I brought up instead 
 of sixty-four, as you supposed, and I found here three 
 dozen pairs of beautiful white-yarn socks, sent over 
 by our kind cousin Julia and sweet little Carrie, mak- 
 ing one hundred and three pairs, all of which I sent 
 to the Stonewall brigade. One dozen of the Stuart 
 socks had double heels. Can you not teach Mildred 
 [his daughter] that stitch ? They sent me also some 
 hams, which I had rather they had eaten. I pray that 
 you may be preserved and relieved from all your trou- 
 bles, and that we may all be again united here on earth 
 and forever in heaven." His wife and daughter and 
 other friends of the cause were knitting socks for the 
 soldiers, and the commanding general had brought some 
 of them back to the army himself ! 
 
 The cavalry, for the better subsistence of men and 
 horses, had been moved back to Charlottesville for the 
 winter, and, not having much to do, some of the officers 
 proposed to dance. General Lee wrote his son Robert, 
 then belonging to that arm of service, from Camp Orange 
 Court House, January 17, 1864 : " I inclose a letter 
 for you which has been sent to my care. I hope you 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 325 
 
 are well and all around you. Tell Fitz I grieve over 
 the hardships and sufferings of his men in their late 
 expedition, I would have preferred his waiting for 
 more favorable weather. He accomplished much under 
 the circumstances, but would have done more in better 
 weather. I am afraid he was anxious to get back to 
 the ball. This is a bad time for such things. We have 
 too grave subjects on hand to engage in such trivial 
 amusements. I would rather his officers should enter- 
 tain themselves in fattening their horses, healing their 
 men, and recruiting their regiments. There are too 
 many Lees on the committee. I like them all to be 
 present at battles, but can excuse them at balls. But 
 the saying is, 'Children will be children.' I think he 
 had better move his camp farther from Charlottesville, 
 and perhaps he will get more work and less play. He 
 and I are too old for such assemblies. I want him to 
 write me how his men are, his horses, and what I can 
 do to fill up his ranks." 
 
 From camp, April 2, 1864, he wrote AJrs. Lee : 
 " Your note with the socks arrived last evening. 1 have 
 sent them to the Stonewall brigade; the number all 
 right — thirty pairs. Including this last parcel of thirty 
 pairs, I have sent to that brigade two hundred and 
 sixty-three pairs. Still, there are about one hundred 
 and forty whose homes are within the enemy's lines 
 and who are without socks. I shall continue to furnish 
 them till all are supplied. Tell the young women to 
 work hard for the brave Stonewallers." And once 
 more, from Orange County, April 21, 1864: "Your 
 note with bag of socks reached me last evening. The 
 number was correct — thirty-one pairs. I sent them to 
 the Stonewall brigade, which is not yet supplied. Sixty- 
 one pairs from the ladies in Fauquier have reached 
 Charlottesville, and I hope will be distributed soon. 
 Now that Miss Bettie Brander has come to the aid of 
 my daughters, the supply will soon be increased." 
 
 The preparations of the Government of the United 
 States for prosecuting the war in 1864 were on a vast 
 scale. Stupendous efforts were made to crush armed 
 resistance everywhere. An irresistible invasion was de- 
 signed to destroy " rebellion " from center to circum- 
 22 
 
326 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ference. The principal objective points were the two 
 principal armies of the Confederacy — the one then at 
 Dalton, Ga., under J. E. Johnston, and the other in Vir- 
 ginia under Robert E. Lee. The Washington authorities 
 decided that there should be only one head to direct 
 these immense plans of campaign, and it determined the 
 head should be on the shoulders of General U. S. Grant. 
 This officer was commissioned lieutenant general on 
 March 9, 1864, and placed in the command of all the 
 armies of the United States. His success in the West 
 had brought him prominently to the notice of Mr. Lin- 
 coln. In the exercise of supreme command his especial 
 attention was to be bestowed upon General Lee, and 
 his headquarters were to be established with Meade's 
 army. Hiram Ulysses, as christened, or Ulysses S. 
 Grant, as he was registered at West Point, was a na- 
 tive of Ohio, who graduated at the United St^es Mili- 
 tary Academy in 1843; was assigned to the Fourth 
 Infantry and became regimental quartermaster ; served 
 with distinction in Mexico, and was bold and adventur- 
 ous — for instance, at Molino del Rey he climbed to 
 the roof of a house and demanded the surrender of 
 Mexicans occupying it ; and at another point placed 
 howitzers in the belfry of a church to drive his enemy 
 out of a defensive position near the City of Mexico. 
 After eleven years in the United States Army he re- 
 signed, was afterward on a small farm near St. Louis, 
 and then became a clerk in i860 in the hardware and 
 leather store of his father in Galena, 111. When the 
 war broke out he offered his services to his Government 
 in writing, but received no reply, and was afterward 
 made colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment by 
 the Governor of that State. He was thirty-nine years 
 old when he confronted Lee, and was not to be despised 
 as a commander. He was fortunate in being placed in 
 command at a time when the resources of men and 
 means of the Confederacy were smaller than ever be- 
 fore, and his peculiar direct tactics could be employed 
 in consequence of superiority in numbers, for he ad- 
 mitted to Meade he never manoeuvred. With two hos- 
 tile armies of approximate strength commanded by Lee 
 and Grant in a campaign demanding a high order of 
 
'iHE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 327 
 
 military sagacity and a familiarity with strategic sci- 
 ence, the chances of success would be with Lee. 
 
 The Union chief had, however, many excellent quali- 
 ties for a soldier. He was taciturn, sturdy, plucky, not 
 afraid of public responsibility or affected by public 
 opinion. There was no ostentation in his position, and 
 to an outsider he was not as showy as a corporal of 
 the guard. Meade had a Solferino flag with a golden 
 eagle in a silver wreath for his headquarters. When 
 General Grant first saw it unfurled, as they broke camp 
 for the Wilderness campaign, he is reported to have ex- 
 claimed, "What's this? Is imperial Caesar anywhere 
 about here ? " 
 
 Lee, who had campaigned against McClellan, Pope, 
 Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, had now to measure 
 swords with Grant. Sheridan, too, made his first bow 
 in Virginia at this time. He had served with distinction 
 under Halleck in the West, and when Grant asked for 
 the best officer that could be found to be his chief of 
 cavalry, Halleck suggested Sheridan, and his suggestion 
 was instantly adopted. This officer graduated in 1853 
 at West Point, was a classmate of McPherson, Schofield, 
 and Hood, had served in the Fourth Infantry — Grant's 
 old regiment — and was thirty years of age when he first 
 drew his sabre in Virginia in 1864. 
 
 The Federal Government laid at the feet of Grant 
 its unbounded treasures. His Virginia army was in- 
 creased to one hundred and eighteen thousand men of 
 all arms and three hundred and eighteen cannon, as 
 some authorities have it; but the report of the Union 
 Secretary of War to the first session of the Thirty-ninth 
 Congress gave one hundred and forty-nine thousand 
 one hundred and sixty men. Some idea of its vast pro- 
 portions may be had by the statement that one hundred 
 and eighteen thousand men, disposed for battle two 
 ranks deep, would cover a front of thirty miles, while 
 sixty-two thousand men, similarly disposed, would cover 
 only sixteen miles. Grant says, in his Memoirs, his 
 wagon train would have reached on a single road from 
 the Rapidan to Richmond, sixty-five miles. To meet 
 this grand " On to Richmond ! " Lee had sixty-two thou- 
 sand men and two hundred and twenty-four field guns. 
 
328 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 At midnight on May 3d Grant began to cross the 
 Rapidan at Ely's and Germanna fords, some distance 
 below Lee's right, but at the very points Lee had 
 predicted, a few days before, in a conference with his 
 officers. The Army of the Potomac was now consoli- 
 dated into four corps — Second, Fifth, and Sixth — com- 
 manded by Hancock, Warren, and Sedgwick, and the 
 Ninth under Burnside. (Under the consolidation the 
 First and Third Corps disappeared.) When the sun sank 
 to rest on the 4th, Grant had crossed his whole army, 
 and on the morning of the 5th confidently started 
 across the Wilderness in a southerly direction to force 
 Lee to accept battle. 
 
 Crossing the river without opposition relieved his 
 mind from serious apprehensions ; but it was no part of 
 Lee's plan to resist him there. Indeed, he generally 
 gave plenty of room on his side of a stream for his op- 
 ponent to form, hoping to make it as difhcult for him to 
 get back as it was easy for him to get over. It is safe 
 to say he v/ould never have formed his troops at the 
 water edge of the Bull Run fords as Beauregard did at 
 the first Manassas, but upon commanding positions 
 back, with only sufficient force to delay and give notice 
 of the crossing. Had Beauregard done this, he would 
 not have had his left turned, for the opportune arrival 
 of Johnston alone gave him the battle. Grant's move 
 did not, as he expected, compel Lee to fall back toward 
 Richmond and fight a defensive battle ; but hardly had 
 he filled the Wilderness with men as thick as '^ raging 
 locusts " than Lee marched to meet and attack him. 
 
 Early on the morning of May 4th he bade adieu to 
 the three or four tents near Orange Court House which 
 had been the winter home of himself and personal staff, 
 and with Ewell's corps, two detached brigades, and 
 two divisions of Hill's corps, with artillery and cavalry, 
 marched by the most direct course for Grant's army. 
 Longstreet, who vi^as near Gordonsville then with two 
 divisions (Pickett's was south of James River), w^as di- 
 rected to follow, as well as Anderson's division of Hill's 
 corps which was on Rapidan Heights. On the 5th, 
 in two columns, Lee advanced by the old turnpike and 
 plank roads, which, leading east from Orange Court 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 329 
 
 House via Chancellorsville to Fredericksburg, were 
 being crossed by Grant at right angles, who was 
 marching south. Ewell was on the former and Hill 
 moved on the latter road, and by Hill's side at the 
 head of the column rode Lee, while his cavalry marched 
 still farther to the right. Grant did not know of the 
 proximity of the Confederates, though Ewell's advance 
 had bivouacked on the night of the 4th three miles 
 from Warren's corps, which was at the intersection of 
 the Germanna road with the old turnpike, called Wil- 
 derness Tavern. So on the 5th Grant gave orders for 
 his army to move in two columns — Fifth and Sixth 
 Corps from Wilderness Tavern to Parker's Store, where 
 their route intersected the plank road, and Hancock 
 from Chancellorsville to Shady Grove Church. Warren, 
 as a military precaution, threw Griffin's division up the 
 old turnpike toward Orange Court House to protect 
 his moving column, and Ewell, coming down the pike 
 about this time, met and engaged Griffin, and the battle 
 of the Wilderness began, for shortly thereafter Hill be- 
 came engaged with a force at Parker's Store. 
 
 Hancock, whose troops formed Grant's left advance, 
 was stopped, and the heads of his columns turned tow- 
 ard Parker's Store to meet Hill. Grant discovered that 
 he had Lee's army on his right marching flank and 
 would have to fight in the Wilderness. 
 
 As Ewell and Warren became more engaged, lines 
 of battle were formed — Warren in the center and Sedg- 
 wick on his right, and afterward Hancock on his left. 
 On the plank road Hill's left did not connect with 
 Ewell's right. Getty's division. Sixth Union Corps, was 
 sent first to retard Hill's progress, and then Hancock's 
 corps arrived. Ewell and Warren had their encounter, 
 and then Hancock and Hill took up the fighting. War- 
 ren gained ground at first against Ewell, but was in 
 turn driven back with the loss of three thousand men, 
 while Haacock's vigorous assaults on Hill's two divi- 
 sions on the plank road were successfully resisted. 
 
 Night came and both sides prepared for the morrow's 
 desperate battle, when Lee and Grant each proposed to 
 assume the offensive. It was a terrible region to re- 
 ceive or deliver battle : thousands of acres of tangled 
 
330 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 forest, interlaced undergrowth, scrub oaks, dwarf pine 
 and cedar, were on every side, with here and there a 
 few narrow roads. Grant did not manoeuvre, so it 
 suited him in that respect ; but his preponderance of 
 numbers could not be made effective, and his men were 
 in each other's way, just as Hooker's had been in this 
 same Wilderness nearer to Chancellorsville. Artillery 
 was of but little service, mounted cavalry none; no 
 man could command the battle, because no man saw but 
 a few yards around him. Two hundred thousand men 
 were mixed up in a wild, weird struggle, like a hole full 
 of snakes with their tails intertwined. On the morning 
 of the 6th, Sedgwick, Warren, Burnside (now up), and 
 Hancock faced Ewell and Hill, while Longstreet was 
 rapidly marching to Hill's position. 
 
 Lee's plan was to feign attack on Grant's right and 
 assail his left flank, Grant's to attack along his whole 
 line. Sedgwick was attacked before his orders required 
 him to attack ; but Longstreet was not yet up, nor was 
 Anderson's division of Hill's corps. So Lee had to wait 
 on his right ; but Hancock * with nearly forty thousand 
 men did not wait, but rushed on Heth and Wilcox's divi- 
 sion of Hill's corps, and finally carried their whole front 
 and drove their right back in some confusion. Lee's 
 right wing was threatened with disaster; neither Long- 
 street's corps nor Anderson's division of Hill's had ar- 
 rived. The former left his camp near Gordonsville at 
 4 p. M. on the 4th, and marched that afternoon sixteen 
 miles. The next day, when Hill and Ewell were fight- 
 ing, he resumed his march, lost his way, had to retrace 
 his steps, and finally went into camp on the night of 
 the 5th near Verdiersville, some ten miles in the rear 
 of where Hill and Ewell had been fighting, broke camp 
 at 12.30 A. M. on the 6th, and reached Hill, whose two 
 divisions had been assailed by six Federal divisions 
 under Hancock, just in time to save Lee's right. 
 
 Lee has stated since the war f that he sent an officer 
 to Longstreet to stay with him and show him the roads, 
 
 * His own corps and Getty's division of the Sixth, and Wads- 
 worih's of the Second Corps ; afterward he was re-enforced by a divis- 
 ion of the Ninth Corps. 
 
 f Told his son, General G. W. Custis Lee. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 331 
 
 anticipating he would move him when Grant crossed 
 the Rapidan, but Longstreet discharged him, and, by- 
 taking the wrong road, did not get up to his position 
 until May 6th, when he might have joined him on the 
 5th. Gordonsville was only ten miles from Orange Court 
 House and the court house thirteen from Verdiersville, 
 where Longstreet bivouacked the night of the 5th. By 
 the route he should have marched he could have reached 
 Verdiersville in twenty miles. He consumed one day 
 and a half of precious time in getting there. Though late 
 in his arrival, no one could have made dispositions to as- 
 sume the offensive with more celerity, or have attacked 
 with more promptness. Hancock was now in turn as- 
 sailed. Holding his front with three brigades under 
 Gregg, Bennmg, and Law, Longstreet threw four — viz., 
 Mahone's, G. T. Anderson's, Wofford's, and Davis's — 
 around Hancock's left flank. Attacked in flank and 
 front, Hancock's troops were routed and driven rapidly 
 back three quarters of a mile to his line of works. 
 
 It was a well-planned, well-executed movement. As 
 Longstreet rode down the plank road at the head of his 
 column he came opposite to his brigades, which had 
 made the flank movement, and were drawn up parallel to 
 the plank road and some sixty feet from it. He was 
 mistaken in the thick woods for the Federals, and a vol- 
 ley was fired at hmi by his own men, which severely 
 wounded him and killed General Jenkins by his side. It 
 was most unfortunate. Jackson at Chancellorsville had 
 been shot down by his troops at the moment of victory, 
 and here in the Wilderness in the midst of a deserved 
 success, and when Longstreet had given orders for the 
 advance of his whole force, he, too, fell by the fire of 
 his own men. His fall arrested the movement. R. H. 
 Anderson was taken from Hill's corps and put in com- 
 mand of Longstreet's, and Mahone given Anderson's 
 division ; but the change required time. 
 
 Lee had in person been in the midst of Hill's troops, 
 restoring confidence and order, and his presence, as he 
 rode along the lines on his gray horse, was most inspir- 
 ing. In splendid style the troops of Longstreet went 
 into battle. As the Texans swept by with enthusiastic 
 cheers Lee rode with them in the charge until those 
 
332 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 brave fellows insisted he should go back. A sergeant 
 actually seized his horse, and just then Colonel Venable, 
 of his staff, called his attention to Longstreet sitting on 
 his horse on a little knoll not far away, and he rode off 
 and joined him. The Texas soldiers were, like " Scipio's 
 veterans, ready to die for him if he would only spare 
 himself." General Lee had served in Texas when in the 
 United States Army, and was familiar with the State 
 and her people ; he had the highest admiration for the 
 Texas troops, as the whole army had. They were de- 
 scendants of the adventurous spirits who first settled 
 Texas, were good marksmen, and their eyes could look 
 down a gun barrel without a tremor of the lid. He 
 asked Senator Wigfall, of Texas, to get him more Tex- 
 ans, and said after Sharpsburg if he had more of them 
 he would feel more certain of results. 
 
 Hancock's troops were driven behind their log breast- 
 works, upon which a later attack failed. The same 
 afternoon Gordon, with three brigades of Ewell's corps, 
 made a successful assault on Sedgwick's line, Wright's 
 division; but night stopped the contest. During the day 
 severe combats had taken place between the cavalry of 
 the two armies on the Furnace and Brock roads and at 
 Todd's Tavern, with no decisive results. Both armies 
 were locked in their temporary breastworks. Lee could 
 no longer hope to successfully assail the immense mass- 
 es of Grant, and on Grant, imperturbable and calm, the 
 impression had been made that to again " attack along 
 the whole line " would be hopeless. It was a terrible 
 field for a battle — a region of tangled underbrush, ragged 
 foliage, and knotted trunks. ''You hear the saturnalia, 
 gloomy, hideous, desperate, raging unconfined. You see 
 nothing, and the very mystery augments the horror; 
 nothing was visible, and from out the depths came the 
 ruin that had been wrought in bleeding shapes borne 
 in blankets or on stretchers." The Wilderness was a 
 tract of gloom, and over all was the shadow of death. 
 Grant had lost * seventeen thousand six hundred and 
 sixty-six men, his opponent one half that number. Sci- 
 ence had little to do with such a struggle. *' Two wild 
 
 * Fifteen thousand three hundred and eighty-seven. — Humphreys. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 333 
 
 animals were hunting for each other ; when they heard 
 each other's footsteps they sprang and grappled." It 
 was like a huge Indian fight, and different from any 
 other battle. The two days' contest on this unique 
 ground can be compared to nothing in military records, 
 ancient or modern. " Charges were made and repulsed, 
 the men in the lines scarcely seeing each other. Sol- 
 diers fell, writhed, and died unseen, their bodies lost in 
 the bushes, their death groans drowned in the steady, 
 continuous, never-ceasing crash." 
 
 To add to the horrors, the woods caught fire and 
 many wounded men perished in the flames. Lee's army 
 was Grant's objective point, but the objective point 
 sought Grant, and the latter, after remaining in its 
 front all of the 7th, deliberately marched away dur- 
 ing the night and attempted to interpose between it 
 and Richmond at the strategic point of Spottsylvania 
 Court House, fifteen miles southeast of the battlefield. 
 His infantry did not begin to march until 9 p. m. ; but 
 during the afternoon a portion of his wagon train was 
 first moved toward Chancellorsville, and the watchful 
 Stuart, who had cavalry on all sides, at once reported 
 the fact. Lee divined Grant's plans, and promptly or- 
 dered Anderson, commanding Longstreet's corps, to 
 move around General Hancock's left to the same point. 
 
 Warren, the Union van, was much delayed during 
 the night. Meade's large escort was first in his way, 
 and then Merritt's cavalry, which was preceding his 
 march, failed to drive the Confederate cavalry in his 
 front, but finally gave the right cf way to Warren ; 
 it was then daylight. Indeed, so effectual was the re- 
 sistance of a dismounted division of Confederate cav- 
 alry that Warren's leading division, Robinson's, did not 
 get in sight of Spottsylvania Court House until after 
 8 A.M., and then found Anderson's troops in his front, 
 which, marching by a parallel road, had replaced the 
 cavalry and received Robinson with a savage musketry 
 fire, severely wounding him and driving back his line. 
 As the Union troops came up they formed on Warren, 
 while Anderson formed the nucleus for Lee's lines. 
 The race had been finished, and Lee, between Grant and 
 Richmond, cried Check ! 
 
334 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Both armies intrenched, and two formidable lines of 
 earthworks sprang into existence. For twelve days 
 Grant repeatedly and vainly assaulted at different points 
 his opponent's position. The small army in gray stood 
 as immovable as the mountains. Twice Grant assailed 
 on the 8th of May, five times on the loth, and on the 
 1 2th, when he succeeded in carrying a salient. On the 
 i8th and 19th he attacked again. Grant lost eighteen 
 thousand three hundred and ninety-nine men, making 
 forty thousand* in the two weeks of overland travel, or 
 in numbers equal to two thirds of Lee's whole army. 
 The " hammering " process was costly, but might ulti- 
 mately succeed as long as General Lee lost one man to 
 his three, because the Federal reservoir of human supply 
 was so much greater. 
 
 Here the Union commander lost one of his best 
 and bravest corps commanders — John Sedgwick, of the 
 Sixth Corps. On the nth, while walking along a por- 
 tion of his line, a ball from the gun of a Confederate 
 sharpshooter pierced his cheek under the left eye. A 
 soldier in front of him a moment before dodged to the 
 ground as he heard the shrill whistle of a bullet. Sedg- 
 wick touched him gently with his foot, telling him to 
 get up, he was ashamed of him, and remarked, " They 
 could not hit an elephant at this distance." The man 
 rose, saluted, and said, '^ General, I dodged a shell once, 
 and if I hadn't it would have taken my head off." Sedg- 
 wick laughed and told him to go to his place in line, and 
 was immediately afterward killed. He had two mourn- 
 ers — his friend and his foe. With Lee and others who 
 had served with him before the war he was a great 
 favorite ; he was so true, so faithful in all of life's rela- 
 tions. In his death the Army of the Potomac lost an 
 arm. General Horatio G. Wright succeeded to the com- 
 mand of his corps. 
 
 The Union assault of the 12th was partially success- 
 ful. There was a salient on Ewell's works, and its V- 
 shape was enwrapped by the Federals. Hancock's 
 corps was brought from Grant's right during the stormy 
 night before and massed twelve hundred yards from the 
 
 * Thirty-seven thousand three hundred and thirty-five. — Humphreys. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 335 
 
 work, and at half-past four in the morning, with Bar- 
 low's and Birney's divisions in advance, successfully and 
 gallantly stormed the position, capturing General Ed- 
 ward Johnson, one of Ewell's division commanders, be- 
 tween three and four thousand prisoners, and twenty 
 pieces of artillery. 
 
 Lee had detected the weak point, and had already 
 commenced a line across the base of the triangle. 
 It was well conceived, as his right center would have 
 been pierced and his army divided. This second line 
 received the victorious rush of the Federals, who 
 were in turn driven back with great slaughter to the 
 salient, where the fiercest and most deadly fighting in 
 the war took place. Lee concentrated his efforts to re- 
 take the salient, Grant to hold it. The musketry fire 
 with its terrific leaden hail was, beyond comparison, 
 the heaviest of the four years of war. In the bitter 
 struggle, trees large and small fell, cut down by bullets. 
 Grant re-enforced Hancock by the Sixth Corps and by 
 two of Warren's divisions, after failing to get Warren 
 and Burnside in at other points. He then had over half 
 of his army — over fifty thousand men — holding on to the 
 advantage gained, while Lee, equally as determined, 
 purposed to retake the position. Rodes's, Ramseur's, 
 and Gordon's troops, three brigades under McGowan, 
 Perrin, and Harris, and two battalions of artillery were 
 "put in," and all day the savage contest raged. 
 
 Late in the night Lee drew back his troops on the 
 new line. On the nth he thought Grant was prepar- 
 ing for another move, and that night ordered most of 
 the cannon out of the salient so as to be ready for a 
 counter move, all of which a deserter from Johnson's 
 line reported, and which may account for the assault 
 which, though favored by a climatic condition, was 
 courageously executed. Johnson during the night, be- 
 coming suspicious of ominous sounds in his front, or- 
 dered them back, but was attacked before getting them 
 in position. The famous salient has been called the 
 *' bloody angle." Some trenches almost ran with blood, 
 while others had to be cleared of dead bodies. The lips 
 of the dead were incrusted with powder from biting 
 cartridges. It was a horrible scene. Two days before 
 
336 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Upton's brigade of the Sixth Corps broke through the 
 Confederate lines. General Lee was very sensitive about 
 his lines being broken. It made him more than ever 
 personally pugnacious, and ready and desirous to lead 
 in their recapture. 
 
 On this occasion the general rode to the head of the 
 column forming for the charge, took off his hat, and 
 pointed to the captured line; but General John B. Gor- 
 don proposed to lead his own men, and no one in the 
 army could do it better, for he was in dash and dar- 
 ing inferior to none. " These are Virginians and Georgi- 
 ans who have never failed," said Gordon. "Go to 
 the rear. General Lee." And appealing to his men, he 
 cried : " Is it necessary for General Lee to lead this 
 charge?" "No, no," they exclaimed; "we will drive 
 them back if General Lee will go to the rear." The 
 Union troops were hurled back in the charge that fol- 
 lowed and the line re-established. Grant again had no 
 alternative but to flank — or fall back. He had written 
 Ilalleck, addressing him as " Chief of the Staff of the 
 Army," that he was sending back his wagons for a fresh 
 supply of provisions and ammunition, and proposed "to 
 fight it out on this line if it takes all the summer," and 
 asking that "re-enforcements be sent as fast as possible, 
 and in as great numbers." Grant, who said he never 
 manoeuvred, states in his official report that from the 
 i2th to the i8th "was consumed in manoeuvring and 
 awaiting the arrival of re-enforcements," which to the 
 number of some thirty-five thousand were sent to him 
 from the Middle and Washington Departments. 
 
 When Grant reached Spottsylvania Court House he 
 determined to throw Sheridan's cavalry corps between 
 Lee and Richmond, tear up his communication, and be 
 in position to dispatch what was left of Lee after he had 
 crushed him in Spottsylvania, just as Hooker had pro- 
 posed to use Stoneman at Chancellorsville. So on the 
 9th of May, at 6 a. m., Sheridan, clearing widely Lee's 
 right, turned toward Richmond. Ten thousand horsemen 
 riding on a single road in columns of fours made a col- 
 umn thirteen miles in length, and with flashing sabres 
 and fluttering guidons were an imposing array. Stuart 
 was not long in ascertaining and following the move- 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 337 
 
 ment, but had only three brigades available for that 
 purpose, one of which, a small North Carolina brigade, 
 was directed to follow Sheridan's rear, while the other 
 two, riding over the chord of the arc traveled by Sheri- 
 dan, reached Yellow Tavern, six miles from Richmond, 
 on the nth, before Sheridan, and were thrown directly 
 across his route. Here a fierce though most unequal 
 cavalry combat ensued, the numbers of the contestants 
 being as ten thousand to three thousand. Nearly all 
 day these two cavalry brigades held their ground in 
 Sheridan's front, while General James B. Gordon's small 
 force attacked his rear, losing their gallant commander, 
 giving General Bragg, commanding the Richmond de- 
 fenses, ample time to get some troops from below Rich- 
 mond, so that when Sheridan finally broke through them 
 and arrived in front of the defenses his valor was re- 
 placed by prudence, and he marched around them, 
 making a long circuit, and rejoined his army after an 
 absence of over two weeks. It would have been the 
 usual record of nothing accomplished and a broken- 
 down command, except that at Yellow Tavern the Con- 
 federate cavalry chieftain was mortally wounded, and 
 died the following day in Richmond. This sad occur- 
 rence was more valuable to the Union cause than any- 
 thing that could have happened, and his loss to Lee irre- 
 parable. Stuart was the "best cavalry officer," said 
 General Sedgwick, the late Sixth Corps commander, 
 who had been an officer in that arm of service, "ever 
 foaled in America." He was the army's eyes and ears — 
 vigilant always, bold to a fault ; of great vigor and 
 ceaseless activity, he was the best type of a beau sabreur. 
 He had a heart ever loyal to his superiors, and "duty " 
 was " the sublimest word in the language " to him. 
 
 In a letter from Spottsylvania Court House, May i6, 
 1864, General Lee said to his wife : "As I write I am 
 expecting the sound of the guns every moment. I 
 grieve the loss of our gallant officers and men, and miss 
 their aid and sympathy. A more zealous, ardent, brave, 
 and devoted soldier than Stuart the Confederacy can not 
 have. Praise be to God for having sustained us so far. 
 I have thought of you very often in these eventful days. 
 God bless and preserve you." And in his order. May 
 
338 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 2oth, announcing the death of Stuart to the army, he 
 said : " Among the gallant soldiers who have fallen in 
 this war, General Stuart was second to none in valor, in 
 zeal, and m unflinching devotion to his country. His 
 achievements form a conspicuous part of the history of 
 this army, with which his name and services will be for- 
 ever associated. To military capacity of a high order 
 and to the nobler virtues of the soldier he added the 
 brighter graces of a pure life, guided and sustained by 
 the Christian's faith and hope. The mysterious hand of 
 an all-wise God has removed him from the scene of his 
 usefulness and fame. His grateful countrymen will 
 mourn his loss and cherish his memory. To his com- 
 rades in arms he has left the proud recollections of his 
 deeds and the inspiring influence of his example." 
 
 Lee was much attached to Stuart and greatly lament- 
 ed his death; he had been a classmate and friend at 
 West Point of his son Custis, and his whole family were 
 fond of him. In his tent in the hours of the night, when 
 he knew not what the morrow would bring forth, his 
 thoughts constantly turned to the great cavalryman 
 whose saber had been sheathed ^orever. Stuart's su- 
 perb personal gallantry was conspicuous to the last. His 
 death wound was received while from the back of his 
 horse he was steadying dismounted men by words of 
 encouragement, and firing his pistol over their heads at 
 the Federal cavalry in close proximity. 
 
 Once more General Grant, '' deeming it impractica- 
 ble," he said, to make any further attack upon the enemy 
 at Spottsylvania Court House, drew his troops from Lee's 
 front on the night of the 20th and started on another 
 flank march, this time for the North Anna; but when his 
 leading corps, the Fifth, reached that stream on the after- 
 noon of the 23d Lee was there too, still between his capi- 
 tal and his enemy, where he again exclaimed. Check ! 
 To Mrs. Lee, from Hanover Junction, May 23, 1864, the 
 general wrote: "General Grant, having apparently be- 
 come tired of forcing his passage through, began on the 
 night of the 20th to move around our right toward Bowl- 
 ing Green, placing the Mattapony River between us. 
 Fearing he might unite with Sheridan and make a sud- 
 den and rapid move upon Richmond, 1 determined to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 339 
 
 march to this point so as to be in striking distance of 
 Richmond, and be able to intercept him. The army is 
 now south of the North Anna. We have the advantage 
 of being nearer our supplies and less liable to have our 
 communication trains, etc., cut by his cavalry, and he is 
 getting farther from his base. Still, I begrudge every 
 step he takes toward Richmond." Lee's position south 
 of the North Anna River was an admirable one, and his 
 defensive lines showed the skill of the engineer. Grant 
 crossed his army at two points some miles apart. Lee 
 kept his center on the river, but retired his wings so that 
 the Union forces in front of them were separated from 
 each other, and could only hold communication by cross- 
 ing the river twice or by breaking through his army. It 
 was his intention to assume the offensive here, and to 
 strike Grant a stunning blow ; but, unfortunately, he was 
 taken ill. Colonel Venable, of his staff, writes that as 
 he lay in his tent he would say in his impatience : " We 
 must strike them. We must never let them pass us 
 again." He wanted to seize the advantage of his posi- 
 tion. Warren, on the right of Grant's army and Han- 
 cock on the left, supposed, after crossing the river, they 
 could unite, but were totally unprepared to find Lee's 
 lines of battle between them. The Confederate army 
 was posted upon tv/o long lines of an obtuse-angle, 
 whose strong apex rested on the river. It had received 
 its first re-enforcements in the force under Breckinridge 
 and Pickett's division, and Hoke's brigade of Early's 
 division — in all seventy-five hundred men. And the 
 whole army was in good condition ; but its commanding 
 general was ill, and so was one of his corps commanders, 
 while another had been disabled by wounds. Lee's 
 sickness made it " manifest he was the head and front, 
 the very life and soul of his army." 
 
 Grant did not like his North Anna situation. He said 
 he found Lee's position stronger than either of the two 
 previous ones, so he withdrew " during the night of the 
 26th and moved via Hanovertown to turn the enemy's 
 position by his right." Hanovertown is on the Pamunkey 
 River, which is formed by the North Anna and South 
 Anna; the Mattapony is formed by the junction of the 
 Mat, Ta, Po, and Ny, and the two make the York. When 
 
340 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Grant crossed the Pamunkey and marched south he was 
 on the Peninsula, and when his advance reached Cold 
 Harbor on May 31st he was on McClellan's former 
 grounds. Across his path, and once more between him 
 and Richmond, was the Army of Nortliern Virginia. Its 
 commander was again in the saddle, and again he heard 
 Check! The duty of keeping from his capital an army 
 nearly three times as great in number as his own was 
 an occupation sufficient to employ all the military skill 
 of Lee; but so great were the resources of the United 
 States Government that it was able to converge several 
 armies on the one objective — Richmond. Butler was 
 to concentrate the troops of his department, largely re- 
 enforced fro'm detachments hitherto operating in the 
 South, and march on Petersburg, twenty miles south 
 of Richmond, destroy the railroads running south, and 
 invest the Confederate capital from his side of the 
 James, so as to be in position to co-operate with Grant 
 when his conquering banners should wave from the other 
 side. The columns of Crook and Averell were to debouch 
 from West Virginia, and Sigel to advance up the great 
 Valley of Virginia, capture Staunton, Charlottesville, and 
 Lynchburg, and then be guided by future instructions. 
 
 But the co-operating armies did not co-operate; 
 Butler, with an army of over thirty thousand men, 
 *' marched up the hill and then marched down again." 
 On transports he conveyed his troops up the James 
 River, landed them at City Point, and above, at Ber- 
 muda Hundred, in the angle between the junction of 
 the Appomattox River flowing from Petersburg and the 
 James from Richmond, and intrenched across the nar- 
 row neck of land on a line some three miles only from 
 the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, less than ten 
 from Petersburg and twenty from Richmond. Here he 
 established his entrepot of supplies, and from this base 
 proceeded to play his part in the campaign drama. He 
 was too slow, for after some preliminary success, just as 
 he was about to achieve fame, he was attacked by 
 Beauregard on the morning of the i6th, and driven 
 within his fortified lines, in front of which Beauregard 
 threw up works stretching from river to river. He was 
 caged, so far as any further advance from that point 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 341 
 
 could be made, for Beauregard had locked him up and 
 put the key in his pocket, or, as General Barnard, 
 Grant's chief engmeer, expressed it — and General Grant 
 adopted the phrase in his report — he was in a bottle 
 which Beauregard had corked, and with a small force 
 could hold the cork in place. Beauregard had been 
 brought from the Southern Department, and his com- 
 mand consisted of detachments from South Carolina, 
 Georgia, and other points. His plans to defeat Butler 
 were most skillfully arranged, and would have been 
 crowned with great success but for the unpardonable 
 and admitted nonaction of one of his division generals, 
 to whom had been confided the duty of cutting off Gen- 
 eral Butler's retreat. 
 
 Sigel, the Valley co-operator, with sixty-five hundred 
 men, was defeated by Breckinridge with five thousand 
 troops on May 15th at New Market, the day before 
 Beauregard beat Butler, in which he was greatly as- 
 sisted by a battalion of cadets from the Virginia Mili- 
 tary Institute at Lexington, Va. The boys were trans- 
 formed by the crash of arms, roar of cannon, and 
 shouts of combatants, into young heroes, and displayed 
 marked heroism. The cadets of the Virginia Military 
 Institute are responsible for the fact that many soldiers 
 fought for the last time " mit Sigel." Breckinridge was 
 then called to Lee, and General David Hunter replaced 
 Sigel in command in the Valley, with whom Crook and 
 Averell later united. 
 
 When General Lee faced Grant at Cold Harbor, 
 Butler was still " bottled up " ; but twelve thousand five 
 huidred of his force under General " Baldy " Smith, as 
 he was called, had been taken out from the bottom of 
 the 'bottle, placed on transports, carried down the James 
 and up the York, landed, and marched to Grant. Lee 
 was also re-enforced by a division of North Carolinians. 
 On June ist, at 5 p. m.. Smith's command and the Sixth 
 Corps attacked, the other corps being held by Grant in 
 readiness to advance on receipt of orders. The Con- 
 federate thick skirmish or preliminary line was carried, 
 but the main position was immovable, of which, after 
 the loss of two thousand men. Smith and Wright became 
 convinced. " The 2d of June," says Grant, " was spent 
 23 
 
342 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 in getting troops into position for attack on the 3d ; on 
 the 3d of June we again assaulted the enemy's work in 
 the hope of driving him from his position. In this at- 
 tempt our loss was heavy while that of the enemy, I 
 have reason to believe, was comparatively light." 
 
 This remarkable assault deserves more attention 
 than the brief statement in which Grant disposes of it. 
 Its isolation on the pages of history as the most ex- 
 traordinary blunder in military annals will alone make 
 it famous. Nearly all of the one hundred and thirteen 
 thousand troops then at Cold Harbor, in double lines of 
 battle six miles long, sprang to arms at half-past four 
 on the morning of the 3d, and, in obedience to the cus- 
 tomary order "to attack along the whole line," assailed 
 the army of Lee and were terribly slaughtered at every 
 point. There has been no instance of such destructive 
 firing attended with such small loss to the men who 
 were shooting from stationary lines. The troops went 
 forward, said Hancock, "as far as the example of their 
 officers could carry them " ; but that was not far, for 
 eight or ten minutes was the time of actual advance — 
 sixty minutes of battle from first to last. Grant seemed 
 willing to submit everything to the "nice hazard of a 
 doubtful hour." Death and destruction everywhere 
 enveloped charging columns, and direct and cross fires 
 tore them to pieces. Lee's men were hungry and mad : 
 three hard biscuits and one piece of fat pork were all 
 the rations many had obtained since leaving the North 
 Anna, and the pork was eaten raw because cooking in- 
 volved waste. One cracker to a man, with no meat, be- 
 came a luxury, and the lament of a poor fellow who had 
 his shot out of his hand before he could eat it was ludi- 
 crous: "The next time I'll put my cracker in a safe 
 place down by the breastworks where it won't get 
 wounded, poor thing! " said he. 
 
 In front of the Confederate defenses the scene was 
 heartrending. The ground was strewn with the dead, 
 dying, and wounded Federals, and yet at 8 a. m. an order 
 came from the chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac 
 for the corps to assault again, each without reference to 
 the other's advance. It is known that " Baldy " Smith 
 positively refused to obey it, while some of the other 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 343 
 
 corps commanders went through the form of opening 
 fire, but there was no advance. Again the order was 
 given for a general assault. It was transmitted to corps 
 commanders, from them to the division chiefs, down 
 through brigades to regiments; but immobile ranks 
 entered a solemn protest against human butchery, and 
 men who had charged to the cannon's mouth when there 
 was a chance for victory lay in long lines as still as their 
 dead comrades. The rank and file knew the hopeless- 
 ness of another attack upon Lee's Imes; they had been 
 there, and did not propose to make another useless, 
 bloody experiment. In an incredibly short time tw^elve 
 thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven of their num- 
 ber had dropped from their ranks. Who knew how 
 many would fail to answer roll call after another attack ? 
 "Cold Harbor," said General Grant after the war, "is 
 the only battle I ever fought that I would not fight over 
 again under the circumstances." Wellington, victorious 
 at Waterloo, said to Lord Fitzroy : " I have never 
 fought such a battle, and I trust I shall never fight 
 such another." Lee proudly stood at the gate of his 
 capital. If Grant was going to fight it out on that 
 line, he^ must enter there. Another flank move would 
 carry him farther from his objective, so he determined 
 to lay siege to Lee's position and dig up to it, and began 
 the construction of parallels united by zigzag trenches, 
 the work on which had to be done at night ; but he soon 
 gave up the substitution of spades and picks for guns 
 and determined to move his army south of James River, 
 and on the night of June 12th began the movement. 
 
 Five days before, he sent Sheridan on an expedition 
 against the railroad which runs from Richmond to 
 Charlottesville and Staunton, as well as to meet Hunter, 
 who was expected from the Valley, and conduct him to 
 the Army of the Potomac. Sheridan started on the 7th 
 with the divisions of Gregg and Torbert, ten thousand 
 strong, in light marching order; two days' " short for- 
 age," three days' rations, and one hundred rounds of 
 ammunition were carried by each trooper. On the even- 
 ing of the loth Sheridan bivouacked three miles from 
 Trevilian's Station in Louisa County. Hampton, with 
 a division of cavalry, moved at once after him, while 
 
344 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 another division speedily followed; with these two di- 
 visions Hampton intercepted Sheridan at Trevilian's, 
 and interposed between him and Charlottesville. Here 
 he was attacked on the 12th by Sheridan, all of whose 
 assaults — principally apon General Butler's command — 
 were handsomely repulsed, and that night Sheridan 
 started back to his army, having accomplished nothmg. 
 Hampton, with half of his numbers, was not strong 
 enough to seriously interrupt his retrograde movement. 
 
 After the battle of Cold Harbor, Lee had such great 
 confidence in his ability to keep Grant from getting 
 closer to Richmond that he detached Breckinridge to 
 meet Hunter, who, having defeated the small Confeder- 
 ate force in the Valley, under W. E. Jones, was advanc- 
 ing zv'*^; Staunton and Lexington to Lynchburg. On the 
 13th he sent Early with the Second Corps (Ewell's), 
 eight thousand muskets and twenty-four pieces of artil- 
 lery, to join him. Lee then crossed the James, and on 
 that night his tent was pitched near Drewry's Bluff. 
 Grant had sent Smith's troops around by water, down 
 the York and up the James to City Point, with orders 
 to try and capture Petersburg, and on the morning of 
 the 15th Smith was in front of the lines there. He was 
 slow and cautious. That afternoon Lee's army began 
 to arrive, any opportunity to capture the city by a coup 
 de main was gone, and the siege of Petersburg, destined 
 to last ten long, weary months, began. The campaign 
 from the Wilderness to Petersburg was brilliantly con- 
 ducted on Lee's part. It was a magnificent exhibition 
 of defensive warfare. 
 
 For one month his gigantic opponent fought him 
 over nearly every mile between the Rapidan and the 
 James. Practically every soldier in Lee's army placed 
 hors de combat a soldier in Grant's, for the latter's losses 
 equaled in numbers the strength of the former's com- 
 mand. Colonel Taylor, General Lee's able adjutant 
 general, places the number of re-enforcements Lee re- 
 ceived in the thirty days' campaign at fourteen thousand 
 four hundred men, which, added to his original strength, 
 gives seventy-eight thousand four hundred as the ag- 
 gregate of all troops under his command from the Wil- 
 derness to Cold Harbor. And to Grant, Taylor assigns 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 345 
 
 fifty-one thousand during the same period, giving him 
 an aggregate under his c ommand from the Wilderness 
 to Cold Harbor of one hundred and ninety-two thou- 
 sand one hundred and sixty men. This is a marvelous 
 monument to the skill of Lee and the courage of his 
 troops. Grant's hammering process was expensive in 
 time and men. It took hmi thirty days to march sev- 
 enty-five miles, ?.t a loss of sixty odd thousand men, and 
 then he was only on ground reached by McClellan with- 
 out firing a gun, if we except the affair at Williamsburg. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 Richmond, on the left bank of the James, and Peters- 
 burg, on the right bank of the Appomattox, were stra- 
 tegic twin cities twenty-one miles apart. The capture 
 of one embraced the fall of the other. Richmond 
 proper, from a point on the river below to a position 
 on the river above, was easily defended. Its investment 
 would still leave the Weldon, Lynchburg, or Southside, 
 and Danville Railroad open for supplies. Circumval- 
 lating lines around Petersburg would ultimately close 
 all of them; this done, Richmond must be evacuated. 
 But were it possible to capture Richmond first, to Burke- 
 ville, the junction of the Southside and Danville roads, 
 the Southern army must retreat, not to Petersburg. 
 
 Grant, though not remarkable as a strategist, prompt- 
 ly saw the way to reach the Confederate capital. To 
 reach Richmond it was necessary to batter down the 
 gates of Petersburg. Butler made several attempts to 
 capture the city before Grant took him under his charge, 
 but failed. Grants having decided to cross the Army 
 of the Potomac to the south side of the James, deter- 
 mined to essay the capture of Petersburg before Lee — 
 who had drawn most of Beauregard's force to him on 
 the north side — could prevent it, and would have been 
 successful if he had not lost a day in getting his pon- 
 toons ready; and even then it could have been done if 
 General Smith, of the Eighteenth Corps, to whom the 
 duty was confided, had attacked when he arrived before 
 it. Beauregard was in peril. He had re-enforced Lee, 
 but Lee had not yet returned the compliment, and when 
 " Baldy " Smith began to deploy on his front, about ten 
 o'clock on the morning of June 15th, with eighteen 
 
 (346) 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 347 
 
 thousand men, he had but twenty-two hundred soldiers 
 to return his greetings, and had to station them so as 
 to allow one man for every four yards and a half of his 
 works. At 7 p. m. Smith carried with a '' cloud of 
 tirailleurs " the lines on a portion of his front, in spite 
 of the heroic resistance of General Henry A. Wise, and 
 held on to them during the night. Had Hancock, who 
 was on the morning of the 15th on the south side of the 
 James, been ordered to Petersburg, he could have been 
 there by twelve or one o'clock, and Petersburg would 
 have certainly fallen. Meade knew nothing of Smith's 
 proposed coup de mai?i^ nor did Hancock, until he received 
 orders at half-past five that afternoon to join General 
 Smith, reaching his position about dark, after he had 
 made a lodgment. 
 
 About the same time Hoke's division, from Drewry's 
 Bluff, re-enforced Beauregard. On the morning of the 
 i6th Hancock was in command of the operating troops, 
 but was instructed by Meade not to attack until Burn- 
 side arrived with his corps. He reached the field at 10 
 A. M., but Hancock did not attack until after 5 p. m. In 
 the meantime Beauregard drew to him Bushrod Johnson's 
 division, who had been playing the cork to the Butler 
 bottle in front of the Bermuda lines. But the inequality 
 in numbers was still very great — Beauregard then hav- 
 ing ten thousand, and Hancock fifty-three thousand. 
 For three hours the battle raged, and at night the re- 
 sult was a serious loss on the Southern right, but Beau- 
 regard gained some advantage on the left. Warren 
 had now arrived, but too late for the attack, making the 
 Federal army in front of Petersburg sixty-seven thou- 
 sand. All day on the 17th the contest was maintained 
 with no decisive results. About dusk a portion of the 
 Confederate lines was wholly broken, which might have 
 ended in irreparable disaster ; but at the opportune mo- 
 ment a fine brigade, under General Gracie, an excellent 
 officer, reached the scene from Chaffin's Bluff, leaped 
 the breastworks captured by Burnside, and drove out 
 his troops, capturing two thousand prisoners. 
 
 Petersburg was still in danger. Fortunately, Beau- 
 regard's engineering skill, as well as that of his chief of 
 engineers, Colonel D. B. Harris, was brought into requi- 
 
348 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 sition, and during the day selected the site of another 
 and shorter line of defense, near Taylor's Creek, to his 
 rear, and at midnight successfully made a retrograde 
 movement, occupied and began fortifying his new line. 
 On the i8th a general assault on the Southern lines 
 was ordered at an early hour, but finding the old line 
 had been abandoned, it was not made until noon — then 
 only partially ; but about 6 p. m. the "predetermined 
 great attack," as Beauregard called it, was made by the 
 Second Corps and everywhere repulsed, as were like 
 attempts later by the Fifth and Ninth. Hancock's, 
 Burnside's, and Warren's corps, Martmdale's division 
 of Smith's, and Neill's division from the Sixth Corps — 
 or ninety thousand effectives — were present, while on 
 that day Beauregard had been re-enforced by Kershaw's 
 and Field's division of Longstreet's corps, making his 
 total twenty thousand. 
 
 At half-past eleven General Lee rode up and was 
 warmly welcomed by Beauregard, who had been anx- 
 iously hoping to see him for three days. He had been 
 very slow in giving credence to Beauregard's telegrams 
 about Grant's movements, and even as late as the night 
 of the 17th dispatched, "Am not yet satisfied as to 
 General Grant's movements, but upon your representa- 
 tions will move at once on Petersburg." And it was 
 well he did, for the remarkable resistance of Beaure- 
 gard's troops alone saved the city from capture on the 
 15th, i6th, and 17th. It was very difficult for Lee to 
 ascertain on the north side of the James what troops 
 Grant was crossing to its southern side, because his 
 crossing was masked by the presence of troops inter- 
 posed between the point of crossing and Lee's position ; 
 and he had to be most careful lest, in his anxiety to save 
 Petersburg, he would lose Richmond. He could not 
 afford to take the risk of denuding the Richmond lines 
 until it had been demonstrated beyond doubt that the 
 real battle was to be delivered at Petersburg. The 
 admirably selected new line of Beauregard was strength- 
 ened, and maintained until the end of the war. 
 
 The next day the main portion of the Army of 
 Northern Virginia arrived, and Beauregard wanted to 
 throw the entire disposable force on the Union left 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 34^ 
 
 and rear before they began to fortify ; but General Lee 
 pronounced against tiie plan. Grant and Meade, satis- 
 fied that nothing more could be gained by direct assaults 
 — ten thousand men had been lost in three days — de- 
 cided to play another game for the prize in which spades 
 should be trumps, and the siege of Petersburg began. 
 In an incredibly short time high, impregnable, bastioned 
 works began to erect their crests. It was designed to 
 make the Union defensive lines so formidable as to be 
 unassailable. A system of redans chained together by 
 powerful parapets, whose approaches were to be ob- 
 structed by abatis, were constructed. Behind these 
 gigantic earthworks a small force could safely remain, 
 and thus the *' loyal legions " could be drawn out at any 
 time for other work. The Federal plan, wisely adopted, 
 was to extend their ramparts south, then west, to seize 
 and retain the Weldon Railroad and cut off Lee's com- 
 munication with the coast States, then gradually work 
 westerly toward the Lynchburg Railroad, which once in 
 Grant's possession, would have confined Lee to the Dan- 
 ville and Richmond Railroads to supply his army. The 
 short road from Petersburg to Richmond connected him 
 with it and the Staunton road, running north from Rich- 
 mond. It was intended to throw a huge steel cordon 
 around Petersburg, which would force Lee with his lim- 
 ited numbers to so extend his lines that they would 
 snap or be weak enough to break under blows. 
 
 Grant had now established his troops in the best loca- 
 tion for the achievement of his purpose. With bloody 
 hands he had reached the confines of the object of his 
 campaign ; but he was there and most excellently situ- 
 ated ; his water line of ' communication down the James 
 and up the Potomac with Washington and the North was 
 absolutely free from hostile interruption. His headquar- 
 ters — City Point, at the junction of the Appomattox and 
 the James — was connected with his army by rail, and 
 from a point on that road a field railroad, moving in the 
 rear of his lines, made the transportation of supplies 
 from his water base easy in sunshine or storm. Field 
 telegraph connected army headquarters with those of 
 subordinate commanders; so with plenty of commis- 
 sary, quartermaster, and medical supplies, and plenty of 
 
350 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 men, he anticipated with confidence future success. At 
 Deep Bottom, on the James, he had thrown a pontoon 
 bridge and protected it by strongly fortified works on 
 the north side, manned by a sufficient force to defend 
 them, thus always securing a debouch on the Richmond 
 side of the river. He could thus make a mock assault on 
 Richmond and a real attack at Petersburg, or the reverse. 
 General Lee was uneasy ; he was defending two cities 
 and a line of intrenchments enveloping both thirty-five 
 miles long, and could not know with certainty at what 
 point on them the real blow would be delivered. Grant's 
 troops withdrawn from one portion of his front at night, 
 could appear at another before the sun lifted the mists 
 of morning. Lee too had communication with the Rich- 
 mond defenses by a pontoon bridge above Grant's at 
 Drewry's Bluff, but m any movement of troops across 
 the river Grant, if the aggressor, would move first and 
 thereby gain a start. Then, too, Lee's days were full 
 of other troubles : the question of supplies, always a 
 serious one, was growing daily more so. The subjuga- 
 tion of productive portions of the South and the de- 
 vastation of other sections made the collection of food 
 for men and forage for animals more difficult than ever. 
 The supply of men was exhausted. Conscription in 
 1862 first placed on the rolls all men between eighteen 
 and thirty-five, and later between thirty-five and forty. 
 After Gettysburg and Vicksburg, a call was made for 
 men between forty and forty-five, and in February, 
 1864, the Conscript Act was more stringent, and the 
 population between seventeen and fifty were made sub- 
 ject to call — "a robbery," designated at the time, "of 
 the cradle and the grave." The end of conscription 
 had been reached. The currency in the Confederate 
 Treasury was in value as sixty to one of coin. A de- 
 ficiency in supply of arms and ammunition was immi- 
 nent. The Ordnance Department contained only twenty- 
 five thousand stand of small arms for the whole Con- 
 federacy ; the foreign market supplied one half of the 
 arms used, but that market was nearly cut off; many 
 workshops had been destroyed, and the usefulness of 
 others much impaired by the withdrawal of details of 
 men. 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 35 
 
 Then General Lee was distressed at the condition of 
 his army. It had been exposed in a violent campaign 
 against overwhelming numbers, was badly fed — a pound 
 of flour and a quarter of a pound of meat to the man — 
 badly paid and cared for in camp and hospital, and every 
 letter brought news of the families of the troops suffer- 
 ing at home. As his resources diminished, those of his 
 opponent seemed to increase. He was too weak to 
 assume the offensive against fortification, and yet some- 
 thing must be attempted. In the midst of the gather- 
 ing gloom, Lee once more attempted to diminish the 
 troops in his front by threatening the Federal capital. 
 
 Ewell, suffering from the loss of his leg, had relin- 
 quished the command of his corps to Early, and with 
 eight thousand muskets this officer had been sent, as 
 already stated, to Lynchburg, to re-enforce Breckinridge 
 in Hunter's front. Hunter had retreated from Lynch- 
 burg to the mountains of West Virginia before Early 
 could strike him. Then General Lee submitted to Early 
 the question whether the condition of his troops would 
 permit him to threaten Washington as originally con- 
 templated ; if not, to return to his army. Early deter- 
 mined to take the responsibility of carrying out the 
 original plan, so he turned the head of his column 
 toward the Potomac. On June 26th he was at Staunton, 
 July 2d at Winchester, crossing the Potomac on the 6th, 
 fought and defeated six thousand troops under General 
 Lew Wallace on the Monocacy on the 9th, and arrived 
 in front of the works at Washington at noon on July 
 nth with about ten thousand men and forty pieces of 
 artillery. That afternoon his army was placed in posi- 
 tion with orders to assail the works at daylight next 
 morning; but learning during the night that the Sixth 
 Corps from the Army of the Potomac and the Nineteenth, 
 under Emory, from New Orleans, had arrived, he 
 countermanded the order, remained in front of Wash- 
 ington during the 12th, and that night withdrew and 
 began his march back to Virginia, reaching Strasburg, 
 in the Valley of Virginia, on the 22d. General Early 
 could not have held Washington if he had entered its 
 gates with his small force. No re-enforcements were 
 nearer to him than Richmond, and from the North and 
 
352 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 General Grant's army a large force could have been 
 speedily assembled. 
 
 Grant, in consequence of the opportune arrival of 
 Emory, only detached the Sixth Corps from his Imes, 
 which did not materially reduce his great numbers in 
 Lee's front, and hence Lee did not dare to weaken his 
 lines by re-enforcing Early. Early's presence in the 
 lower valley was menacing to Washington, preserved a 
 threatening attitude toward Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
 prevented the use of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
 and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and kept a large 
 force from Grant's army to defend the Federal capital. 
 
 The greater part of this force was moved south of the 
 Potomac, organized into the Army of the Shenandoah, 
 and the command of it given, on August yth, to General 
 Sheridan. With the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps, and 
 the Army of West Virginia, as General George Crook's 
 force was called, Sheridan had a total present for duty 
 on September loth, including Averill's cavalry, of forty- 
 eight thousand men and officers. He was abundantly able 
 to assume the offensive, for he had in addition garrisons 
 of seven thousand men at Harper's Ferry, Martinsburg, 
 and other pomts, making his whole force about fifty-five 
 thousand. General Lee was very anxious to win a bat- 
 tle in the lower valley — it was the only way he could 
 relieve Petersburg — and so re-enforced Early by a di- 
 vision of cavalry and one of infantry, both under Gen- 
 eral Anderson, the commander of Longstreet's corps. 
 This officer was selected to produce the impression, the 
 remaining divisions of his corps were to follow, in order 
 to induce Grant to send troops to Sheridan equivalent 
 to Longstreet's whole corps. In that case Lee would 
 again re-enforce Early and transfer the principal scene 
 of hostilities to the Potomac, just as he had successfully 
 drawn McClellan from the James and Hooker from the 
 Rappahannock at Fredericksburg by similar movements ; 
 but Grant refused to follow the precedent. Sheridan 
 had already an army numerically equal to the one Lee 
 commanded on the Petersburg lines, and was strong 
 enough to stand alone. Lee could not detach more 
 troops, but instead was obliged to recall Anderson and 
 his infantry. The failure to transfer the seat of war 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 353 
 
 from in front of Petersburg was due to the decreasing 
 Confederate strength and the increase of that of their 
 opponents. 
 
 Lee could only wait, watch, and frustrate Grant's 
 plans as far as possible. After Anderson's departure 
 from the Valley Sheridan assumed the offensive, and 
 on September 19th, with nearly fifty thousand troops, 
 fought and defeated, at Winchester, fourteen thousand 
 under Early, the Confederate loss being about four 
 thousand, the Federal five thousand, of which nearly 
 forty-four hundred were killed or wounded. On the 22d 
 Early was again defeated at Fisher's Hill, but, being re- 
 enforced near Port Republic by Kershaw's division of 
 infantry and Cutshaw's battalion of artillery, and later 
 by Rosser's brigade of cavalry, he assumed the offen- 
 sive and ag^in moved down the Valley to Fisher's Hill, 
 Sheridan retiring in his front to Cedar Creek. Here he 
 was attacked by Early on the 19th of October before 
 daybreak and defeated, but afterward, rallying his troops, 
 he in turn attacked and routed Early, who lost twenty- 
 three pieces of artillery, eighteen hundred and sixty in 
 killed and wounded, and over one thousand prisoners. 
 
 Major-General Ramseur, one of Early's best and 
 bravest officers, was mortally wounded. The opera- 
 tions here were practically over, and both Grant and 
 Lee called to them the greater part of their respective 
 troops. The beautiful Valley of Virginia was a barren 
 waste, and from the breasts of its mountains was re- 
 flected the light of two thousand burning barns, seventy 
 mills filled with wheat and farming utensils, while in 
 front of the victorious army were driven thousands of 
 head of stock. In the expressive language of the Fed- 
 eral commander — " A crow flying across the Valley 
 would have to carry its rations." 
 
 General Lee's duties were very exacting, and he was 
 constantly called upon to meet some movement of his 
 enemy. He was closer to his family in Richmond than 
 he had been, and the citizens around him were very 
 kind, considerate, and generous. In a note to Mrs. Lee, 
 dated Petersburg, June 19th, he says: "I am much 
 obliged to the kind people for the clothes; but if they 
 are not gray they are of no use to me in the field. I 
 
354 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 hope to go to church this blessed day, and shall re- 
 member you all in my poor prayers." The ladies were 
 always contributing to his comfort. He writes from 
 Camp Petersburg, July 24, 1864: "The ladies of Peters- 
 burg have sent me a nice set of shirts. They were 
 given to me by Mrs. James R. Branch, and her mother, 
 Mrs. Thomas Branch. In fact, they have given every- 
 thing — which I fear they can not spare — vegetables, 
 bread, milk, ice cream. To-day one of them sent me a 
 nice peach— the first one I think I have seen for two 
 years. I sent it to Mrs. Shippen. Mr. Piatt held serv- 
 ices again to-day under the trees near my camp. We 
 had quite a large congregation of citizens, ladies and 
 gentlemen, and our usual number of soldiers. During 
 the services I constantly heard the shells crashing among 
 the houses of Petersburg. Tell Life [his youngest 
 daughter] I send her a song composed by a French 
 soldier. As she is so learned in that language I want 
 her to send me a reply in verse." And from Camp 
 Petersburg, June 26, 1864: "I hope it is not as hot in 
 Richmond as here. The men suffer a great deal in the 
 trenches; and this condition of things, with the heat of 
 the sun, nearly puts an end to military operations." 
 
 And again: ''Camp Petersburg, June 30, 1864. — I 
 was very glad to receive your letter yesterday, and to 
 hear that you were better. I trust you will continue to 
 improve and soon be as well as usual. God grant that 
 you may be entirely restored in his own good time ! Do 
 you recollect what a happy day thirty-three years ago this 
 was ? How many hopes and pleasures it gave birth to ! 
 God has been very merciful and kind to us, and how 
 thankless and sinful I have been ! I pray that he may 
 continue his mercies and blessings to us and give us a 
 little peace and rest together in this world, and finally 
 gather us and all he has given us around his throne in 
 the world to come. The President has just arrived, and 
 I must bring my letter to a close. God bless you all." 
 
 And on July 10, 1864 : " I was pleased, on the arrival 
 of my little courier this morning, to hear that you were 
 better, and that Custis Morgan (a pet squirrel) was still 
 among the missing. I thmk the farther he gets from 
 you the better you will be. The shells have scattered 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 355 
 
 the poor inhabitants in Petersburg, so that many of the 
 churches are closed. Indeed, they have been visited by 
 the enemy's shells. Mr. Piatt, pastor of the principal 
 Episcopal Church, had services at my headquarters to- 
 day. The services were under the trees, and the dis- 
 course on the subject of salvation." 
 
 Lee and Grant, dissimilar in many characteristics, 
 were similar in others : both were quiet and self-pos- 
 sessed, both sometimes restless — Grant to break through 
 Lee's works somewhere, Lee impatient to improve any 
 opportunity that might be offered. By mere chance both 
 were gratified. The Forty-eighth Pennsylvania Regi- 
 ment, Burnside's corps, was largely composed of Schuyl- 
 kill coal miners, and its lieutenant colonel, Pleasants, 
 had been a mining engineer. One hundred and thirty 
 yards in front, on General Johnson's front, at the center 
 of General Elliott's brigade, was a salient in the Con- 
 federate lines. It was a re-entrant commanded by a 
 flank from either side; in its rear was a deep hollow. 
 The mining men, with the instinct of their profession, 
 conceived the idea of blowing it up. Burnside approved 
 it, and work was commenced on June 25th. Lee knew 
 what was going on and directed countermining, but 
 abandoned it and threw up intrenchments at the gorge 
 of the salient, and established 8- and lo-inch mortar bat- 
 teries to give a front and cross fire on it. It was prose- 
 cuted under many difficulties. Meade, and his chief en- 
 gineer, Duane, did not believe such a mine for mili- 
 tary purposes could be excavated. The former did not 
 think the location selected was the proper one. The 
 part of the line containing the works to be blown up 
 could not be assaulted with success, because it was 
 commanded in both flanks by the fire of the Southern 
 troops, and could be taken in reverse from their posi- 
 tion on the Jerusalem plank road and from their works 
 opposite the Hare House. 
 
 Pleasants deserves great credit for his perseverance. 
 Burnside, his corps, and Potter, his division commander, 
 of the officers of high rank, alone encouraged his efforts. 
 On July 23d the mine was ready for the powder; for 
 forty workmen, even with inferior implements, can move 
 much dirt in a month. Imagine a main gallery five 
 
356 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 hundred and ten and eight tenths feet long, with lateral 
 galleries thirty-seven and thirty-eight feet each, into 
 which eight magazines were placed, filled with a total 
 charge of eight thousand pounds of powder. The theod- 
 olite had accurately measured the distance; the powder 
 was directly under the fort. To Burnside, of course, was 
 assigned the honor of making the grand assault. He 
 had three white divisions and one division of negro 
 troops in his corps, and determined to charge in col- 
 umn of divisions on all men and guns not blown up, 
 and directed that the negroes should lead in what was 
 expected to be a finishing stroke to a great war, and 
 thus give the goddess Fame the opportunity to crown 
 the colored brow. 
 
 Burnside thought the colored division would make a 
 better charge at that time than the white division, be- 
 cause the latter had been for forty days in the trenches, 
 had few opportunities of washing, and were not in con- 
 dition to make a vigorous charge. Meade and Grant 
 objected, the former because "they were untried and 
 could not be trusted," while the latter directed the lead- 
 ing column of assault to be formed of white, not black 
 troops. The negro was a sensitive plant in the North- 
 ern greenhouses at that time ; and if he had been butch- 
 ered in the attack there it would have been charged by 
 some, as Meade expressed it, that "we were shoving 
 these people ahead to get killed because we did not 
 care anything about them." 
 
 There was only one negro division then in the Army 
 of the Potomac, and the fact that in over one hundred 
 thousand men it had been selected to lead the " On-to- 
 Petersburg ! " charge would have been a striking and 
 unique stricture upon the rest of the army. The sight 
 of forty-three hundred howling, charging black men at 
 the head of the column would have been a red rag to 
 the Southern bull, and the contest would have been 
 butcherly, bloody, and brief. A humorous picture has 
 been drawn of these negro troops on the night they 
 learned Burnside was going to give them the advance. 
 They were represented sitting in circles in their com- 
 pany streets, intently and solemnly " studying," when 
 all at once a heavy voice began to sing : 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 We-e looks li-ike me-en a-a-marching on, 
 We looks li ike men-er war, 
 
 357 
 
 and shortly thereafter a thousand voices were upraised 
 to swell the refrain. The dark men with white eyes and 
 teeth and red lips crouching over smoldering fires, the 
 rays of lanterns piercing the gloom, made a picturesque 
 scene. The heroes "carved in ebony " being ruled out, 
 Burnside made his three white division commanders 
 "pull straws" to ascertain who should lead the attack 
 when the mine was sprung, and General Ledlie, com- 
 manding the first division, " was the unlucky victim." 
 At 3.30 A. M. on the morning of the 30th Ledlie was 
 in position, and ready to follow him were the other 
 divisions. 
 
 Meade had made every preparation for a general 
 assault, the whole army, if necessary, was to be thrust 
 through the broken works into the city. Warren's P^ifth 
 Corps, and General Ord, commanding the Eighteenth 
 Corps, was to support Burnside. Hancock, who had 
 been moved to the north side of the James River to 
 threaten an attack upon Richmond to draw troops from 
 Lee to that side, and thus weaken his Petersburg lines, 
 was to move back during the night and be in position at 
 daylight to follow up the assaulting column, and Sheri- 
 dan, with the cavalry corps, was to move on Petersburg 
 by the roads leading from the southward and westward. 
 
 The great mine upon whose explosion this compre- 
 hensive wholesale battle plan pivoted was to be sprung 
 at half-past three in the morning; but, owing to a defect 
 in the fuse, the wreck of matter did not begin until an 
 hour and a quarter afterward. Then the earth trembled 
 and heaved and opened over the powder, and cannon, 
 caissons, sandbags, timbers, men ; smoke and fire went 
 up in the mass of earth to a high altitude, spread out 
 like an immense cloud, which " flushed to an angry crim- 
 son and floated away to meet the morning sun." The 
 solid part began to fall. The troops waiting to make 
 the charge thought the great descending mass was aimed 
 at them, and, without the word of command, broke 
 and scattered to the rear, and a little time, most valu- 
 able to the Confederates, was lost in reforming them. 
 
 When the order for the advance was given, more time 
 24 
 
35! 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 was consumed in climbing over their own breastworks, 
 which broke their ranks, and in irregular order they 
 pushed on for the crater one hundred and thirty yards 
 distant, the debris having covered up the Confederate 
 abatis and chevaux-de-fi'ise in front of it. An enormous 
 hole in the ground here confronted them — one hundred 
 and seventy feet long, sixty feet wide, and thirty feet deep 
 — *' filled with dust, great blocks of clay, guns, broken gun- 
 carriages, projecting timbers, and men buried up to their 
 necks, others to their waists, and some with only their 
 feet and legs protruding from the earth." Two hundred 
 and fifty-six South Carolmians — the Eighteenth and part 
 of the Twenty-third — and twenty-two men and officers of 
 Pegram's Petersburg battery, were buried beneath "the 
 jagged rocks of blackened clay." 
 
 The two advance brigades became inextricably mixed 
 in the one great desire to look into the hole; and then, 
 when the Confederates on either side of the crater began 
 to take in the situation and to fire from the traverses, 
 there was an uncontrollable and natural desire to get in 
 the hole. General Elliott, while forming his command 
 on the higher ground in the rear of the crater, was se- 
 verely wounded; but Colonel McMaster, who succeeded 
 to the command, got part of his troops in the ravine in 
 the rear, and their front fire, and the flank fire from the 
 remainder, and Ransom's troops to the Confederate left, 
 repulsed all attempts of the Union troops to advance. 
 The crest of the crater was now being swept by canis- 
 ter, for Lieutenant-Colonel John Haskell had with great 
 promptness brought up two light batteries, and Pegram's 
 guns were rapidly coming up. Wright's four guns, six 
 hundred yards to the southern left of the salient, con- 
 cealed in the woods and covered by traverses, and two 
 guns to the right of the crater, opened a destructive 
 fire and covered the ground between the big hole and 
 the Union lines. The artillery alone stood between the 
 crater and Cemetery Hill, which, if occupied and held 
 as had been intended, would have resulted in the fall 
 of Petersburg. Ledlie was in the rear ensconced in a 
 " bomb-proof " protected angle of his own works, his 
 division in the crater, and his orders to move forward 
 were not obeyed. " It was as utterly impracticable to 
 
J 
 
 SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 359 
 
 reform brigades outside of the crater under the severe 
 fire of front and rear as it would be to marshal bees 
 into line after upsetting the hive, or to hold dress pa- 
 rade in front of a charging enemy," wrote a Federal 
 officer. 
 
 Griffin's brigade of Potter's division was advanced, 
 but, meeting a severe fire, fell back in the crater. Every 
 organization melted away, as soon as it entered this 
 hole in the ground, into a mass of human beings cling- 
 ing to the almost perpendicular sides. The other bri- 
 gade of Potter's division now advanced, but got no far- 
 ther than the abandoned traverses and intrenchments ; 
 and then Wilcox, with the third and last division of 
 Burnside's white troops, started forward. The crater 
 was filled with men at this time, the thermometer above 
 ninety degrees, and the sun beating down in the great 
 hole caused much suffering. No more troops could get 
 in. Wilcox was left out, and with a part of his com- 
 mand attempted to carry some of the works on the 
 Confederate right of the crater, but only held them a 
 short lime. Orders were being constantly sent to push 
 forward and occupy Cemetery Hill, but were not rel- 
 ished and not obeyed. It was now two hours after the 
 explosion of the mine; Burnside determined to let loose 
 the real dogs of war, and ordered General Edward Fer- 
 rero with his black division to advance, pass the white 
 troops, and carry the crest of Cemetery Hill at all 
 hazards. Ferrero did not think it advisable to move 
 his troops in, as there were already three divisions of 
 white troops in his front "huddled together"; but 
 Burnside said the order was peremptory. 
 
 The colored division moved out to death or glory; 
 its commander did not, but sought the "bomb-proof" 
 where Ledlie was. These troops, moving by the flank, 
 passed around the crater and attempted to advance, but 
 a deadly fire enveloped them and they broke in disorder, 
 some falling back to the crater, while a majority ran 
 back to the Union defenses. General Ord's Eighteenth 
 Corps was now ordered to go forward. He had diffi- 
 culty in getting through the Ninth Corps intrenchments; 
 the parapets and abatis were not prepared for an exit, 
 and the covered wavs were crowded with the soldiers 
 
360 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 of the Ninth Corps. Turner's, his leading division, suc- 
 ceeded in advancing to the Confederate works, but would 
 not stay, and fell back to the starting point. The ob- 
 ject now was to get the men in and around the crater 
 back to the Union lines. The ground was so thoroughly 
 combed with showers of shot that it was proposed to 
 dig a covered way; but not many spades or picks were 
 available, though it was commenced. Any advance was 
 now hopeless, and Meade, at 1.30 p. m., gave orders for 
 the troops to be withdrawn from the crater — a difficult 
 undertaking. Burnside thought they should stay there 
 until night. 
 
 In the meantime the Confederates were massing for 
 the attack, Lee heard what had been done about 6 a. m., 
 promptly took steps to retake the position, and sent a 
 staff officer for troops to do it. Traveler carried him 
 rapidly to Gee House, a commanding position five hun- 
 dred yards in the rear of the crater. Beauregard was 
 already there, and soon Mahone with two brigades — 
 Weiseger's and Wright's — arrived, and formed in a ra- 
 vine in the rear of the crater. The Virginia brigade 
 had formed for the attack, and the Georgia troops were 
 in the act of forming when suddenly Lieutenant-Colonel 
 John A. Bross, of the Thirty-first United States Colored 
 Troops, sprang upon the crater crest waving a flag and 
 calling upon his men to follow him. 
 
 Brigadier-General Weiseger, commanding the Vir- 
 ginia brigade, saw him, and, thinking his position would 
 be assailed, determined to move first, and appealed, he 
 says, to Captain Girardy, of Mahone's staff, to give the 
 order, for he had been directed by Mahone to wait until 
 he or Girardy ordered him forward. The order was 
 given, and the lines were captured by a most gallant 
 charge. The crater remained crammed with human 
 beings, living and dead, into which huge missiles from 
 mortars were bursting. The Georgia brigade advanced 
 and attempted to dislodge the Union troops in the lines 
 south of the crater, but failed. Later the Alabama 
 brigade came up, when a general assault by these and 
 other troops on the lines upon either side of the crater 
 was made, and everywhere successfully; and just then 
 a white handkerchief on the end of a ramrod was pro- 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 361 
 
 jected above the crater, in token of the surrender of the 
 men there. 
 
 Altogether it was a horrible affair ; and what prom- 
 ised, Grant said, "to be the most successful assault of 
 the campaign terminated in disaster " — a disaster in 
 which the Federals lost four thousand men. " The 
 operation was not successful," Meade states, "for a coup 
 de main depends for success upon the utmost prompti- 
 tude of movement." Fifty thousand troops were ready- 
 to support it, but proper debouches had not been pre- 
 pared. The Ninth Corps had great difficulty in getting 
 over the high works in their front, and the space was 
 too contracted to deploy troops, preventing rapidity of 
 execution and cordial co-operation essential to success. 
 
 From camp, July 31, 1864, General Lee wrote : " Yes- 
 terday morning the enemy sprung a mine on one of our 
 batteries on the line and got possession of a portion of 
 our intrenchments. It was the part defended by Gen- 
 eral Beauregard's troops. I sent General Mahone with 
 two brigades of Hill's corps, who charged into them 
 handsomely, recapturing the intrenchments and guns, 
 twelve stand of colors, seventy-three officers, including 
 General Bartlett, his staff, three colonels, and eight hun- 
 dred and fifty-five enlisted men. There were upward of 
 five hundred of his dead unburied in the trenches, among 
 them many officers and blacks. He suffered severely. 
 He has withdrawn his troops from the' north side of the 
 James. I do not know what he will attempt next. He 
 is mining on other points along our line. I trust he 
 will not succeed in bettering his last attempt." The 
 vigilance of the Southern general was daily displayed, 
 and his remarkable talent for promptly disregarding the 
 feint and locating the real attack had to be incessantly 
 exercised. If at first he was in doubt of Grant's de- 
 signs, he was patient, knowing that as they developed 
 he would fathom his purpose. 
 
 From camp, August 14, 1864, he wrote his wife: "I 
 have been kept from church to-day by the enemy's 
 crossing to the north side of the James River, and the 
 necessity of moving troops to meet him. I do not know 
 what his intentions are. He is said to be cutting a 
 canal across the Dutch Gap — a point in the river — but 
 
362 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 I can not as yet discover it. I was up there yesterday, 
 and saw nothing to indicate it. We shall ascertain in a 
 day or two. I received to-day a kind letter from the 
 Rev. Mr. Cole, of Culpeper Court House. He is a most 
 excellent man in all the relations of life. He says there 
 is not a church standing in all that country within the 
 lines formerly occupied by the enemy. All are razed to 
 the ground, and the materials used often for the vilest 
 purposes. Two of the churches at the Court House 
 barely escaped destruction. The pews were all taken 
 out to make seats for the theater. The fact was re- 
 ported to the commanding officer, General Newton (from 
 Norfolk), by their own men of the Christian Commis- 
 sion, but he took no steps to rebuke or arrest it. We 
 must suffer patiently to the end, when all things will be 
 made right." 
 
 Hancock kept Lee from attending divine services. 
 By Grant's direction, he left City Point with the Sec- 
 ond and Tenth Corps on steamers, at ten o'clock Satur- 
 day night, the 13th of August, to produce the impres- 
 sion he was going to Washington, but disembarked at 
 the lower pontoon bridge at Deep Bottom and marched 
 toward Richmond. Gregg's cavalry division and the 
 artillery of the two corps went by land and across the 
 usual pontoon bridge. The movement was made to 
 prevent further detachments of Lee's army going to the 
 Valley, and if possible call back those sent, and under 
 the impression the remaining divisions of Longstreet's 
 corps had followed Kershaw. It involved the capture 
 of Chaffin's Bluff, one of the chief fortifications guarding 
 the river approach to Richmond. Field's and Wilcox's 
 divisions, re-enforced by Mahone's division of infantry, 
 and Hampton's and W. H. F. Lee's cavalry divisions 
 sent from the south side, interposed an effective barrier 
 to Hancock's advance. This officer, after making one 
 unsuccessful assault, remained quiet for four days, and 
 then during the night withdrew to the south side with a 
 loss of twenty-seven hundred and eighty-six men. 
 
 In a combat on the i6th between the Confederate 
 and Gregg's Federal cavalry, General John R. Cham- 
 bliss, a bold, enterprising Southern brigadier of cavalry, 
 was killed. While Hancock was demonstrating on the 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 363 
 
 north side, Warren with his Fifth Corps was withdrawn 
 from his lines and sent to destroy, with Kautz's cavalry, 
 the Weldon Railroad. He struck it a point four miles 
 from Petersburg, at Globe Tavern, and was soon after- 
 ward re-enforced by three divisions of the Ninth Corps. 
 ' Dearing's Confederate cavalry was there and reported 
 to Beauregard the occupation of the railroad by infan- 
 try, who sent Heth with two brigades to attack him. A 
 sharp encounter between Ayers's division and Heth fol- 
 lowed, in which both sides lost heavily. On the 19th 
 the fighting was renewed, both sides being re-enforced. 
 Hill attacked with five brigades under Heth and Ma- 
 hone, a division of cavalry, and Pegram's batteries, at 
 the intersection of the Vaughn road with the railroad. 
 Heth and Mahone made a fine effort, meeting with de- 
 served success, but were later in turn repulsed. Warren 
 lost three thousand men, and on the 20th fell back a 
 mile and a half and intrenched. On the 21st Hill again 
 attacked, but was unsuccessful. General Sanders, of 
 Mahone's brigade, was killed. 
 
 Hancock was now brought up with instructions to 
 destroy the Weldon Railroad soutl} of Ream's Station. 
 He was attacked by Hill on the 25th at 5 p. m. with eight 
 infantry brigades and two divisions of cavalry under 
 Hampton, and beaten, capturing three batteries of ar- 
 tillery. A disorderly rout was avoided by the personal 
 bearing and example of General Hancock and the good 
 behavior of a part of his first division under Miles. 
 Gibbon's division had been so roughly handled that 
 their commanders, said Humphreys, could not get the 
 troops to advance ; they were driven from the breast- 
 works by Hampton's dismounted cavalry ; Gregg's cav- 
 alry division was also driven back by these troopers, 
 and during the night Hancock retreated, having lost 
 twenty-three hundred and seventy-two men, while Hill's 
 loss only amounted to seven hundred and twenty. Hill 
 captured twelve stand of colors, nine guns and ten cais- 
 sons, thirty-one hundred stand of small arms, and twen- 
 ty-one hundred and fifty prisoners. 
 
 General Lee's labors were incessant ; as soon as one 
 attempt on his lines failed another began. His power 
 of endurance was great, but anxiety, fatigue, and loss of 
 
364 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 rest must make inroads. Mrs. Lee, growing uneasy for 
 fear the great strain upon him would be too heavy, 
 remonstrated and begged him to look more to his com- 
 fort and health. From Camp Petersburg, September 18, 
 1864, he replies : *' But what care can a man give to him- 
 self in time of war ? It is from no desire of exposure or 
 hazard that I live in a tent, but from necessity. I must 
 be where I can speedily at all times attend to the duties 
 of my position, and be near or accessible to the officers 
 with whom I have to act. I have been offered rooms in 
 the houses of our citizens, but I could not turn the 
 dwellings of my kind hosts into a barrack, where offi- 
 cers, couriers, distressed women, etc., would be entering 
 day and night." 
 
 Warren was still intrenched across the Weldon Rail- 
 road on the left of the Union lines. Ten days after 
 Hancock and Hill had their battle, Grant next endeav- 
 ored to break the Southern lines on the Richmond side. 
 Ord and Birney, with the Tenth and Eighteenth Corps, 
 crossed the James the night of September 28th, moved 
 rapidly up the River and New Market roads, while 
 Kautz's cavalry marched on the Darby road. The six- 
 teen thousand troops sought to assail and capture the 
 Confederate w^orks, which were feebly garrisoned, be- 
 fore they could be re-enforced from the south side. 
 Ord, nearest the river, succeeded in capturing Fort Har- 
 rison, a strong work on the Southern main line of in- 
 trenchments about a mile and a quarter from the river, 
 with its sixteen guns and a number of prisoners, as well 
 as two adjoining lunettes with their artillery — six guns. 
 But Birney's attack on Fort Gilmer, three quarters of a 
 mile north of Harrison, was repulsed with great loss to 
 him. Grant was present urging Birney forward, but the 
 canister and musketry fire broke his advancing lines and 
 caused them to fall back in confusion. 
 
 Ewell was in command of the local troops on the 
 north side, Lee joined him during the day, and at 2 p. m. 
 on the 30th directed an assault on Fort Harrison with 
 five brigades under Anderson, commanding Longstreet's 
 corps; but during the night before, large working par- 
 ties had made Fort Harrison an inclosed work and too 
 strong to be carried. After this Grant's left on the south 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 365 
 
 side was further extended to the Peebles farm, and co- 
 operative movements on both Lee's flanks followed with- 
 out practical results. Longstreet returned to duty on 
 the 19th of October, and was assigned to the command 
 of the troops on the north side and on the Bermuda 
 Hundred front. General Weitzel was given the com- 
 mand of the Eighteenth Federal Corps, and General 
 Hancock was called to Washington to organize, out of 
 abundant material, another fresh corps to take the field 
 in the spring. 
 
 The picture of the winter of 1864 and 1865 has a 
 somber background. The Confederate commander had 
 displayed " every art by which genius and courage can 
 make good the lack of numbers and resources," but 
 could not gather hope from coming days ; clothing, 
 food, ammunition, and forage for animals were so scarce, 
 suffering and distress so plentiful. The leader of a 
 brave people must fight until the war clouds of mis- 
 fortune enveloped him on so many sides he could fight 
 no longer. " I say that, if the event had been manifest 
 to the whole world beforehand, not even then ought 
 Athens to have forsaken this course, if she had any re- 
 gard for her glory or for her past, or for the ages to 
 come," exclaimed Demosthenes. 
 
 Self-possessed and calm, Lee struggled to solve the 
 huge military problem, and make the sum of smaller 
 numbers equal to that of greater numbers. It was the 
 old heathen picture of "man sublimely contending with 
 Fate to the admiration of the gods, accepting the last 
 test of endurance, and with the smile of a sublime resolu- 
 tion risking the last defiance of fortune." His thoughts 
 ever turned upon the soldiers of his army — the ragged, 
 gallant fellows around him, whose pinched cheeks told 
 hunger was their portion, and whose shivering forms de- 
 noted the absence of proper clothing. Mrs. Lee, in her 
 invalid chair in Richmond, with large heart and small 
 means, assisted by friends, was busy knitting socks and 
 sending them to him. He writes her from Petersburg, 
 November 30, 1864: "I received yesterday your letter 
 of the 27th, and am glad to learn your supply of socks 
 is so large. If two or three hundred would send an 
 equal number we should have a sufficiency. I will en- 
 
366 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 deavor to have them distributed to the most needy." 
 And again on December 17, 1864: "I received day be- 
 fore yesterday the box with hat, gloves, and socks; also 
 the barrel of apples. You had better have kept the lat- 
 ter, as it would have been more useful to you than to 
 me, and I should have enjoyed its consumption by your- 
 self and the girls more than by me." And on December 
 30, 1864, he tells her: "The Lyons furs and fur robe 
 have also arrived safely, but I can learn nothing of the 
 saddle of mutton. Bryan, of whom I inquired as to its 
 arrival, is greatly alarmed lest it has been sent to the 
 soldiers' dinner. If the soldiers get it I shall be con- 
 tent. I can do very well without it. In fact, I should 
 rather they would have it than I." And on January 10, 
 1865, after stating how the socks which Mrs. Lee had 
 sent had been distributed to the army, the general writes: 
 "Yesterday afternoon three little girls walked into my 
 room, each with a small basket. The eldest carried 
 some fresh eggs laid by her own hens; the second, some 
 pickles made by her mother; the third, some pop corn 
 which had grown in her garden. They were accompa- 
 nied by a young maid with a block of soap made by her 
 mother. They were the daughters of a Mrs. Notting- 
 ham, a refugee from Northampton County, who lived 
 near Eastville, not far from old Arlington. The eldest 
 of the girls, whose age did not exceed eight years, had 
 a small wheel on which she spun for her mother, who 
 wove all the cloth for her two brothers — boys of twelve 
 and fourteen years. I have not had so pleasant a visit 
 for a long time. I fortunately was able to fill their 
 baskets with apples, which distressed poor Bryan [his 
 steward], and begged them to bring me nothing but 
 kisses and to keep the eggs, corn, etc., for themselves. 
 I pray daily, and almost hourly, to our heavenly Father 
 to come to the relief of you (Mrs. Lee was sick) and 
 our afflicted country. I know he will order all things 
 for our good, and we must be content." 
 
 Children always held the key which would unlock 
 the heart of Lee, and his description of the little girls 
 bringing him presents is a charming illustration of his 
 fondness for them. 
 
 In spite of the wonderful success attending Lee's 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 367 
 
 efforts, at every attempt Grant made to get toward 
 Lynchburg or Southside Railroad, the Union line of 
 contravallation continued to stretch, and it was evident, 
 unless Lee could get more men, he would lose that line 
 of railroad. A lodgment once effected, enormous in- 
 trenchments would follow, which could not be assailed 
 with success; but where were men to come from when 
 the end of conscription had been reached and exchange 
 of prisoners stopped ? Lee did not believe the white 
 population could supply the necessities of a long war 
 without overtaxing its capacity, and thought the time 
 had come to enlist the negroes as soldiers, and so wrote 
 Hon. E. Barksdale, a member of the Confederate States 
 House of Representatives, on February 18, 1865. Six 
 months before, he had advocated their employment as 
 teamsters, laborers, and mechanics, in place of whites, 
 who, being replaced, could be restored to the ranks. 
 He thought, too, that the negroes would be used against 
 the South as fast as the Federals got possession of 
 them ; that he could make as good soldiers of them 
 as his enemy, who attached great importance to their 
 assistance ; that the negroes furnished more promising 
 material than many armies mentioned in history, pos- 
 sessed the requisite physical qualifications, and their 
 habits of obedience constituted a good foundation for 
 discipline; and that those who were employed should 
 be freed. Congress passed a bill for the purpose; but 
 it was now too late to experiment with new measures. 
 The Southern chief not only wanted more men, but sup- 
 plies for those he already commanded. *' The struggle 
 now is," said he, " to keep the army fed and clothed. 
 Only fifty men," he wrote, " in some regiments had 
 shoes, and bacon is only issued once in a few days." 
 
 On January 11, 1865, he tells Mr. Seddon, the Secre- 
 tary of War, that his army had only two days' supplies, 
 the country was swept clear, and the sole reliance was 
 on the railroads. And the next day he issued an appeal 
 to the " farmers east of the Blue Ridge and south of 
 the James to send food for the army, for which he 
 would pay, or return in kind." Many months before, 
 flour was quoted at two hundred and fifty dollars per 
 barrel in Confederate money ; meal fifty dollars, corn 
 
368 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 forty, and oats twenty-five dollars per bushel ; hay 
 twenty-five dollars per pound ; beans fifty dollars, and 
 black-eyed peas, forty-five dollars per bushel. Brown 
 sugar, ten dollars, coffee, twelve dollars, and tea, thirty- 
 five dollars per pound, and very scarce. Sorghum, a 
 substitute for sugar and meat, forty dollars per gallon. 
 In Richmond a relative offered General Lee a cup of 
 tea, and to prevent him from knowing one cup was all 
 she had, filled her own cup with James River water, 
 colored by mud from recent rains, which she uncon- 
 cernedly sipped with a spoon. 
 
 The capture of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on Janu- 
 ary 15, 1865, closed the last gateway between the South- 
 ern States and the outside world. Sherman with a pow- 
 erful army reached Savannah, on his march from Atlanta 
 to the sea, on December 21, 1864, from which point he 
 could unite with Grant by land or water. On February 
 ist he crossed into South Carolina, and on March 23d 
 was at Goldsborough, N. C, one hundred and fifty miles 
 from Petersburg. 
 
 Lee had now been made commander in chief of all 
 the armies of the Confederacy, and assumed charge in 
 General Orders No. i, February 9th. He could have 
 had practical control of military operations throughout 
 the South before, for his suggestions would have been 
 complied with by the constitutional commander in chief, 
 but he always attended to his own affairs and let those 
 of others alone. Five days after he was commissioned 
 commander in chief he issued General Orders No. 2, 
 exhorting Southern soldiers to respond to the call of 
 honor and duty, pardoning deserters and those improp- 
 erly absent if they returned in twenty days — except 
 those who deserted to the enemy — and saying, " Let us 
 oppose constancy to adversity, fortitude to suffering, 
 and courage to danger, with the firm assurance that He 
 who gave freedom to our fathers will bless the efforts 
 of their children to preserve it." 
 
 The day before this order was issued " was the most 
 inclement day of winter." Lee dispatched to Seddon, 
 Secretary of War, that his troops ''were greatly exposed 
 in line of battle two days, had been without meat for three 
 days, and in scant clothing took the cold hail and sleet." 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 369 
 
 The commissary general reported not a pound of meat 
 at his disposal. " The physical strength of the men," 
 said Lee, " if their courage survives, must fail under 
 this treatment;" that his "cavalry had to be dispersed 
 for want of forage; with these facts, taken in connec- 
 tion with paucity of numbers, you must not be surprised 
 if calamity befalls us." General John C. Breckinridge, 
 who had been appointed Secretary of War in Mr. Sed- 
 don's place, received and referred General Lee's letter 
 to Mr. Davis, who indorsed upon it : " This is too sad 
 to be patiently considered." Want of supplies, want of 
 men, was indeed a grievous calamity. In the numerous 
 recent combats many of his best men and officers had 
 fallen, among the latter. General John Pegram, who was 
 endeared to him by many personal ties. It seemed diffi- 
 cult to get the simplest necessaries — even soap became 
 scarce, and, as a consequence, many of his soldiers had 
 cutaneous diseases. "The supply from the Commissary 
 Department is wholly inadequate," he wrote, "notwith- 
 standing the materials for making it are found in every 
 household and the art is familiar to all well-trained 
 domestics." The equipments for cavalrymen were so 
 greatly wanted that Lee issued a circular requesting the 
 citizens to send him any saddles, revolvers, pistols, and 
 carbines that might be in their possession. His scant 
 battalions grew smaller and smaller, the lines to be 
 guarded longer and longer. " Cold and hunger struck 
 them down in the trenches, while from the desolate 
 track of triumphant armies in their rear came the cries 
 of starving and unprotected homes." On all sides dif- 
 ficulties and dangers multiplied. Beauregard had been 
 sent South to concentrate such troops as he could in 
 Sherman's front, and had reported that Sherman would 
 move via Greensborough and Weldon to Petersburg, or 
 unite with Schofield at Raleigh. 
 
 " Beauregard has a difficult task to perform," said 
 Lee to Breckinridge, Secretary of War, "and one of his 
 best officers. General Hardee, is incapacitated by sick- 
 ness. I have heard his own health is indifferent ; should 
 his health give way there is no one in the department to 
 replace him, nor have I any one to send there. General 
 J. E. Johnston is the only officer I know who has the 
 
370 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 confidence of the army and the people, and if he were 
 ordered to report to me I would place him there on 
 duty." Lee had no troops to send Beauregard, and yet 
 "it was all-important to retard Sherman's march. The 
 troops in the Valley, under General L. L. Lomax, were 
 scattered for subsistence, and could not be concentrated. 
 "You may expect," said Lee to Breckinridge on Febru- 
 ary 21st, "Sheridan to move up the Valley, and Stone- 
 man from Knoxville. What, then, will become of those 
 sections of the country ? Bragg will be forced back by 
 Schofield, I fear, and until I abandon James River noth- 
 ing can be sent from the army. Grant is preparing to 
 draw out by his left with the intent of enveloping me ; he 
 may be preparing to anticipate my withdrawal. Every- 
 thing of value should be removed from Richmond. The 
 cavalry and artillery are still scattered for want of prov- 
 ender, and our supply and ammunition trains, which 
 ought to be with the army in case of 'a sudden move- 
 ment, are absent collecting provisions and forage in 
 West Virginia and North Carolina. You will see to 
 what straits we are reduced." 
 
 On the same day he wrote Mrs. Lee : " After sending 
 my note this morning I received from the express office 
 a bag of socks You will have to send down your of- 
 ferings as soon as you can and bring your work to a 
 close, for I think GeneraF Grant will move against us 
 soon — within a week if nothing prevents — and no man 
 can tell what may be the result ; but, trusting to a merci- 
 ful God, who does not always give the battle to the 
 strong, I pray we may not be overwhelmed. I shall, 
 however, endeavor to do my duty and fight to the last. 
 Should it be necessary to abandon our position to pre- 
 vent being surrounded, what will you do ? Will you re- 
 main, or leave the city ? You must consider the question 
 and make up your mind. It is a fearful condition, and 
 we must rely for guidance and protection upon a kind 
 Providence." 
 
 General Lee det^mined to make one more effort by 
 a bold stroke to break the chains forged to confine him. 
 Grant had so extended his left that he thought he might 
 break through his works near the Appomattox below 
 and east of Petersburg, and hence determined to assault 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 37I 
 
 Fort Stedman, two miles from the city, where the oppos- 
 ing lines were one hundred and fifty yards and the re- 
 spective pickets fifty yards apart. General Gordon, an 
 officer always crammed with courage and fond of enter- 
 prise, was selected to make the attack with his corps 
 (formerly Ewell's) and parts of Longstreet's and Hill's 
 and a detachment of cavalry. His object was to capture 
 the fort, thrust the storming party through the gap, and 
 seize three forts on the high ground beyond and the 
 lines on the right and left of it, under the impression 
 that the forts were opened at the gorge. But there 
 were no such forts. The redoubts that had a command- 
 ing fire on Fort Stedman were on the main Une in the 
 rear, and in front were a line of intrenchments. At 
 about half-past four on the morning of March 25th Gor- 
 don made his daring sortie, broke through the trench 
 guards, overpowered the garrison, and captured Fort 
 Stedman, or Hare's Hill, and two adjacent batteries; 
 but, after a most gallant struggle, was forced to retire, 
 losing nineteen hundred and forty-nine prisoners and 
 one thousand killed and wounded, but bringing back 
 five hundred and sixty prisoners and Brigadier-Cieneral 
 McLaughlin. 
 
 On February 27th Sheridan, with two divisions of 
 cavalry, ten thousand sabers, moved up the Valley to 
 Staunton, pushed from his front at Waynesborough a 
 small force under Early, and, marching via Charlottes- 
 ville, joined Grant on March 2/th. Lee now recalled 
 Rosser's cavalry division, and his cavalry corps em- 
 braced that division, W. H. F. Lee's and Fitz Lee's old 
 division under Munford, Fitz Lee being assigned to the 
 command of the cavalry corps — in all, about five thou- 
 sand five hundred troopers. 
 
 During the winter General Lee had given careful 
 consideration to the question of evacuating Petersburg 
 and Richmond. It was attended with many embarrass- 
 ments. Richmond was the capital city, the machinery 
 of the Confederate Government was in motion there, 
 and the abandonment of a country's capital was a se- 
 rious step ; there, too, were the workshops, iron works, 
 rolling mills, and foundries, which were so essential. 
 Their loss would be a deprivation ; and then, too, there 
 
2^72 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 was sorrow in turning away and leaving to their fate 
 the noble women, children, and old men of the two 
 cities, whose hearths and homes he had been so long 
 defending. The question of withdrawal was discussed 
 with Mr. Davis, who consented to it, the line of retreat 
 was decided, and Danville, in Virginia, selected as the 
 point to retire upon. It was determined to collect sup- 
 plies at that point, so that Lee, rapidly moving from his 
 lines, could form a junction with General Joseph E. 
 Johnston, who on February 23d had been instructed to 
 assume the command of the Army of the Tennessee, 
 and all troops in the Department of South Carolina, 
 Georgia, and Florida. Lee and Johnston were then to 
 assail Sherman before Grant could get to his relief, as 
 the question of supplying his enormous army, moving 
 from its base to the interior, would retard him after the 
 first few days' march. 
 
 Sherman, after his junction with Schofield at Golds- 
 borough, had nearly ninety thousand men of the three 
 arms. Johnston, having only eighteen thousand seven 
 hundred and sixty-one, telegraphed Lee that with his 
 small force he could only annoy Sherman, not stop him, 
 adding: " You have only to decide where to meet Sher- 
 man ; I will be near him." It is possible Lee, with his 
 army out of the trenches, gaining strength from other 
 quarters as he marched to Danville, and with absentees 
 returning, as in that event many would, could have car- 
 ried to Johnston fifty or sixty thousand fighting men — 
 making their combined force over seventy thousand 
 effectives, as against Sherman's ninety thousand. The 
 South would have gladly staked its fortunes upon a 
 battle, when Lee and Johnston rode boot to boot and 
 directed the tactical details. Sherman by water visited 
 Grant on March 27th, told him he would be ready to 
 move from Goldsborough by April loth, would threat, 
 en Raleigh and march for Weldon, sixty miles south 
 of Petersburg, and to General Grant in the direction 
 deemed best. 
 
 Grant, apprehensive that Lee would certainly aban- 
 don his intrenchments as soon as he heard Sherman had 
 crossed the Roanoke, determined to take the initiative. 
 He could easily do it, for he had an army number- 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 373 
 
 ing* one hundred and twenty-four thousand seven hun- 
 dred men for duty. The returns of February 28, 1865, 
 gives as the strength of General Lee's army, total eftec- 
 tive of all arms, fifty-nine thousand and ninety-three. 
 His losses in March were great at Fort Stedman — nearly 
 three thousand — and desertions were numerous. Colo- 
 nel Taylor, on March 31st, estimates that Lee had thirty- 
 three thousand muskets to defend a line thirty-five miles 
 in length, or a thousand men to the mile. Lee told the 
 writer he had at that time thirty-five thousand ; but 
 after Five Forks, and in the encounters of March 31st, 
 April ist and 2d, he had only twenty thousand muskets 
 available, and of all arms not over twenty-five thou- 
 sand, when he began the retreat that terminated at Ap- 
 pomattox Court House. 
 
 The opposing horsemen, commanded by General 
 Wesley Merritt, were composed of three divisions, under 
 Thomas C. Devin, Custer, and Crook and formed part 
 of the mixed command of Sheridan. From the morning 
 report of March 31, 1865, they numbered thirteen thou- 
 sand two hundred and nine present for duty, exclusive 
 of a division under General Ronalds Mackenzie — about 
 two thousand effectives. The cavalry corps of the Army 
 of the Potomac numbered over fifteen thousand men in 
 the saddle. In other words, where Lee had one infantry 
 or cavalry or artillery soldier Grant had three! He pos- 
 sessed the enormous advantage, too, of being able to 
 hold his formidable works with a force equal to the 
 whole of Lee's army and still manoeuvre nearly one 
 hundred thousand men outside of them, either to extend 
 his left or for other purposes. Fully aware of his great 
 advantage, he waited impatiently to commence the spring 
 campaign. 
 
 He was apprehensive that Lee would quietly draw out 
 from his front at night and, gaining a good start, appear 
 in Sherman's front before he could reach him. Hav- 
 ing plenty of men, why should he wait for Sherman to 
 join him ? "I have had a feeling that it is better," said 
 
 * Report of the Secretary of War to the Thirty-ninth Congress 
 gives one hundred and sixty-two thousand two hundred and thirty- 
 four. 
 
 25 
 
374 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 he to Mr. Lincoln, " to let Lee's old antagonist give his 
 army the final blow and finish up the job. If the West- 
 ern armies were ever to put in an appearance against 
 Lee's army, it might give some of our politicians a 
 chance to stir up sectional feeling in claiming every- 
 thmg for the troops from their own section of the 
 country." '' I see, I see," replied Mr. Lincoln ; " in 
 fact, my anxiety has been so great that I didn't care 
 where the help came from so the work was perfectly 
 done." Lee, chained to his trenches by his necessi- 
 ties, and waiting for better roads on account of the 
 weak condition of his artillery and transportation ani- 
 mals, gave General Grant the opportunity to get around 
 his lines west of Petexsburg, for which he had so long 
 waited. 
 
 On March 28th Grant sounded the laissez aller, as a 
 writer puts it, and the next day great turning columns 
 were put in motion to swing around the flank of Lee, and 
 get possession of his remaining lines of transportation, 
 the Lynchburg or Southside Railroad, and the Danville 
 Railroad at Burkesville, the junction of the two. It was 
 calculated that Lee would largely draw troops from his 
 lines to avert such a disaster, and in that event they 
 could be successfully assailed by the troops on their 
 front. On that day General Lee wrote Mrs. Lee : " I 
 have received your note with a bag of socks. I return 
 the bag and receipt. The count is all right this time. 
 I have put in the bag General Scott's autobiography, 
 which I thought you might like to read. The general, 
 of course, stands out very prominently, and does not 
 hide his light under a bushel, but he appears the bold, 
 sagacious, truthful man that he is. I inclose a note for 
 little Agnes. I shall be very glad to see her to-morrow, 
 but can not recommend pleasure trips now." 
 
 The Southern lines south of James River stretched 
 from the Appomattox below Petersburg along the terri- 
 tory south of the city, then ran in a southwest direction 
 parallel and protecting the Lynchburg Railroad, then 
 bending west and northwest, terminated on Hatcher's 
 Run, a little over a mile from Sutherland Station on 
 the railroad. From this point the White Oak road runs 
 west to Five Forks, four miles distant, where it is crossed 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 375 
 
 by the Ford road at right angles ; a road from Din- 
 widdle courthouse joins the intersection of the two. A 
 person at that point could therefore travel in five dif- 
 ferent directions — east or west, north or south, or south- 
 east — to the courthouse, eight miles away, from which 
 the location probably derives its name. Five Forks, in 
 front of the Southern right, became a strategic point. 
 If Grant occupied it he could tear up the Southside 
 Railroad west of Sutherland Station, and, while holding 
 Lee in his lines, detach infantry and cavalry, and destroy 
 the Danville Railroad, the only connecting link with the 
 Southern States. 
 
 Sheridan's large cavalry corps, supported by War- 
 ren's Fifth and Humphreys's Second Corps, was direct- 
 ed, on the 29th, to Dinwiddle Court House, the infantry 
 to occupy the country between the courthouse and Fed- 
 eral left, the cavalry the courthouse. Parke, who had 
 succeeded to the command of Burnside's Ninth Corps, 
 Wright with his Sixth, and Ord with the Army of the 
 James, held the line in the order named from the Appo- 
 mattox to Lee's right. Ord, in command of the Twenty- 
 fourth (Gibbon's) and Twenty-fifth (Weitzel's) Army 
 Corps, Butler's old army, had placed Weltzel in charge 
 of the defenses at Bermuda Hundred and on the north 
 side of the James. 
 
 The purpose of the Union commander to get around 
 his right rear and break up his railroad connections 
 was promptly perceived by Lee. General Anderson was 
 sent at once, with Bushrod Johnson's division and Wise's 
 brigade, to his extreme right. Pickett's division was 
 also transferred to that point, and Fltz Lee's division 
 of cavalry was brought from the north side of James 
 River to Five Forks, reaching there on the morning of 
 the 30th ; this division was at once advanced toward 
 Dinwiddle Court House, and met, fought, and checked 
 the Union cavalry under Merritt, advancing from that 
 point to Five Forks. General W. H. Payne, whose con- 
 spicuous daring and gallant conduct on every battle- 
 field had made him so well known to the public and the 
 army, was here severely wounded. At sunset Pickett, 
 with Corse's, Terry's, and Stuart's brigades of his own 
 division, and Ransom's and Wallace's of Johnson's di- 
 
376 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 vision, arrived at Five Forks, and so did the cavalry 
 divisions of W. H. F. Lee and Rosser. The five infantry 
 brigades under Pickett and the three cavalry divisions 
 of Fitz Lee moved out on the Dinwiddie Court House 
 road on the 31st, and attacked and drove Sheridan's 
 cavalry corps back to the courthouse. Night put an 
 end to the contest. The Confederates fell back early 
 on the morning of April ist to Five Forks, to prevent 
 Warren's Fifth Corps, which had moved during the night 
 to Sheridan's assistance, from attacking their left rear. 
 Sheridan followed with Warren's infantry and his cav- 
 alry ; Pickett's line of battle ran along the White Oak 
 road, Munford's cavalry division was on his left, W. H. 
 F. Lee's on his right, and Rosser in the rear, north of 
 Hatcher's Run, guarding the wagon trains. About 4 
 p. M. Sheridan, having succeeded in massing the Fifth 
 Corps, concealed by the woods beyond Pickett's left, at- 
 tacked by seizing the White Oak road between Pickett 
 and General Lee's lines, four miles away, with Warren's 
 infantry, which enabled him to flank Pickett's line with 
 the Fifth Corps, while he assailed his front and right 
 with his cavalry corps. 
 
 Pickett was connected with the main line of his army 
 by the cavalry pickets of Roberts's brigade, and was cut 
 off from support and badly defeated, in spite of his right 
 making a gallant resistance, in which W. H. F. Lee, with 
 one of his cavalry brigades, in a brilliant encounter, re- 
 pulsed two brigades under Custer. The Confederates 
 lost between three and four thousand men, thirteen 
 colors, and six guns. Pickett's isolated position was 
 unfortunately selected. A line behind Hatcher's Run or 
 at Sutherland Station could not have been flanked, but 
 might been maintained until re-enforced by troops drawn 
 from the Southern right at the Claiborne road crossing 
 of Hatcher's Run. The Confederate cavalry were with- 
 drawn during the night to the Southside Railroad, and 
 were joined there by Hunton's brigade of Pickett's 
 division and by General Bushrod Johnson, with Wise's, 
 Gracies's, and Fulton's brigade, all under the command 
 of General R. H. Anderson. 
 
 The disaster at Five Forks was the beginning of the 
 end. Two large infantry and one cavalry corps, making 
 
SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 377 
 
 a total of fifty thousand officers and men,* with a rov- 
 ing commission in front of Lee's extreme right, im- 
 periled his communications most seriously, as well as 
 the safety of his lines. The Southern general could not 
 risk another attack outside of his works, and, in order 
 to strengthen that portion of them sufficiently to resist 
 assault, had so weakened what remained that it became 
 vulnerable. From the Appomattox to the right center 
 the thin gray line was so stretched that it was not as 
 formidable as a well-prepared skirmish line. Though 
 holding with tenacity to his right, Lee must let the bars 
 down elsewhere. Thirty-five thousand muskets were 
 guarding thirty-seven miles of intrenchments. 
 
 Grant on the night of April ist was at Dabney's 
 Mill, a mile or two south of Boydton plank road, which 
 runs from Dinwiddle Court House to Petersburg. Colo- 
 nel Horace Porter, his aid-de-camp, first gave him the 
 news of Sheridan's success at 9 p. m. that night as he 
 was sitting before " a blazing camp fire with his blue 
 cavalry overcoat on and the ever-present cigar in his 
 mouth." He sent over the field-wires at once orders for 
 an immediate assault along the lines, but subsequently 
 directed the attack to be made at 4 a. m. the next day. 
 All during the night a bombardment was kept up on all 
 portions of the Confederate lines. At dawn on Sunday, 
 April 2d, Parke and Wright, with the Ninth and Sixth 
 Corps, and Ord, with the Army of the James, successfully 
 assaulted the attenuated lines in their front. The task 
 was easy, and while handfuls of brave men heroically 
 resisted, like shootmg stars their course was brilliant 
 but brief. The storming pioneer parties everywhere cut 
 away the abatis and chevaux-de-frise^ and through the 
 opening the blue masses poured into the works. There 
 were high parapets and high relief and deep ditches; 
 but the troops had been drawn away to the Southern 
 right, and except here and there, notably at Fort Gregg, 
 It was only a matter of physical agility to climb over 
 them. Only small garrisons were in the forts, and very 
 few men in the connecting lines. 
 
 Four small brigades, Wilcox's division, Hill's corps — 
 
 * Morning report, Army of the Potomac, March 31, 1864. 
 
378 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 viz., Thomas's, Lane's, Davis's, and McCombs's — held 
 the entire line in the front of the armies of Ord and 
 Wright, while Gordon, with a few thousand troops, held 
 in front of Parke's Ninth Corps. Lee's troops were 
 forced back to an inner line whose flanks rested on the 
 river above and below Petersburg, and there resisted all 
 further attempts to break through them. Before lo a. m., 
 Lee knew he could only hope to cling to his trenches 
 until night, and that the longer defense of Richmond 
 and Petersburg was not possible. All his skill would be 
 required to extricate his army and get it out and away 
 from the old lines. Longstreet reached Lee from the 
 north side of the James about lo a. m. on the 2d, with 
 Field's division. It is stated that he had not perceived 
 that the Federal lines in front of Richmond had been 
 weakened by transferring troops to the vicinity of 
 Petersburg, and hence did not move to Lee earlier, as 
 he had been instructed to do in that event. In the 
 midst of the turmoil, excitement, and danger, Lee was 
 as calm and collected as ever. When the Sixth Corps 
 broke over A. P. Hill's lines, that officer was at General 
 Lee's headquarters at the Turnbull House, and rode at 
 once rapidly to his front, where he was killed by some 
 stragglers who had crossed the Boydton road in the 
 direction of the railroad, whose presence in that vicinity 
 he did not expect. Hill in many respects was a good 
 officer — earnest, dashing, zealous, and prompt to exe- 
 cute; he had rendered marked service throughout the 
 whole war, and his light division had written many vic- 
 tories upon its proud standards. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EVACUATION OF RICHMOND AND THE PETERSBURG 
 LINES. RETREAT AND SURRENDER. 
 
 General Lee on the morning of April 2d telegraphed 
 Breckinridge, Secretary of War, that it was necessary 
 his position should be abandoned that night, "or run 
 the risk of being cut off in the morning; it will be a 
 difficult but I hope not an impracticable operation. The 
 troops will all be directed to Amelia Court House." He 
 advised that all preparations be made for leaving Rich- 
 mond that night. The Southern President was kept in- 
 formed on all subjects connected with the army, and of 
 course knew that a crisis in its affairs was approaching, 
 which involved the evacuation of its position ; but he 
 was not prepared for a precipitate announcement to that 
 effect, or indeed for any change of affairs for two weeks. 
 On April 2d he occupied his accustomed seat, about the 
 center of the middle aisle, in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 
 Richmond, much interested as usual in the services con- 
 ducted by his friend, the Rev. Dr. Minnigerode. There 
 he received a dispatch. Upon reading it, he quietly rose 
 and left the church. The telegram was from Genera) 
 Lee, announcing his speedy withdrawal from Petersburg. 
 Lee's decision quickly became generally known in the 
 two cities, and the feeling produced can readily be im- 
 agined. Women prayed, men wept, children wondered. 
 Three exits remained only for the Army of Northern 
 Virginia — one north of Richmond, one west, arid one 
 southwest. No object could now be achieved by march- 
 ing in the first two directions, but by^ the remaining one 
 Johnston might be reached, and his communications by 
 the Danville Railroad with the South be maintained. 
 
 (379) 
 
38o GENERAL LEE. 
 
 On the afternoon of April 2d Lee issued orders for his 
 troops to leave their lines everywhere at 8 p. m., and 
 take up the line of march for Amelia Court House. 
 
 This little village is on the Richmond and Danville 
 Railroad, thirty-eight miles southwest of Richmond. At 
 that point it was determined to concentrate, issue — won- 
 derful to relate — abundant rations to the troops, and get 
 them again in shape after the heavy work of the past 
 few days and the night march. As Grant's army was 
 stretched to the Appomattox on the south side above 
 Petersburg, Lee must march up its north side. Long- 
 street's, Hill's, and Gordon's corps crossed the Appo- 
 mattox that night, the two former at Battersea factory 
 pontoon bridge, the latter at Pocahontas and Railroad 
 bridge, and moved — via Bevel's and Goode's bridges on 
 the Appomattox below where it is crossed by the Dan- 
 ville Railroad — to Amelia Court House. Mahone's di- 
 vision was directed to the same point, via Chesterfield 
 Court House. Ewell, commanding the troops in front 
 of Richmond, Kershaw's and Custis Lee's divisions, and 
 the naval brigade, was instructed to cross to the south 
 side of James River, cross the Appomattox at Goode's 
 bridge, and join the army at Amelia Court House. The 
 commands of Pickett and Bushrod Johnson and the cav- 
 alry, being west of Petersburg and of the Federal lines, 
 moved up the south bank of the Appomattox. General 
 Lee was not able to concentrate all his troops at Amelia 
 Court House until midday on the 5th, Ewell being the 
 last to arrive. The small army was now divided into 
 four small infantry corps or commands, and a cavalry 
 corps commanded respectively by Longstreet, Ewell, R. 
 Hr Anderson, Gordon, and Fitzhugh Lee. Mahone's 
 division was assigned to Longstreet's corps, and the 
 naval battalion of Commodore Tucker to General Cus- 
 tis Lee's division. 
 
 The troops, though suffering for food and raiment, 
 want of sleep, and marching over roads heavy from 
 copious rains, were buoyant in spirit, brave in heart, 
 and of undoubted morale ; nearly every one of them 
 was a survivor of bloody battles and a veteran of years 
 of terrible war. They were soldiers of no " ordinary 
 mold, who had an abiding faith amounting to fanati- 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 
 
 38: 
 
 cism that the God of battles would in the end send their 
 cause safe deliverance, and they followed Lee with an 
 almost childlike faith, which set no bounds to his genius 
 and power of achievement." Shut up so long in dismal, 
 dangerous trenches, the fields, running streams, trees 
 thick with bursting buds of spring, grass growing green 
 under the kisses of the sun, and new scenes, were to 
 them most refreshing and exhilarating. 
 
 In obedience to a law of Congress, Ewell, in com- 
 mand at Richmond, had made arrangements to burn 
 the tobacco there whenever the evacuation of the city 
 should render that necessary to prevent it from falling 
 into the hands of the enemy. After the departure of 
 the Southern troops, the fire got beyond local control. 
 Mrs. Lee's house, in the center of the square on Frank- 
 lin Street between Seventh and Eighth, was at one time 
 in danger from the conflagration, a large church on the 
 opposite side having caught fire from flying sparks, and 
 many offers^Vere made by persons rushing to her room 
 to move her elsewhere,, which she resisted. In the midst 
 of the excitement a gentleman cried that the only way 
 to save the square in which she lived was to blow up 
 every other house, and all were so agitated that they 
 readily acquiesced in the remarkable suggestion, and 
 seemed much pleased at the ready ability of the person 
 who could devise at such a time a remedy; while the 
 poor property holder immediately began to calculate if 
 his dwelling would be the " every other house." Graphic 
 pictures have been painted in well-chosen phrase of the 
 exciting scenes of April 3d. On one side the retreat- 
 ing march of the Confederates, on the other the tri- 
 umphant advance of the Federals; while between the 
 two, great pillars of fire rose draped in the smoke of 
 a burning city. The tattered, brown, weather-beaten 
 army is marching away through woods and over roads 
 with straggling trains ; the faces of the soldiers are 
 turned from Richmond. The victorious legions, glis- 
 tening with steel, with clashing music and waving ban- 
 ners, are pouring into the city, marching through the 
 streets, and stacking arms in the Public Square, where 
 " stood the dumb walls of the Capitol of the Confeder- 
 acy." White clouds of dense smoke with the light of the 
 
382 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 fire woven in their folds, reaching from the island-dotted 
 river to the tall trees on the hill of the Public Square, 
 hung in the sky above the fated city. 
 
 At the same time Grant rode into Petersburg be- 
 tween rows of closed houses and deserted streets, cheered 
 here and there by a few groups of negroes, until he came 
 to a comfortable-looking brick house with a yard in 
 front, where he dismounted and with his staff took seats 
 on the piazza. There Mr. Lincoln, who had been for 
 some days at City Point, joined him. " I doubt," said 
 an eye witness, " whether Mr. Lincoln ever experienced 
 a happier moment in his life," as, seizing General Grant's 
 hand, he congratulated him on his success. The Union 
 commander then set out for Sutherland Station, above 
 Petersburg, where he and Meade passed the night of 
 the 3d. Mr. Lincoln afterward went to Richmond ; he 
 was curious to see the house Mr. Davis had lived in. 
 With a stride described as long and careless he walked 
 its streets, and asked *' Is it far to President Davis's 
 house ? " Upon reaching the house, Captain Graves, aid- 
 de-camp to General Weitzel, whose Twenty-fifth Corps 
 first entered the city, states that he took a seat in a chair, 
 remarking, "This must have been President Davis's 
 chair," and then jumped up and said in a boyish man- 
 ner, "Come, let us look at the house." Mr. Davis was 
 then in Danville, from which place on the 5th he pub- 
 lished a proclamation in which he tells his countrymen 
 not to despond, " but, relying on God, meet the foe with 
 fresh defiance and with unconquered and unconquerable 
 hearts." 
 
 Grant gave orders for a vigorous pursuit in two col- 
 umns south of Appomattox parallel to Lee's route north 
 of it — one under Ord up the Southside or Lynchburg 
 Railroad to Burkeville Junction, fifty-two miles from 
 Petersburg; the other under Sheridan, who had the cav- 
 alry corps and Second, Fifth, and Sixth Infantry Corps, 
 on a route between Ord and Lee. These movements 
 directly west, if properly made, would plant the Army 
 of the Potomac across the Danville road at Burkeville, 
 as well as at another point between there and Amelia 
 Court House, twenty miles northeast of Burkeville. In 
 that case Lee's withdrawal to Danville would be blocked, 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 383 
 
 his junction with Johnston foiled, and the use of the Dan- 
 ville Railroad taken away from him. Sheridan arrived 
 at Jetersville — on the Danville Railroad, seven miles 
 from Amelia Court House, where Lee was that morning — 
 on the afternoon of the 4th, with some eighteen thou- 
 sand troops of all arms, and intrenched. Meade did not 
 reach him until late in the afternoon of the 5th. The 
 last of Lee's force, Ewell, it will be remembered, did not 
 reach Amelia Court House until noon that day. Still, 
 if Lee's supplies had been there as ordered, he might 
 have moved agamst Sheridan at Jetersville very early on 
 the 5th with his whole force except Ewell, over twenty 
 thousand men, and defeated him and reached Burkeville, 
 thirteen miles farther, before Ord, who arrived there 
 late that night. 
 
 Had Lee once passed beyond Burkeville, the Dan- 
 ville road could have supplied his army, its trains trans- 
 ported them to Danville, and via Greensborough to 
 Raleigh and'Goldsborough, or wherever Johnston was, 
 or Johnston's force could have been rapidly brought to 
 the Army of Northern Virginia. " Not finding the sup- 
 plies ordered to be placed at Amelia Court House," says 
 Lee, *' nearly twenty-four hours were lost in endeavor- 
 ing to collect in the country subsistence for men and 
 horses. The delay was fatal, and could not be re- 
 trieved." There is some mystery about these supplies. 
 Lee ordered them to be sent there from Danville, for he 
 has so stated ; and General J. M. St. John, then commis- 
 sary general, states that on April i, 1865, there were five 
 hundred thousand rations of bread and one million five 
 hundred thousand rations of meat at Danville, and three 
 hundred thousand rations of bread and meat in Rich- 
 mond, and that he received no orders to send supplies 
 to Amelia Court House either from Richmond or Dan- 
 ville ; and Mr. Lewis Harvie, then the president of the 
 Richmond and Danville Railroad, has testified that no 
 orders were ever given to his officers to transport any 
 rations to Amelia Court House. It has been stated that 
 on that famous Sunday a train-load of supplies arrived 
 at Amelia Court House from Danville, but the officer in 
 charge was met there by an order to bring the train to 
 Richmond, because the cars were needed for the trans- 
 
384 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 portation of the personal property of the Confederate 
 authorities. Mr. Davis was in ignorance of any such 
 instruction, and would be the last man to place his per- 
 sonal wants or desires ahead of the necessities of the 
 soldiers, and the commissary general and the railroad 
 president also testify that they knew nothing of any 
 such orders. 
 
 Cut off from Danville, the Southern troops were di- 
 rected on Farmville, thirty-five miles west, and broke 
 camp on the night of the 5th. Meade had proposed to 
 attack Lee with the Second, Fifth, and Sixth Corps and 
 Sheridan's cavalry at Amelia Court House early on the 
 morning of the 6th, and did not know he had moved un- 
 til he had proceeded within a few miles of that village. 
 Longstreet, in the advance, reached Rice Station, on the 
 Lynchburg Railroad, on the morning of the 6th, and 
 formed line of battle; he was followed by the commands 
 of R. H. Anderson, Ewell, and Gordon, and W. H. F. 
 Lee's cavalry division in the order named. The re- 
 mainder of the cavalry, under Rosser, had been passed 
 to the front to protect the High Bridge between Rice 
 Station and Farmville, and were just in time, as General 
 Ord had sent out two regiments of infantry and his 
 headquarters cavalry to burn that bridge and the one 
 above at Farmville. 
 
 General Theodore Read, of Ord's staff, conducted 
 the party. A fight ensued, in which General Read and 
 Colonel Washburn, commanding the infantry, and all 
 the cavalry officers were killed on the Federal side, and 
 General Dearing, commanding a brigade of Rosser's 
 division; Colonel Boston, the Fifth Virginia Cavalry; 
 and Major Thompson, commanding Rosser's horse artil- 
 lery, were killed on the Confederate side. The Federal 
 force surrendered. The three Southern officers killed 
 were exceptionally fine soldiers, and their loss was 
 greatly deplored. 
 
 Anderson's march was much interrupted by the at- 
 tack of the Federal cavalry on his flank. Halting to 
 repel them and save the trains, a gap was made between 
 the head of his column and the rear of Longstreet's, into 
 which, after he had crossed Sailor's Creek — a small trib- 
 utary flowing north into the Appomattox — the large 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 385 
 
 force of Union cavalry was thrust, and mounted and 
 dismounted cavalry stopped him and compelled him to 
 deploy in their front. Ewell followed Anderson across 
 Sailor's Creek, but Gordon, guarding an immense wagon 
 train, turned to his right down the creek before crossing 
 it on a road running to High Bridge. The Sixth Corps 
 getting up on Ewell's rear, made him face his two divi- 
 sions about — Kershaw on the right of the road and Custis 
 Lee on the left, the navy battalion in rear of his right. 
 Anderson and Ewell were facing in opposite directions, 
 and neither had any artillery. Enveloped on both flanks 
 and front in the combat which followed, Ewell was over- 
 whelmed, not more than three hundred men of his three 
 thousand escaping. Anderson was simultaneously at- 
 tacked on front and flank, and also defeated. Both 
 commands lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners nearly 
 six thousand men. Among the prisoners were Generals 
 Corse and Hunton, of Pickett's division, and Generals 
 Ewell, Custis Lee, Kershaw, and Dubose, of Ewell's. 
 
 Humphreys's Second Corps in the meantime closely 
 followed Gordon, and had a running contest with his 
 rear for some miles, capturing thirteen flags, four guns, 
 and some seventeen hundred prisoners. Gordon reached 
 High Bridge that night, but lost a large part of a wagon 
 train which had given the Confederates much trouble on 
 the whole march and greatly delayed their progress, be- 
 cause drawn by weak animals over roads soft and muddy 
 from the recent rains. Longstreet, after waiting in vain 
 for the other commands to join him at Rice Station, 
 under instructions marched with the divisions of Heth, 
 Wilcox, and Field for Farmville, and that night crossed 
 to the north side of the Appomattox. He had crossed 
 that river twice already — once at Petersburg and once 
 at Goode's Bridge. Fitz Lee's cavalry corps followed 
 him, crossing the river above Farmville by a deep ford, 
 leaving a force to burn the bridge. Gordon, to whose 
 command Bushrod Johnson's division had been assigned, 
 crossed at High Bridge, below Farmville, and so did 
 Mahone with his fine division. 
 
 At Farmville the Confederates feasted. It was the 
 first occasion since leaving Richmond that rations had 
 been issued, and their outdoor exercise had given them 
 
386 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 an appetite. Previous to this, organized bodies had 
 been marched up to the corn houses en route^ and each 
 soldier given a dozen ears of corn, with a suggestion 
 that he parch the grains on getting into camp. An en- 
 enthusiastic young Irishman from Belturbet, County of 
 Cavan, named Llewellyn Saunderson, reached the coun- 
 try in one of the last vessels running the blockade, and, 
 being a Southern sympathizer, reported to the War De- 
 partment, asking to be commissioned and sent to the 
 field. It was done, and he was ordered to report to 
 General Fitz Lee. His pockets were full of gold, and 
 he quickly purchased a fine horse, the gray uniform of 
 the staff officer, and joined the staff but a short time 
 before the final attack. The rear guard of cavalry from 
 Petersburg to Appomattox was obliged to pass over 
 ground gleaned by the preceding infantry and artillery. 
 Occasionally a trooper would secure a can of butter- 
 milk, but corn, divided between horses and troopers, 
 was the "solid comfort." Saunderson was bold, bright, 
 and witty of course, behaving admirably under fire, and 
 cheerfully under the treatment he received. He was 
 paroled at Appomattox Court House, and returned to 
 the " Green Isle " loaded with v/ar experience. When 
 asked in Richmond what he would say to his country- 
 men about the Confederates, he replied, "Oh, I never 
 saw men fight better, but they don't ate enough." 
 
 The once great Army of Northern Virginia was now 
 composed of two small corps of infantry and the cav- 
 alry corps, and resumed the march toward Lynchburg 
 on the old stage road, but after going four miles stopped ; 
 and was formed into line of battle in a well-chosen posi- 
 tion to give the trains time to get ahead. It was at- 
 tacked by two divisions of Humphreys's Second Corps, 
 which had been long hanging on its rear, but repulsed 
 them, Mahone handling Miles very roughly. Humphreys 
 lost five hundred and seventy-one men killed, wounded, 
 and missing. Preceding this attack, Crook's cavalry di- 
 vision crossed the river above Farmville, and was im- 
 mediately charged with great success by the Southern 
 cavalry and driven back. The Federal General Gregg 
 and a large number of prisoners were taken. General 
 Lee was talking to the commander of his cavalry when 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 387 
 
 Crook appeared, saw the combat, and expressed gver*: 
 pleasure at the result. 
 
 Had Lee not stopped to fight he could have reached 
 Appomattox Station on the afternoon of the 8th, ob- 
 tained rations, and moved that evening to Lynchburg. 
 The delay allowed Sheridan — with two divisions of cav- 
 alry, followed by Ord's infantry and Fifth Corps, march- 
 ing by Prince Edward Court House — to reach Appomat- 
 tox Station on the evening of the 8th, where he captured 
 trains with Lee's supplies and obstructed his march. 
 Ord's infantry did not arrive in front of Appomattox 
 Court House until 10 a.m. on the 9th. Having demon- 
 strated that what was left of his proud army would rush 
 to battle as of old, Lee on the night of the 7th con- 
 tinued his retreat — Gordon in advance, next Longstreet, 
 then the cavalry — and on the evening of the 8th halted 
 in the vicinity of Appomattox Court House. The Sec- 
 ond and Sixth Corps resumed the direct pursuit at half- 
 past five on the morning of the 8th, and that night went 
 into camp three miles in the rear of Longstreet. The 
 Confederate cavalry had marched from the rear to the 
 front during the night, with orders to resume the march 
 at one o'clock, on the morning of the 9th. " Fitz Lee, 
 with the cavalry supported by Gordon," says General 
 Lee, " was ordered to drive the enemy from his front, 
 wheel to the left, and cover the passage of the trains, 
 while Longstreet should close up and hold the position. 
 During the night there were indications of a large force 
 massing on our left and front. Fitz Lee was directed to 
 ascertain its strength, and to suspend his advance until 
 daylight if necessary." It was General Lee's intention 
 to move by Campbell Court House through Pittsylvania 
 County toward Danville. Two battalions of artillery 
 and the ammunition wagons were directed to accom- 
 pany the army, the rest of the artillery and wagons to 
 move toward Lynchburg; but the plan could not be exe- 
 cuted. Sheridan had been joined by Crook, and had 
 thrown the immense cavalry corps directly across his 
 path, between Appomattox Station and the Court House, 
 the two places being five miles apart; and Ord, with 
 the Army of the James and the Fifth Corps, was rapidly 
 marching to his support, joining him at 9 or 10 A. M. on 
 
388 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 the 9th. The greater part of Gibbon's Twenty-fourth 
 Corps, a portion of Weitzel's Twenty-fifth Corps, the 
 Fifth Corps, and four divisions of cavalry, including 
 Mackenzie, formed a living rampart of over forty thou- 
 sand troops* to the advance of Gordon and Fitz Lee's 
 five thousand. Directly behind Lee were the Second 
 and Sixth Corps, over twenty-five thousand troops. f 
 
 Gracefully General Lee yielded to the inevitable. The 
 splendid army, with w^hose courage and heroism a world 
 was familiar, was reduced to a fragment of brave men, 
 many of whom, from exposure and want of food, could 
 not iift a musket to the shoulder. The end which Lee 
 feared and Grant expected had come. For some days 
 the latter had been thinking how best he could intro- 
 duce the subject of surrender to Lee, to relieve him 
 from initiating an embarrassing proposition. I'he Union 
 commander arrived at Farmville a little before noon on 
 April 7th, establishing headquarters at the village hotel. 
 He told Ord, Gibbon, and Wright, who had called at the 
 hotel, that he was thinking of sending a communication 
 to General Lee '' to pave the way to the stopping of fur- 
 ther bloodshed"; he had heard, too, that Ewell, then a 
 prisoner, had said that " it was the duty of the authori- 
 ties to negotiate for peace now, and that for every man 
 killed somebody would be responsible, and it would be 
 little better than murder." Influenced by such reflec- 
 tions, he wrote the following communication : 
 
 April 7, 1865. 
 General : The result of the last week must convince you of 
 the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of 
 Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard 
 it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further 
 effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion 
 
 * Ord left Petersburg with twenty thousand troops all arms ; Fifth 
 Corps, fifteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-three. (Report of 
 March 31, 1865.) Sheridan s cavahy, thirteen thousand eight hundred 
 and ten, to which add one thousand for the Fifth Corps artillery, 
 makes fifty thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. 
 
 t Second Corps report, March 31, 1865: Twenty-one thousand one 
 hundred and sixty-seven infantry, artillery, and seventy guns. Sixth : 
 Eighteen thousand three hundred and eighty-four artillery and infantry 
 and fifty-four guns= thirty-nine thousand five hundred and fifty-one, 
 and one hundred and twenty-four guns. 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 
 
 389 
 
 of the Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern 
 Virginia. U. S. Grant, Lieutenant General. 
 
 General R. E. Lee, 
 
 General Seth Williams, his adjutant general, a for- 
 mer intimate friend of General Lee's and his adjutant 
 when he was superintendent at West Point, carried this 
 communication across the river to Humphreys, who sent 
 it at once through his lines to Lee, who was still in the 
 position from which he had repulsed Humphreys's attack 
 that day. Humphreys received Grant's note at 8.30 p. m., 
 and Grant, Lee's reply after midnight, which read : 
 
 April 7, 1865. 
 General : I have received your note of this date. Though 
 not entertaining the opinion you express on the hopelessness oi' 
 further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and 
 therefore, before consirlering your proposition, ask the terms you 
 will offer on condition of its surrender. 
 
 R. E. Lee, General. 
 Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant. 
 
 The next morning a reply was given to General 
 Williams, who again went to Humphreys front to have 
 it transmitted to Lee's. Williams overtook Humphreys 
 on the march ; his letter was sent at once through the 
 cavalry rear guard, close to General Humphreys's front, 
 to General Lee, whose reply was not received until dusk 
 by Humphreys, and did not reach General Grant until 
 after midnight, at a large, white farmhouse at Curds- 
 ville, ten miles in his rear. The two notes of that day 
 (8th) are as follows : 
 
 April d,, 1865. 
 
 General : Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of the 
 same date, asking the condition on which I will accept the sur- 
 render of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In 
 reply, I would say that, peace being my great desire, there is but 
 one condition that I would insist upon — namely, that the men and 
 officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again 
 against the Government of the United States until properly ex- 
 changed. I will meet you, or will designate officers to meet any 
 officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agree- 
 able to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon 
 which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be 
 received. U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant General. 
 
 General R. E. Lee. 
 26 
 
390 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 April 8, 1868. ' 
 General : I received at a late hour your note of to-day. In 
 mine of yesterday I did not intend to propose the surrender of 
 the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your 
 proposition. To' be franl<, I do not think the emergency has 
 arisen to call for the surrender of this army, but as the restora- 
 tion of peace should be the sole object of all, I desire to know 
 whether your proposal would lead to that end. I can not, there- 
 fore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern 
 Virginia, but as far as your proposal may affect the Confederate 
 States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of 
 peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 a.m. to-morrow on 
 the old stage road to Richmond, between the picket lines of the 
 two armies. R. E. Lee, General. 
 
 Lieutenant-General U. S. GRANT. 
 
 The Federal flag of truce accompanying Williams 
 when he bore Grant's first communication appeared in 
 front of General Sorrel's Georgia brigade, formerly 
 Wright's, of Mahone's division, about 9 p. m. Sorrel 
 had been dangerously wounded at Petersburg, and the 
 brigade was commanded by Colonel G. E. Tayloe. This 
 officer sent Colonel Herman H. Perry, his adjutant 
 general, to meet the flag, who advanced some distance 
 from his lines, and met a very handsomely dressed offi- 
 cer, who introduced himself as General Seth Williams, 
 of General Grant's staff. Perry's worn Confederate 
 uniform and slouch hat did not compare favorably by 
 moonlight with the magnificence of Williams's, but, be- 
 ing six feet high and a fine-looking fellow, he drew 
 himself up proudly, as if perfectly satisfied with his 
 personal exterior. 
 
 " After I had introduced myself," says Perry, " he 
 felt in his side pocket for documents, as I thought, but 
 the document was a very nice-looking silver flask, as 
 well as I could distinguish. He remarked that he 
 hoped I wouid not think it was unsoldierly if he offered 
 me some very fine brandy. I will own up now that I 
 wanted that drink awfully. Worn down, hungry, and 
 dispirited, it would have been a gracious godsend if some 
 old Confederate and I could have emptied that flask 
 between us in that dreadful hour of misfortune. But I 
 raised myself about an inch higher, if possible, bowed, 
 and refused politely, trying to produce the ridiculous 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 
 
 391 
 
 appearance of having feasted on champagne and pound- 
 cake not ten minutes before, and I had not the sHghtest 
 use for as plebeian a drink as 'fine brandy.' 
 
 '' He was a true gentleman, begged pardon, and 
 placed the flask in his pocket agam without touching 
 the contents in my presence. If he had taken a drink, 
 and my Confederate olfactories had obtained a whiff of 
 the odor of it, it is possible that I should have 'caved.' 
 The truth is, I had not eaten two ounces in two days, 
 and I had my coat tail then full of corn, waiting to parch 
 it as soon as an opportunity might present itself. I did 
 not leave it behind me, because I had nobody I could 
 trust it with. As an excuse which I felt I ought to make 
 for refusing his proffered courtesy, I rather haughtily 
 said that I had been sent forward only to receive any 
 communication that was offered, and could not properly 
 accept or offer any courtesies. In fact, if I had offered 
 what I could, it would have taken my corn." Grant's 
 note to Lee being then transferred from Williams to 
 Perry, the Confederate colonel and Federal general 
 bowed profoundly to each other and separated. 
 
 On the mornmg of the 9th General Grant dispatched 
 another note to General Lee as follows : 
 
 April g, 1865. 
 
 General : Your note of yesterday is received. I have no 
 authority to treat on the subject of peace ; the meeting proposed 
 for 10 A. M. to-day could lead to no good. I will state, however. 
 General, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself, and the 
 w^hole North entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which 
 peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying 
 down their arms they will hnsten that most desirable event, save 
 thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property 
 not yet destroyed. Seriously hoping that all our difficulties may 
 be settled without the loss ot\inother life, I subscribe myself, etc., 
 U. S. Grant, Lieiiie7iant General. 
 
 General R. E. Lee. 
 
 Humphreys sent it forward by Colonel Whittier, his 
 adjutant general, who met Colonel Marshall, of Lee's 
 staff, by whom he was conducted to the general. To 
 this note Lee replied : 
 
 April g^ 1865. 
 General : I received your note of this morning on the picket 
 line whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what 
 terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with refer- 
 
392 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 ence to the surrender of the army. I now ask an interview in ac- 
 cordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for 
 that purpose. R. E. Lee, General. 
 
 Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant. 
 
 Grant, who received this note eight or nine miles 
 from Appomattox, at once answered it. 
 
 April g^ 1865. 
 
 General R. E. Lee, commanding C. S. A.: Your note of 
 this dale is but this moment (i 1.50 A. M.) received. In consequence 
 of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg road 
 to the Farmvilleand Lynchburg road, I am, at this writing, about 
 four miles west of Walker's Church, and will push forward to the 
 front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice sent to me on this 
 road where you wish the interview to take place will meet me. 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. Grant, Lieutenant Ge?ieral. 
 
 The reply was sent direct to General Lee by Colo- 
 nel Babcock, of his staff. Lee was obliged to confront 
 a painful issue. His duty had been performed, but so 
 earnest was he in trying to extricate his troops, and 
 carry them South, that he had failed to recognize the 
 hopelessness of further resistance, or the emergency 
 that called for the surrender of his army. At the sug- 
 gestion of some of his higher officers. General Pendle- 
 ton, the commander of his reserve artillery, went to Lee 
 on the 7th to say that their united judgment agreed 
 that It was wrong to have more men on either side 
 killed, and that they did not wish that he should bear 
 the entire trial of reaching that conclusion. But Lee 
 replied that he had too many brave men to think of 
 laying down his arms, and that they still fought with 
 great spirit; that if he should first intimate to Grant 
 that he would listen to terms, an unconditional surren- 
 der might be demanded, and ''sooner than that I am 
 resolved to die." Lee had not altogether abandoned 
 the purpose to march South, even after the notes of the 
 7th and 8th had been exchanged. Longstreet, Gordon, 
 and Fitz Lee, commanding his corps, were summoned 
 to his headquarters bivouac fires on the night of the 
 8th, near Appomattox Court House. The situation was 
 explained freely, and the correspondence with Grant 
 alluded to. It was decided that Gordon and Fitz Lee 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 3^3 
 
 should attack Sheridan's cavalry at daylight on the 9th 
 and open the way ; but in case the cavalry was re- 
 enforced by heavy bodies of infantry, the commanding 
 general must be at once notified, as surrender was inevi- 
 table. The attack was made at sunrise, and the Fed- 
 eral cavalry driven back with the loss of two guns and 
 a number of prisoners; the arrival at this time of two 
 corps of Federal infantry necessitated the retirement 
 of the Southern lines. General Ord states that he was 
 "barely in time, for, in spite of General Sheridan's at- 
 tempts, the cavalry was falling back in confusion." A 
 white flag went out from the Southern ranks, the firing 
 ceased; the war in Virginia was over. Colonel Babcock, 
 the bearer of General Grant's last note, found General 
 Lee near Appomattox Court House, lying under an apple 
 tree upon a blanket spread on some rails, from which 
 circumstance the widespread report originated that the 
 surrender took place under an apple tree. 
 
 General Lee, Colonel Marshall, of his staff, Colonel 
 Babcock, of General Grant's, and a mounted orderly rode 
 to the village, and found Mr. Wilmer McLean, a resident, 
 who, upon being told that General Lee wanted the use 
 of a room in some house, conducted the party to his 
 dwelling, a comfortable two-story brick, with a porch in 
 front running the length of the house. General Lee 
 was ushered into the room on the left of the hall as you 
 enter, and about one o'clock was joined by General 
 Grant, his staff, and Generals Sheridan and Ord. Grant 
 sat at a marble-topped table in the center of the room, 
 Lee at a small oval table near the front window. "The 
 contrast between the commanders," said one who was 
 present, "was striking." Grant, not yet forty-three 
 years old, five feet eight inches tall, shoulders slightly 
 stooped, hair and beard nut brown, wearing a dark-blue 
 flannel blouse unbuttoned, showing vest beneath; ordi- 
 nary top boots, trousers inside ; dark-yellow thread 
 gloves; without spurs or sword, and no marks of rank 
 except a general's shoulder straps. Lee, fifty-eight years 
 old, six feet tall, hair and beard silver gray ; a handsome 
 uniform of Confederate gray buttoned to the throat, 
 with three stars on each side of the turned-down collar, 
 fine top boots with handsome spurs, elegant gauntlets, 
 
394 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 and at his side a splendid sword.* With a magnificent 
 physique, not a pound of superfluous flesh, ruddy cheeks 
 bronzed by exposure, grave and dignified, he was the 
 focus for all eyes. *' His demeanor was that of a thor- 
 oughly possessed gentleman who had a disagreeable 
 duty to perform, but was determined to get through 
 it as well and as soon as he could " without the exhibi- 
 tion of temper or mortification. Generals Lee and 
 Grant had met once, eighteen years before, when both 
 were fighting for the same cause in Mexico — one an 
 engineer officer on the staff of Scott, the commanding 
 general, the other a subaltern of infantry in Garland's 
 brigade. After a pleasant reference to that event, Lee 
 promptly drew attention to the business before them, 
 the terms of surrender were arranged, and at General 
 Lee's request reduced to writing, as follows: 
 
 Appomattox Court House, Va., April g, 1865. 
 
 General : In accordance with the substance of my letter to 
 you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the 
 Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit : Rolls 
 of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to 
 be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be re- 
 tained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The 
 officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against 
 the Government of the United States until properly exchanged ; 
 and each company and regimental commander sign a like parole 
 for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public 
 property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers 
 appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side- 
 arms of the officers nor the private horses or baggage. This 
 done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, 
 not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as he 
 observes his parole, and the laws in force where he may reside. 
 U. S. Grant, Lieutenant Ge7ieral. 
 
 General R. E. Lee. 
 
 " Unless you have some suggestion to make, I will 
 
 * The handle of this sword is white, with a lion's head at the top 
 and wrapped with gilt wire (not studded with jewels, as has been pub- 
 lished), with gilt guard, the scabbard of bhie steel with gilt trimmings. 
 Where the rings are attached, on one side of the blade, are the words, 
 "General Robert E. Lee, from a Marylander, 1863"; on the other, 
 " Aide toi et Dieu t'aidera." This sword is in the possession of Gen- 
 eral G. W. C. Lee, son of General Lee, and the President of Washing- 
 ton and Lee University at Lexington, Va. 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 
 
 395 
 
 have a copy of the letter made in ink and sign it," said 
 Grant; and it gave Lee the opportunity to tell him that 
 the cavalrymen and many of the artillerymen owned 
 their own horses, and he wished to know whether these 
 men would be permitted to retain their horses. The 
 terms gave to the officers only that privilege, and so 
 Grant stated ; but seeing that Lee's ia.ce showed plainly 
 that he would like that concession made, the former 
 said feelingly that he supposed that most of the men in 
 ranks were small farmers, that their horses would be 
 useful in puttmg in a crop to carry themselves and fami- 
 lies through the next winter, and that he would give in- 
 structions " to let all men who claim to own a horse or 
 mule take the animals home with them to work their 
 little farms." The Union commander was in touch with 
 his President. General Weitzel, who had entered Rich- 
 mond with his Twenty-fifth Corps and received its for- 
 mal capitulation, asked Mr. Lincoln what he "should do 
 in regard to the conquered people ?" The latter is re- 
 ported to have replied that he did not wish to give any 
 orders on that subject, but added, " If I were in your 
 place I'd let 'em up easy, I'd let 'em up easy.'' It was 
 the fear of his men losing their horses in case of sur- 
 render that made the Confederate cavalry commander 
 ask permission at the council the night before to extri- 
 cate his cavalry in case of surrender, provided it was 
 done before the flag of truce changed the status. To 
 Grant's written propositions for the surrender of the 
 Army of Northern Virginia, General Lee replied : 
 
 Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, AprtV g, 1865, 
 General: I received your letter of this date, containing the 
 terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as pro- 
 posed by you. As they are substantially the same as those ex- 
 pressed in your letter of the 8th instant, they are accepted. I 
 will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipula- 
 tion into effect. R. E. Lee, Getieral. 
 Lieutenant-General U. S. GRANT. 
 
 The formalities were concluded without dramatic 
 accessories, and then Lee's thoughts turned to his hun- 
 gry veterans and to his prisoners. " I have a thousand 
 or more of your men and officers, w^hom we have re- 
 quired to march along with us for several days," said 
 
396 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Lee to Grant. " I shall be glad to send them to your 
 lines as soon as it can be arranged, for I have no pro- 
 visions for them. My own men have been living for the 
 last few days principally upon parched corn, and we are 
 badly in need of both rations and forage." The rations 
 sent from Lynchburg to the Southerners were captured. 
 When Grant suggested that he should send Lee twenty- 
 five thousand rations, the latter told him it would be 
 ample, and assured him it would be a great relief. The 
 Confederate commander then left, and rode away to 
 break the sad news to the brave troops he had so long 
 commanded. 
 
 His presence in their midst was an exhibition of the 
 devotion of soldier to commander. The troops crowded 
 around him, eagerly desiring to shake his hand. They 
 had seen him when his eye calmly surveyed miles of 
 fierce, raging conflict ; had closely observed him when, 
 tranquil, composed, undisturbed, he had heard the wild 
 shout of victory rend the air ; now they saw their be- 
 loved chieftain a prisoner of war, and sympathy, bound- 
 less admiration, and love for him filled their brave hearts. 
 They pressed up to him, anxious to touch his person 
 or even his horse, and copious tears washed from strong 
 men's cheeks the stains of powder. Slowly and painfully 
 he turned to his soldiers, and, with voice quivering with 
 emotion, said : " Men, we have fought through the war 
 together ; I have done my best for you ; my heart is too 
 full to say more." It was a simple but most affecting 
 scene. C)n the next day a formal leave of his army was 
 taken by General Lee. 
 
 Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, April 10, 1865. 
 After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed 
 courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been 
 compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I 
 need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who 
 have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this 
 result from no distrust of them ; but feeling that valor and devo- 
 tion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss 
 that would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have 
 determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past 
 services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms 
 of agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and re- 
 main there until exchanged. You will take with you the satis= 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 3^7 
 
 faction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully 
 performed ; and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend 
 to you his blessing and protection. With an unceasing admira- 
 tion of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grate- 
 ful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of my- 
 self, I bid you an affectionate farewell. R. E. Lee, General. 
 
 And then in silence, with lifted hat, he rode through 
 a weeping army to his home in Richmond. He was not 
 present at the final act of surrender ; the details were pre- 
 pared by three officers on each side, and were as follows : 
 
 Apfomattox Court House, Va., April 10, 1865. 
 Agreeme7tt entered into this day in regard to the surrender 
 of the Army of Northern Virginia to the United States 
 authorities : 
 
 1. The troops shall march by brigades and detachments to a 
 designated point ; stack their arms, deposit their flags, sabers, 
 pistols, etc., and thence march to their homes, under charge of 
 their officers, superintended by their respectiv^e division and corps 
 commanders, officers retaining their side arms and the authorized 
 number of private horses. 
 
 2. All public horses, and public property of all kinds, to be 
 turned over to staff officers to be designated by the United States 
 authorities. 
 
 3. Such transportation as may be agreed upon as necessary 
 for the transportation of the private baggage of officers will be 
 allowed to accompany the officers, to be turned over, at the end 
 of the trip, to the nearest United States quartermaster, receipts 
 being taken for the same. 
 
 4. Couriers and mounted men of the artillery and cavalry, 
 whose horses are their own private property, will be allowed to 
 retain them. 
 
 5. The surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia shall be 
 construed to include all the forces operating with that army on 
 the 8th instant, the date of the commencement of the negotiations 
 for surrender, except such bodies of cavalry as actually made 
 their escape previous to the surrender, and except, also, such 
 pieces of artillery as were more than twenty miles from Appomat- 
 tox Court House at the time of the surrender on the 9th instant. 
 
 (Signed) John Gibbon, Major General Volunteers. 
 
 Charles Griffin, 
 
 Brevet Major General U. S. Volunteers. 
 W. Merritt, Brevet Major Getter al. 
 J. Longstreet, Lieutenant General. 
 J. B. Gordon, Major General. 
 W. N. Pendleton, 
 
 Brigadier General a7id Chief of Artillery. 
 
398 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 General Grant's behavior at Appomattox was marked 
 by a desire to spare the feelings of his great opponent. 
 There was no theatrical display ; his troops were not 
 paraded with bands playing and banners flying, before 
 whose lines the Confederates must march and stack 
 arms. He did not demand Lee's sword, as is customary, 
 but actually apologized to him for not having his own, 
 saying it had been left behind in the wagon ; promptly 
 stopped salutes from being fired to mark the event, and 
 the terms granted were liberal and generous. " No man 
 could have behaved better than General Grant did under 
 the circumstances," said Lee to a friend in Richmond. 
 " He did not touch my sword; the usual custom is for 
 the sword to be received when tendered, and then 
 handed back, but he did not touch mine." Neither did 
 the Union chief enter the Southern lines to show him- 
 self or to parade his victory, or go to Richmond or 
 Petersburg to exult over a fallen people, but mounted 
 his horse and with his staff started for Washington. 
 Washington, at Yorktown, was not as considerate and 
 thoughtful of the feelings of Cornwallis or his men. 
 
 Charges were now withdrawn from the guns, flags 
 furled, and the Army of the Potomac and the Army of 
 Northern Virginia turned their backs upon each other 
 for the first time in four long, bloody years. The South- 
 ern soldiers, wrapped in faded, tattered uniforms, shoe- 
 less and weather-beaten, but proud as when they first 
 rushed to battle, returned to desolate fields, homes in 
 some cases in ashes, blight, blast, and want on every 
 side. A few days afterward General Lee rode into 
 Richmond, accompanied by his staff, and the cheering 
 crowds which quickly gathered told in thunder tones 
 that a paroled prisoner of war* was still loved by his 
 people. It was a demonstration in which men forgot 
 their own sorrow and gave way to the glory and grati- 
 
 * The following parole was signed by General Lee and his staff: 
 We, the undersigned, prisoners of war belonging to the Army of 
 Northern Virginia, having been this day surrendered by General R. 
 E. Lee, commanding said army, to Lieutenant-General Grant, com- 
 manding the armies of the United States, do hereby give our solemn 
 parole of honor that we will not hereafter serve the armies of the Con- 
 federate States, or in any military capacity whatever, against the United 
 
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 399 
 
 tude of the past. They adored him most, not in the 
 glare of his brilliant victories, but in the hour of his 
 deepest humiliation. 
 
 States of America, or render aid lo the enemies of the latter, until 
 properly exchanged in such manner as shall be mutually approved by 
 the relative authorities : 
 
 R. E. Lee, General. 
 W H. Taylor, 
 
 Lieutenant Colonel and Acting Adjutant General. 
 Charles S. Venable, 
 
 lieutenant Colonel a7id Acting Adjutant General. 
 Charles Marshall, 
 
 Lieutenant Colonel and Acting Adjutant General. 
 H. E. Peyton, Lieutenant Colonel and Inspector General. 
 Giles ^^ooyly.. Major and A. A. Surgeon Ce^tej-al. 
 H. S. Young, Acting Adjutant General. 
 Done at Appomattox Court House, Va., 
 
 the ninth (9th) day of April, 1865. 
 The parole was countersigned as follows : 
 
 The above-named officers will not be disturbed by United States 
 aulhorilies as long as they observe their parole and the laws in force 
 where they may reside. George H. Sharpe, 
 
 General and Assistant Provost Marshal. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 RETURN TO RICHMOND. PRESIDENT OF WASHINGTON 
 
 COLLEGE. DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 Personally it was a great relief to General Lee to 
 be transferred to domestic life and the company of his 
 wife and children. For forty years, including his cadet- 
 ship, he had been a soldier whose movements and duties 
 were directed by others; now he was independent of all 
 war departments and military orders. He was a private 
 citizen for the first time during his manhood, and would 
 not be disturbed as long as he observed his parole and 
 the laws in force wherever he might reside. He had 
 denounced the assassination of Mr. Lincoln as a crime 
 previously unknown to the country, and one that must 
 be deprecated by every American ; and when President 
 Johnson proclaimed his policy of May 29th, in the resto- 
 ration of peace, he applied on June 13th to be embraced 
 within its provisions, and tendered his allegiance to 
 the only government in existence, under whose flag he 
 must resume the duties of citizenship. He cited to his 
 friends the example of Washington, who fought against 
 the French in the service of the King of Great Britain, 
 and then with the French against the English, under the 
 orders of the Continental Congress. " If you intend to 
 reside in this country," he wrote a friend in New Orleans, 
 "and wish to do your part in the restoration of your 
 State and in the Government of the country, which I 
 think is the duty of every citizen to do, I know of no 
 objection to your taking the amnesty oath." In the 
 same month he was indicted by the United States grand 
 jury, with Mr. Davis and others, for treason. With a 
 clear conscience, he made up his mind, he said, " to let 
 
 (400) 
 
RETURN TO RICHMOND. 401 
 
 the authorities take their course. I have no wish to 
 avoid any trial the Government may order ; I hope 
 others may be unmolested." 
 
 Reverdy Johnson, the distinguished Maryland law- 
 yer, who did not agree with General Lee's political views, 
 hearing that he was to be prosecuted in court for the 
 alleged crime of treason, placed the fifty years of his 
 great study and profound experience at his command, 
 because, as he states, " in saving him I would be saving 
 the honor of my country," General Lee wrote General 
 Grant to withdraw his application for amnesty under the 
 President's proclamation, if steps were to be taken for 
 his prosecution, as he was willing to stand the test. 
 Grant saw the President, and protested against a pro- 
 cedure against General Lee, informing him that he con- 
 sidered his honor and the honor of the nation pledged 
 to him, and no proceedings were taken. 
 
 General Lee's enjoyment of the society of his family 
 and friends in Richmond was much broken into by vis- 
 itors from all sections of the country. Many persons 
 were attracted to the city because it had been the 
 Southern capital, whose lines had for so long kept 
 great hosts from entering her gates, and a visit to or a 
 sight of General Lee was always on their programme. 
 Numbers of people stood on the street and gazed at 
 the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of its occupant. 
 Not desiring to make a public exhibition of himself, the 
 paroled soldier was a prisoner in his own house; and 
 his condition produced the desire to move to more 
 secluded quarters. Mrs. Lee's health, too, would be 
 benefited by going out of town during the coming sum- 
 mer months. The house he lived in belonged to Mr. 
 John Stewart, of Brook Hill, a fine specimen of the kind- 
 hearted, benevolent Scotch gentleman. He had rented 
 it to General Lee's son, General G. W. C. Lee, some time 
 before the war closed. 
 
 The general felt that he should make post-war terms 
 with his excellent landlord ; but, before he could take 
 any steps, Mrs. Lee received a note from Mr. Stewart 
 which read: "I am not presuming on your good opin- 
 ion when I feel that you will believe me — first, that you 
 and yours are heartily welcome to the house as long as 
 
402 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 your convenience leads you to stay in Richmond; and, 
 next, that you owe me nothing, but, if you insist on pay, 
 that the payment -must be in Confederate currency, for 
 which alone it was rented to your son. You do not 
 know how much gratification it is, and it will afford me 
 and my whole family, during the remainder of our lives, 
 to reflect that we have been brought into contact and to 
 know and to appreciate you and all that are dear to you." 
 
 In looking beyond Richmond for quarters, General 
 Lee was much in favor of purchasing a farm in Orange 
 County, in the beautiful section near the railroad cross- 
 ing of the Rapidan, with which he was so familiar ; 
 but about that time Mrs. Elizabeth Randolph Cocke, of 
 Cumberland County, Virginia, granddaughter of Edmund 
 Randolph, offered him the use of a dwelling house situ- 
 ated on a portion of her estate in Powhatan County. 
 As it was known that he had been dispossessed of his old 
 home at Arlington, numerous offers of money, houses, 
 and lands almost daily reached him, as well as requests 
 to become the president of business associations and 
 chartered corporations. Mrs. Cocke's kind, cordial man- 
 ner, for which she was proverbial, and the retired situ- 
 ation of the dwelling offered, induced him to put all 
 others aside and accept her hospitable and thoughtful 
 invitation. The spring and early summer of 1865 were 
 spent by the great soldier in the full fruition of a well- 
 earned and long-needed repose. 
 
 In the meantime the trustees of Washington College, 
 at Lexington, Va., determined to reorganize the institu- 
 tion, pledging their personal credit to provide means to 
 repair the ravages of war. A member of the board had 
 accidentally heard that a daughter of General Lee had 
 said she thought her father would like to be connected 
 with an institution of learning, and this casual remark 
 first directed the attention of the trustees to General 
 Lee in connection with the presidency of their college ; 
 but, as one of them said, it was unmingled impudence to 
 tender to General Lee the head of an institution which 
 had nothing then, and must start at the bottom round 
 of the collegiate educational ladder. The temerarious 
 trustees were equal to the emergency, and boldly grap- 
 pled with the subject, doubtless encouraged and inspired 
 
RETURN TO RICHMOND. 
 
 403 
 
 by the strong advice of ex-Governor John Letcher, 
 who suggested that if the college had nothing then, its 
 condition would instantaneously change at the moment 
 General Lee accepted the presidency. The name of 
 Robert E. Lee was duly proposed for the office, and the 
 letter informing him of his unanimous election, signed 
 by the rector, Judge John W. Brockenbrough, and the 
 committee, was consigned to the rector, to be delivered 
 in person rather than by mail, because its contents could 
 be strengthened by the well-known persuasive powers 
 of the learned judge. At this point the trustees were 
 confronted with a fresh and apparently insurmountable 
 obstruction. Neither the rector nor any one of them, 
 owing to the disasters of cruel war, had raiment of suf- 
 ficient texture, shape, and freshness to wear in making 
 a trip from home, more especially when it comprised a 
 personal interview with the great soldier upon which 
 so much depended. After laborious search, the best- 
 dressed citizen of that section smce the war was found, 
 whose clothes fortunately came near enough to fitting 
 the rector to encourage him to make his appearance in 
 them as ambassador to the county of Powhatan, where 
 the general was then residing. The sigh of relief that 
 this obstacle had been so successfully overcome was 
 scarcely audible before the trustees encountered still 
 greater trials. Neither the rector nor any one else had 
 any finances, or possibly even financial standing. Money 
 was as absolutely necessary, when rectors traveled so 
 soon after the war, as it is now, and Confederate money 
 for some time before the surrender had not been worth 
 ten cents per yard. Finally, however, by the supreme 
 exertion of one of the trustees, fifty dollars of "good 
 money " was secured, and the representative of Wash- 
 ington College was safely started. The public and pri- 
 vate monetary stringency was not confined at that 
 period to Lexington. 
 
 In the letter dated August 5, 1865, carried by Judge 
 Brockenbrough, General Lee was told that Washington 
 College, though a great sufferer from havoc and devasta- 
 tion, " is still blessed with a vigorous vitality, and needs 
 only the aid of your illustrious character and transcend- 
 ent scientific attainments to reanimate her drooping for- 
 
404 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 tunes and restore her to more than her pristine useful- 
 ness and prosperity." General Lee had already declined 
 the presidency of the Suwanee University of Tennessee, 
 and shrank from any connection with the University 
 of Virginia, on the ground that one was a denomina- 
 tional and the other a State university. He considered 
 this matter nineteen days, and then wrote that he feared 
 he would be unable to "discharge the duties to the sat- 
 isfaction of the trustees or to the benefit of the coun- 
 try." Then, too, he was excluded from the terms of am- 
 nesty in the proclamation of the President of the United 
 States, he said, and "an object of censure to a portion 
 of the country," and he was afraid he might draw upon 
 the college a feeling of hostility, and therefore cause 
 injury to an institution which it would be his highest 
 desire to advance, and concluded by saying, " I think it 
 is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of 
 the country, to do all in his power to aid in the restora- 
 tion of peace and harmony, and in no way to oppose 
 the policy of the State or General Government directed 
 to that object"; and that, after what had been written, 
 if the board should still think his services would be ad- 
 vantageous to the college and country, he would yield 
 to their judgment and accept. 
 
 The trustees on August 31st adopted and transmitted 
 to General Lee resolutions that, in spite of his objections, 
 in their opinion, "his connection with the institution 
 will greatly promote its prosperity and advance the gen- 
 eral interest of education," and solicited him to enter 
 upon the duties of the presidency of the college at his 
 earliest convenience. The " happy audacity," as one of 
 the professors of the Virginia Military Institute termed 
 it, of the trustees gave to them the victory. That Gen- 
 eral Lee should put aside the many large and lucrative 
 offers and accept this position at the salary then offered 
 ■ — fifteen hundred dollars per annum — was but in keeping 
 with his great character. Washington College had de- 
 scended from a classical school taught in the Valley of 
 Virginia as early as the year 1749, known as the Augusta 
 Academy. On May 13, 1776, nearly two months before 
 the Declaration of Independence, in response to the pa- 
 triotic sentiment of the times, the name was changed to 
 
PRESIDENT OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE. 405 
 
 "Liberty Hall Academy." The institution was removed 
 successively to different places, and was finally estab- 
 lished in Lexington, Va., a town founded in 1778 as the 
 county seat of Rockbridge County and called after Lex- 
 ington, Mass., where the " embattled farmers stood and 
 fired the shot heard round the world." 
 
 In 1784 Virginia, desiring to testify her appreciation 
 of the services and character of her great son Washing- 
 ton, directed the Treasurer of the State to subscribe to 
 one hundred shares of the par value of two hundred 
 dollars in the stock of a company organized for the 
 improvement of the navigation of James River, and 
 vested the same in General Washington. The Legis- 
 lature agreed to the condition upon which alone he 
 would receive the gift — viz., that he would be permit- 
 ted to present it to objects of a public nature, such as 
 " the education of the poor, particularly the children of 
 such as hava fallen in the defense of the country." He 
 gave this stock in 1796 to "Liberty Hall Academy" in 
 Rockbridge County, first presided over by William Gra- 
 ham, an old Princeton classmate and friend of General 
 Lee's father. " Liberty Hall " was now Washington Col- 
 lege, that name having been adopted in 1812. 
 
 Perhaps past associations had something to do with 
 General Lee's accepting the presidency of the college, as 
 well as a desire to contribute his part toward laying the 
 only true foundation upon which a republic can rest — 
 the Christian education of its youth. His object now, 
 as in 1861, was to render the best service he could to his 
 native State, and to that purpose he had never been 
 unfaithful. By the intelligent and judicious manage- 
 ment of sums donated, principally by the patriots of the 
 Revolution, the endowment fund, in 1861, had nearly 
 reached one hundred thousand dollars, and the college 
 had secured ample buildings, apparatus, and libraries, 
 while its alumni had already richly adorned pulpit, bench, 
 bar, medical profession, halls of legislation, seats of 
 learning, and all the walks of life. It might have es- 
 caped war's devastation had any other Federal officer 
 than General David Hunter marched upon its campus. 
 This officer had no respect for colleges, or the peace- 
 ful pursuits of professors and students, or the private 
 27 
 
4o6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 dwellings of citizens, though occupied 'by women and 
 children only, and during his three days' occupancy of 
 Lexington in June, 1864, the college buildings were dis- 
 mantled, apparatus destroyed, and the books mutilated. 
 
 At the end of the fiscal year 1865 there was a balance 
 in the hands of the college treasurer of two thousand 
 four hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty cents in 
 Confederate money. The assets of the college were not 
 available, nor could the interest upon its bonds or State 
 securities be collected. There was a balance due pro- 
 fessors and others of nearly two thousand dollars, and 
 the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees rec- 
 ommended that the college borrow at once, to meet 
 pressing demands, four thousand six hundred dollars. 
 The trustees proved equal to the encounter with these 
 discouraging difficulties, and with "happy audacity" 
 promptly sent their rector to offer General Lee the 
 presidency at a salary at that ti^ne not in sight of the 
 college's treasury ! General Lee's favorite war horse, 
 Traveler, the famous gray which had borne him so faith- 
 fully amid the flying bolts of battle, now carried him to 
 peaceful pursuits. Unheralded and unattended, having 
 ridden from Powhatan County in four days, his simple 
 entree was made into the little mountain town of Lexing- 
 ton. As he drew rein in front of the village hotel, an 
 old soldier recognized him, gave the military salute, 
 placed one hand upon the bridle, the other upon the 
 stirrup, and stood, waiting for him to dismount. 
 
 The general's wish for a quiet, informal inaugu- 
 ration was gratified, and on October 2, 1865, in the 
 presence of the faculty, students, and board of trus- 
 tees, subscribed before William White, Esq., justice 
 of the peace, the oath* prescribed by law. During the 
 ceremony the general, dressed in a plain but elegant 
 suit of gray, remained standing, his arms folded, calmly 
 and steadfastly looking into the eyes of the speaker, 
 Judge Brockenbrough. The warrior had been trans- 
 formed into a college president, who was to discharge 
 
 * I do swear that I will, to the best of my skill and judgment, faith- 
 fully and truly discharge the duties required of me by an act for incor- 
 porating the Rector and Trustees of Liberty Hall Academy, without 
 faVor, aiTection, or partiality. 
 
PRESIDENT OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE. 
 
 407 
 
 his duties there as conscientiously as when his simple 
 mandate sent thousands of men into fierce battle. "I 
 have," said he, " a self-imposed task, which I can not 
 forsake." The college to which he was called was 
 broken in fortune ; " the w^ar had practically closed its 
 doors; its buildings had been pillaged and defaced and 
 its library scattered." He had th-e profoundest convic- 
 tions of the importance of educational influence and the 
 deepest sense of personal responsibility. Year by year 
 the conception of his duty grew stronger, and year by 
 year, as its instrument, the college grew dearer. He 
 was no figurehead, kept in position for the attraction of 
 his name ; his energy, zeal, and administrative ability 
 surmounted all difficulties. His great labors were di- 
 rected to making Washington College the seat of sci- 
 ence, art, and literature. Far-reaching plans laid for 
 its success were wisely conceived. 
 
 A scholastic monument was slowly responding to his 
 noble influence and wise administration, which would 
 be as illustrious as his most brilliant military achieve- 
 ments. He mastered all details, observing the students, 
 becoming persoially acquainted with them, their aspira- 
 tions and hopes ; his interest follow^ed them every- 
 where, and their associations, dispositions, and habits 
 were well known to him. He never grew imperious, 
 or tried to force a measure upon the faculty, but mod- 
 estly said he had but one vote and w^ished to know the 
 opinion of his colleagues, and leave the decision to be 
 determined by the whole body. Sustained by the loftiest 
 principles of virtue and religion, an exalted character, 
 and a conscientious sense of duty. General Lee suffered 
 no complaint to escape his lips during the eventful years 
 from 1865 to 1870, though troubled by much that was 
 taking place. 
 
 He manifested much interest in the case of Captain 
 Wirtz, on trial for his life, accused of cruelty to the Fed- 
 eral prisoners of war committed to him. He knew the 
 captain had done all that was possible with the resources 
 at his disposal ; subsistence for them had been most diffi- 
 cult to procure, their exchange for an equal number of 
 Southerners had been refused, while the Federal blockade 
 kept out medical supplies. A portion of the Northern 
 
4o8 GENERAL LEE 
 
 press charged Lee with being responsible for the alleged 
 suffering of the Union prisoners. He declined to make 
 a public reply unless the accusation came from a re- 
 sponsible source, but said that he was in no way respon- 
 sible for the condition of prisoners after they had been 
 sent from his army. When the commissary general said 
 to him, upon one occasion, that it would be necessary to 
 reduce either the rations of the Federal prisoners or 
 those of his men in the field, he replied, "While I have 
 no authority in the case, my desire is that the prisoners 
 shall have equal rations with my men." He was sum- 
 moned to Washington in March, 1866, as a witness before 
 a congressional committee which was inquiring into the 
 condition of things in the South. His testimony was 
 simple, direct, dignified, and elicited the admiration of 
 all who heard or read it. It was his first appearance in 
 any of the cities since the war, and, being at a time of 
 public political excitement, his visit was an occasion of 
 absorbing interest. The day after his return he pro- 
 posed a walk with one of his daughters, who playfully 
 objected to a new hat he was about to put on. "You 
 do not like my hat?" said he; "why, there were a thou- 
 sand people on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washmgtoh the 
 other day admiring this hat!" It was his only refer- 
 ence to the crowds of persons who gathered around him 
 wherever he went in the city. 
 
 General Lee was still receiving numerous letters, 
 filled with offers of remunerative positions, to which 
 he always replied that he preferred to continue the 
 educational work he had undertaken; but still they 
 came, coupled often with the condition that he should 
 not relinquish his self-imposed task, and should not re- 
 sign the college presidency. On one occasion the gen- 
 eral said to a particular friend in his office : " My friend 
 Mr. has been to see me, and offers me twenty thou- 
 sand dollars per annum to take the presidency of 
 
 Company. I would like to make some money for Mrs. 
 Lee, as she has not much left, and he does not require 
 me to leave the college ; what do you think of my ac 
 cepting it?" The irony of the question was appreci- 
 ated, but his friend took him at his word, and expressed 
 his opinion adversely, saying, as modestly as possible, 
 
PRESIDENT OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE. ^qq 
 
 that if he " allowed himself to be influenced by filthy 
 lucre he would begin to gravitate." With the winsome 
 way so characteristic of him the general replied : " I 
 
 am glad to find that you agree with me. I told Mr. 
 
 yesterday that I must decline his offer." 
 
 About this time the subject of the removal of the 
 remains of the Southern dead from the field of Gettys- 
 burg was being considered. General Lee replied to a 
 letter calling his attention to it : 
 
 Lexington, Va., December 15, 1868. 
 My dear Fitz : I have considered the subject of your letter, 
 which has been unaccountably delayed on the journey; and 
 though I have no desire that my views should govern in the de- 
 cision of a question in which others are equally interested, I will 
 give them for your consideration. In the first place, I have no 
 fears that our dead will receive disrespectful treatment at the 
 hands of the Gettysburg association. If they do so, it will then 
 be time, as it will also furnish the occasion, for us to apply for 
 their transfer to our care. I am not in favor of disturbing the 
 ashes of the dead unless for a worthy object, and I know of no 
 fitter resting-place for a soldier than the field on which he has 
 nobly laid down his life. If our State governments could reflect 
 the wishes of their citizens, and each State could receive its own 
 dead, I think it would be very appropriate to return them to their 
 native soil for final interment, if possible ; and I know it would be 
 soothing to the feelings of their friends to have their sacred dead 
 committed to their affectionate keeping. 
 
 The General was only induced to take the presidency 
 of the Valley Railroad because it did not require him to 
 le'ave Lexington, and because he was so interested in 
 obtaining railroad facilities for his college. He really 
 loved his work, in which his interest increased rather 
 than diminished. Occasionally he would administer 
 admonition to the students or make public his direc- 
 tions by circulars, which were called by them " General 
 Orders " ; for example : 
 
 Washington College, Va., December 2.0^, 1869. 
 Academic exercises will be suspended from the 25th to the 
 27th inclusive, to enable the students to join in the rites and serv- 
 ices appropriate to the occasion ; and while enjoying these privi- 
 leges with grateful hearts, all are urged to do or countenance 
 nothing which may disturb the peace, harmony, and happiness 
 that should pervade a Christian community. 
 
 R. E. Lee. President. 
 
4IO GENERAL LEE. 
 
 The labors, exposure, and responsibilities of his cam- 
 paigns laid the foundation for bodily distress. Rheuma- 
 tism of the heart sac and of other portions of his body- 
 was creeping by gradual approach to assault the vitals. 
 He was reluctantly persuaded to go south in March, 
 1870, to look upon other scenes and enjoy the fragrant 
 breezes in the " land of sun and flowers." In Richmond, 
 en route, in response to an invitation tendering the privi- 
 leges of the legislative floor, he wrote : 
 
 Richmond, Va., March 26, 1870. 
 Hon. J. S. Marye, President of the Septate of Virginia. 
 
 Sir: It would afford me great pleasure to be able to avail 
 myself of the privileges of the floor of the Senate extended to me 
 by the resolution of that body to-day, but the condition of my 
 health is such as to require me to reach a milder climate as soon 
 as practicable. With a due sense oi the honor conferred on me 
 by the resolution of the Senate, 
 
 I have the honor to be your most obedient servant, 
 
 R. E. Lee. 
 
 His sweet daughter Agnes, who did not long survive 
 her father, accompanied him. On the trip he embraced 
 the opportunity to see once more his father's grave, on 
 an island off the coast of Georgia. General Henry Lee 
 (or " Light-Horse Harry "), in returning from the West 
 Indies, where he had been, hoping to restore his health, 
 was, it may be remembered, taken ill, and begged to be 
 put ashore at General Greene's mansion, then occupied 
 by his daughter, where he died, and where his remains 
 now lie. From Savannah, Ga., April 18, 1870, the gen- 
 eral wrote Mrs. Lee : " We visited Cumberland Island, 
 and Agnes decorated my father's grave with beautiful 
 fresh flowers. I presume it is the last time I shall be 
 able to pay it my tribute of respect. The cemetery is 
 unharmed and the graves are in good order, though the 
 house of 'Dungeness' has been burned and the island 
 devastated. I hope I am better. I know that I am 
 stronger, but I still have the pain in my chest whenever 
 I walk. I have felt it, too, occasionally recently, when 
 quiescent." 
 
 He returned benefited by the trip, but the steady 
 progress of his disease had not been checked. While 
 absent, the college trustees appropriated money to pre- 
 
PRESIDENT OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE. 
 
 41 
 
 sent him with a house and settle an annuity of three 
 thousand dollars per annum on his family, all of which 
 he firmly declined. "I am unwilling that my family 
 should become a tax to the college," he wrote to the 
 board, " but desire that all its funds should be devoted 
 to the purposes of education. I feel assured that, in case 
 a competency should not be left to my wife, her children 
 would never suffer her to want." 
 
 When the fall session of 1870 of the college opened, 
 General Lee was at his post of duty, but " his step had 
 lost something of its elasticity, the shoulders began to 
 stoop as if under a growing burden, and the ruddy glow 
 of health upon his countenance changed to a feverish 
 flush." A noble life was drawing to a close. The 
 mornmg of September 28, 1870, found him faithfully 
 performing the duties of his office; the afternoon, en- 
 gaged with his brother members of the vestry of Grace 
 Episcopal Church in work congenial to the true Christian, 
 and the autumn evening shadows fell upon a couch over 
 which the heavenly angels were bending. The impor- 
 tant question of rebuilding the church and increasing his 
 faithful friend and pastor's compensation had interested 
 him so deeply at the vestry meetmg, that the cold church 
 and the outside storm were forgotten, and it was only 
 after a protracted session of over three hours, as he pro- 
 ceeded to his house, a short distance off, that weariness 
 and weakness overtook him, and his wavering steps indi- 
 cated increasing feebleness. Entering his private office 
 as usual, he took off his hat, military cloak, and over- 
 shoes, and then proceeded to join his family, who had 
 been waiting tea for him. Quietly he stood in his ac- 
 customed place in the dinmg-room, while his family with 
 bowed heads waited to hear the well-known grace, but 
 no sound came from his lips. Speechless the great sol- 
 dier stood ; an expression of despair spread over his face ; 
 and from his eyes came a dreamy, far-away look which 
 denoted the approaching summons from his Creator. 
 
 '' My husband came in," wrote Mrs. Lee, " and I 
 asked where he had been, remarking that he had kept us 
 waiting a long time. He did not reply, but stood up as 
 if to say grace. No word proceeded from his lips, but 
 with a sublime look of resignation he sat down in his 
 
412 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 chair." With intense anxiety the family went to his as- 
 sistance. A bed was brought to the dining-room, in 
 which he was placed, and Dr. B. L. Madison and Dr. 
 H. T. Barton were quickly summoned. For two weeks, 
 
 'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge, 
 Between two worlds life hovered like a star. 
 
 Mrs. Lee tells us that his whole demeanor during his 
 sickness was that of one who had taken leave of earth. 
 He never smiled and rarely attempted to speak except 
 in his dreams, and then, she says, "he wandered to those 
 dreadful battlefields." "You must get out and ride 
 your faithful gray," the doctor said. He shook his head 
 and looked upward; and once when his daughter Agnes 
 urged him to take medicine, he looked at her and said, 
 "It is no use." Human love was powerful, human aid 
 powerless. Hope and Despair were twin watchers by 
 his bedside. At first, as his disease seemed to yield to 
 treatment, Hope brightened, but soon Despair alone kept 
 watch. During the afternoon and night of October loth 
 shadowy clouds of approaching dissolution began to 
 gather, a creeping lethargy captured the faculties, and 
 the massive grandeur of form and face began to con- 
 tract. During the succeeding day he rapidly grew 
 worse ; his thoughts wandered to the fields where he 
 had so often led his gray battalions to victory ; and like 
 the greatest of his captains, Stonewall Jackson, whose 
 expiring utterance told "A. P. Hill to prepare for 
 action," he too, in death's delirium, said, " Tell Hill he 
 must come up ! " " For the last forty-eight hours he 
 seemed quite insensible of our presence," Mrs. Lee 
 states ; " he breathed more heavily, and at last gently 
 sank to rest with one deep-drawn sigh, and oh, what a 
 glorious rest was in store for him ! " 
 
 Robert Edward Lee died at half-past nine, on the 
 morning of October 12, 1870, in the sixty-fourth year of 
 his age. His physicians stated as the cause, " mental 
 and physical fatigue inducing venous congestion of the 
 brain, which, however, never proceeded as apoplexy or 
 paralysis, but gradually caused cerebral exhaustion and 
 death." On the 14th the casket containing the body of 
 the dead warrior was removed to the college chapel, and 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 413 
 
 on the 15th buried in the area of the chapel in a brick 
 vault prepared for it. Upon the marble capping on the 
 top of the vault, and on a level with the library floor is 
 this simple inscription : 
 
 ROBERT EDWARD LEE, 
 BORN JANUARY 19, 1807, 
 DIED OCTOBER 12, 1870. 
 
 Tolling bells first proclaimed the sad intelligence to 
 the citizens of Lexington, electric wires to the world. 
 Throughout the South business was suspended, schools 
 closed, societies and associations of all sorts assembled, 
 where eulogistic speeches were made, and resolutions 
 passed laudatory of General Lee's life and lamentmg 
 his death. In those adopted by the faculty of the col- 
 lege it was declared that "his executive ability, his en- 
 larged views of liberal culture, his extraordinary powers 
 in the government of men, his wonderful influence over 
 the minds of the young, and his steady and earnest 
 devotion to duty, made the college spring, as if by the 
 touch of magic, from its depressions after the war to 
 its present firm condition of permanent and widespread 
 usefulness"; that it was "a deep satisfaction to receive 
 his remains beneath the chapel he had built " ; and that 
 the "memory of his noble life will remain as an abiding 
 inspiration to the young of the country as they gather 
 at the last scene of his labors, to emulate his virtues 
 and to follow his great example." 
 
 The board of college trustees by resolution extolled 
 General Lee for his great military services, and for the 
 victories won by him in the classic shades of Washington 
 College, saying that the two most renowned names in 
 their respective centuries were Washington and Lee, and 
 that they " be hereafter associated indissolubly as founder 
 and restorer of our beloved college " ; that the charter be 
 so amended as to hereafter express in fit conjunction 
 the immortal names of Washington and Lee; that the 
 anniversary of his birth should always be celebrated in 
 the college ; and that, with the co-operation of the faculty, 
 measures should be taken and plans prepared for the 
 erection within the college grounds of a suitable monu- 
 ment to his memory. The sorrowing students met and 
 
414 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 resolved : " We deeply mourn the loss of one who in his 
 public career had endeared himself to us by all the 
 virtues that adorn the character of the patriot and 
 Christian, and who in his official and private relations 
 with ourselves has also won our peculiar affection and 
 confidence by his paternal sympathy and his tender re- 
 gard for our interest as students." The academic board 
 of the Virginia Military Institute, at Lexington, put on 
 record that his life is a part of the history of the world, 
 and that his moral excellences inspired love and ad- 
 miration in the hearts of all the good. 
 
 At 12.30 p. M., October 15th, 1870, one of the most 
 solemn, imposing, and impressive funeral processions 
 ever assembled moved with slow tread from the late 
 president's home, through the streets of Lexington, and 
 thence to the college chapel. At its head, as the escort 
 of honor, marched the old Confederate soldiers who had 
 gathered from many quarters to pay a last tribute to 
 their commander. In its ranks were the representatives 
 of the Virginia Legislature, State officials, distinguished 
 visitors, members of numerous organizations, trusteesi 
 faculty, students, alumni, cadets of the Virginia Mili- 
 tary Institute, and citizens. At the chapel the beaut, - 
 ful service of the Episcopal Church was read with great 
 solemnity by the Rev. Dr. W. N. Pendleton, the distin- 
 guished officer who had for forty-five years been the 
 comrade and fellow-soldier of the dead chieftain. The 
 mournful ceremonies were concluded outside the chapel 
 in the presence of a vast throng who were unable to 
 enter. The coffin was then removed to the vault. The 
 large assemblage sang one of the general's favorite 
 hymns, " How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord," 
 and all that was mortal of the Christian soldier was 
 consigned to the grave. 
 
 Traveler, who had borne in so many battles the great 
 Confederate leader, led by two old soldiers, slowly walk- 
 ing, riderless, behind the hearse, covered with the sable 
 trappings of mourning, was a tender and touching sight. 
 He survived his master but two vears.* 
 
 * He died in Lexington, in the summer of 1872, of lockjaw caused 
 by a nail in one of his fore feet. He was fifteen year^ old. 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 415 
 
 The college pledge was sacredly kept, and a sleep- 
 ing marble recumbent statue of exquisite workmanship, 
 the production of Valentine, a Virginia sculptor, after 
 " Ranch's figure of Louise of Prussia," is a superb monu- 
 ment to the memory of its president. The Washington 
 and Lee, a great university, under the wise management 
 of General Lee's eldest son, has linked two names which 
 spring spontaneously to every mind. Of these two men, 
 exemplars of a country's character, born almost a cen- 
 tury apart, but similar in the history of their boyhood, 
 earnest, grave, studious, alike in noble carriage and 
 commanding dignity, it has been said that in the re- 
 markable combination and symmetry of their intellectual 
 qualities — all so equal, so well developed, no faculty of 
 the mind overlapping any other — you are almost per- 
 suaded to deny them greatness, because no single attri- 
 bute of the mind was projected upon itself. Well may 
 Virginia be proud of sons who shine upon the pages of 
 the world's history " like binary stars which open their 
 glory and shed their splendor on the darkness of the 
 world." 
 
 In Virginia's capital city now stand two splendid 
 equestrian statues to George Washmgton and Robert E. 
 Lee. Riding side by side in calm majesty, they are 
 henceforth contemporaries in all the ages to come. 
 The mother State mourned for the departed soldier, 
 and her General Assembly passed a bill making January 
 19th, the birthday of General Robert E. Lee, a legal 
 holiday in Virginia. In the universal mourning for him 
 the sympathies of the v/orld first flew to the smitten 
 family. The final parting from her husband after a 
 most happy married life was a great shock to Mrs. Lee. 
 She had been a sufferer for years from rheumatism, un- 
 able to move without assistance, and was described at 
 that time as having " a sad but noble countenance, her 
 features much resembling those of her great-grand- 
 mother Martha, the wife of Washington, her expression 
 firm, her eyes beautiful and sparkling with the uncom- 
 mon intelligence which marks her conversation, her 
 almost snowy-white, fine, soft hair, in waves and curls 
 framing her full forehead. She sits in her widow's cap 
 a grand and lovely picture, combining in itself much of 
 
4i6 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 the history and glory of the immortal past with the 
 modern events of our history." When the South sent 
 her sons to fight under her husband's command, she de- 
 voted every energy to the cause in which he had enlisted. 
 
 A very few extracts from communications which 
 reached her from all sections in great numbers can be 
 given: A cousin of the general's, Mr. Edmund I. Lee, 
 from Shepherdstown, October 31, 1870, writes Mrs. Lee: 
 '* I can not find language to convey the distress I felt 
 when I first read the announcement of Robert's death 
 in the papers. The most pleasant recollections of my 
 youth are connected with him and his mother's family. 
 How often have I called to mind the evenings and the 
 mornings spent in their company ! — our English rab- 
 bits fed together, and our daily visits to the markets 
 in Alexandria to procure meat and vegetables for our 
 mothers, each carrying his own basket; his rescuing 
 me on one occasion from the fangs of his father's mas- 
 tiff, Killbuck, and the grief of his mother and sisters 
 when your aunt — Mrs. Lewis — having procured from 
 President Jackson a cadet warrant (which was given 
 upon her application, as a personal favor to her), it be- 
 came necessary to send him to West Point ; and my prof- 
 fering my own services to attend in Robert's place to 
 his mother's business — for his gentle, affectionate man- 
 ners had attached all his relations to him in early life." 
 
 From Savannah, Ga., October 15, 1870, General 
 Joseph E. Johnston wr-ote her : 
 
 My dear Madam: Although you are receiving the strong- 
 est proofs that a whole people are sharing in your great sorrow, 
 I venture to write, not merely to say how I, General Lee's earliest 
 and most devoted friend, lament his death and how sadly the 
 event will visit my memory while I stay on earth, but, still more, 
 to assure you of my deep sympathy in this greatest bereavement 
 a human being can know, and of my fervent prayers to our merci- 
 ful God that he may grant his help to you and your children. 
 
 Most sincerely and truly your friend, 
 
 (Signed) J. E. Johnston. 
 
 A dear little girl wrote : 
 
 I have heard of General Lee, your husband, and of all his 
 great and noble deeds during the war. I have also heard lately 
 of his death. I have read in the papers that collections are being 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 417 
 
 made for the Lee monument. I have asked my mother to let 
 me send some money — not money that she gave me, but money 
 that I earned myself. I made some of my money by keeping the 
 door shut last winter, and the rest I made by digging up grass in 
 the garden. I send you all I have. I wish it was more. I am 
 nine now. Respectfully, MaGGIE McIntyke. 
 
 Rev. R. S. Stewart wrote to Mrs. Lee from Baltimore, 
 December 29, 1872 : " Accident a few weeks ago led me to 
 read over again after fifty years the Scottish Chiefs, and 
 I have been so struck with the identity of character be- 
 tween Sir William Wallace and General Lee that I can 
 not help mentioning it to you and asking you to read 
 this book again, if you have not done so, since the late 
 struggle for Southern liberty commenced. In reading it 
 myseif, I find every noble sentiment of religion, of pa- 
 triotism, and of humanity expressed that we all heard 
 from the lips or pen of your noble husband, and so simi- 
 lar are the natures of the two men that I could almost 
 believe in the transmigration of souls. As a descendant 
 of an old Scottish family I have always felt proud of 
 AVallace and cherished his memory." 
 
 The Hon. Beresford Hope, A. B.,* wrote from Bed- 
 gebery Park, Cranbrook, England, November 25, 1872, 
 to Mrs. Lee, thanking her for photographs of General 
 Lee, and added, " They embody to us heroic virtue and 
 purest patriotism, the most exalted military genius, the 
 highest and purest domestic excellence, while the mipress 
 of your pencil and your autograph doubles their value." 
 
 From Aldenham Bridge, North Shropshire, England, 
 a lady sent Mrs. Lee a copy of a lecture delivered by 
 her husband, and wrote, January 24, 1866, that she did 
 it '' in order to add one to the many testimonies which 
 
 * Mr. Hope will be remembered as the English gentleman who 
 principally contributed to the Jackson statue which now stands in Capi- 
 tol Square, Richmond, and who had more to do with its presentation to 
 the State of Virginia than any one else. General Lee was also pre- 
 sented with a magnificently illustrated Bible from Mr. Hope and his 
 wife, Lady Mildred, a sister of the present Lord Salisbury, together 
 with other members of the family and friends. The dedication reads 
 thus : " General Robert E. Lee, Commanding the Confederate Army, 
 from the Undersigned Englishmen and Englishwomen, recognizing the 
 Genius of the General, admiring the Humanity of the Man, respecting 
 the Virtues of the Christian. October 18, 1864." 
 
41 8 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 you must have received of the sympathy and venera- 
 tion which have been inspired in Europe by the illus- 
 trious career of General Lee. I have less difficulty in 
 presuming to do so, because the passages in which those 
 feelings were most strongly expressed are omitted in 
 this report. They were received with enthusiasm by a 
 Shropshire audience who believed (I know not with 
 what justice, though we should be proud if it were 
 true) that the family of the general once belonged to 
 this country." The Southland — plowed with graves and 
 reddened with blood, that can look the proudest nation 
 fearlessly in the face, and whose sons he led to battle — 
 joined in the lamentation over her distinguished son. 
 
 The Hon. Jefferson Davis, eloquently speaking at the 
 memorial meeting in Richmond, said that "this day we 
 unite our words of sorrow with those of the good and 
 great throughout Christendom, for his fame has gone 
 over the water; and when the monument we build shall 
 have crumbled mto dust, his virtues will still live — a high 
 model for the imitations of generations yet unborn." 
 And Benjamin Hill, of Georgia, in beautiful phrase de- 
 claimed : " He was a foe without hate, a friend without 
 treachery, a soldier without cruelty, and a victim with- 
 out murmuring. He was a public officer without vices, 
 a private citizen without wrong, a neighbor without 
 reproach, a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man with- 
 out guilt. He was Caesar without his ambition, Fred- 
 erick without his tyranny, Napoleon without his selfish- 
 ness, and Washington without his reward. He v»a3 as 
 obedient to authority as a servant and royal in authority 
 as a king. He was as gentle as a woman in life, pure 
 and modest as a virgin in thought, watchful as a Roman 
 vestal, submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in bat- 
 tle as Achilles." 
 
 The Southern leader had no ambition except the 
 consciousness of duty faithfully performed. Far re- 
 moved from political or civic ambition, he would have 
 declined the presidency of the Confederate States if his 
 sword had carved their independence as readily as he 
 did positions carrying great salaries. He once said that 
 the only public office he ever might be inclined to ac- 
 cept v^'ould be the chief magistracy of his beloved native 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 419 
 
 State; and yet when Judge Robert Ould, of Richmond, 
 wrote him that there was a universal demand that he 
 should become Governor of Virginia, he replied, after 
 expressing his high appreciation of the position and the 
 desires of the people : " I candidly confess, however, 
 that my feelings induce me to prefer private life, which 
 I think more suitable to my condition and age, and 
 where I believe I can better subserve the interests of 
 my State than in that you propose. This is no time for 
 the indulgence of personal or political considerations in 
 selecting individuals for supposed former services. Be- 
 lieving that there are many men in the State more capa- 
 ble than I of filling the position, and who could do more 
 to promote the interests of the people, I most respect- 
 fully decline to be considered a candidate for the office." 
 He thought that his election would excite hostility to- 
 ward the State and injure its inhabitants in the eyes 
 of the country, and he therefore refused to consent to 
 become an instrument of bringing distress upon those 
 whose prosperity and happiness were so dear to him. 
 He adds: "If my disfranchisement and prohibition of 
 civil rights would secure to the citizens of the State the 
 enjoyment of civil liberty and equal rights under the 
 Constitution, I would willingly accept them in their 
 stead." It is perhaps well that he was not launched 
 into public life, where all his actions would have passed 
 in review before a hostile political party. After his 
 sword was sheathed, the serene patience and quiet self- 
 consecration of his latest years have filled the world 
 with admiration. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MILITARY CHARACTER. 
 
 It is difficult to accurately compare Lee's military 
 genius even with that of the more modern great cap- 
 tains of war, except in strategical science, for he be- 
 lieved with them that "in planning all dangers should 
 be seen, in execution none, unless very formidable." 
 The great improvements in firearms have changed the 
 tactics of the battlefield. Troops are no longer brought 
 to a halt in the polite phrase of the French, " Halt your 
 banners, in the name of God, the king, and St. Denis," 
 but by bugle notes. Armies are no longer unable to 
 contest because the strings of crossbows are slackened 
 by rain ; short lances have been replaced by bayonets 
 on revolving breech-loading rifles ; arbalest, phalanx, 
 and other former military terms are no longer heard, and 
 wonderful transformation has taken place since the day 
 on which the blind King of Bohemia was led on the 
 field of Cregy that he might deal one blow of his sword 
 in battle. Marvelous metamorphoses have taken place 
 even since 1815. Imagine the Federal and Confederate 
 armies in a campaign in Belgium in 1861-1865, and that 
 the Federal commander had accepted battle on the field 
 of Waterloo and taken up the line of defense adopted 
 by Wellington. He would not have compressed sixty- 
 seven thousand six hundred and sixty-one* men in bat- 
 tle lines within a space of two miles on the Wavre road, 
 on a slope void of intrenchments. The chateau of 
 Hougoumont and its inclosures might have been strong- 
 ly occupied to add increased strength to the right of the 
 line of battle; but it is improbable that La Haye Sainte, 
 
 * Number of English troops engaged at Waterloo. 
 
 (420) 
 
MILITARY CHARACTER. 42 1 
 
 three hundred yards in front of the center on the Charle- 
 roi turnpike, and the little villages of Papelotte, La 
 Haie, and Smohain, from a quarter to a half mile in 
 front of the left, would have been occupied except by 
 skirmishers. The flanks of a Federal army equal in 
 numbers to the English would have been twice as far 
 apart, and the whole line well protected by earthworks. 
 Lee would not have attacked as Napoleon did if the 
 Union troops had been placed precisely as Wellington 
 arranged his, nor would his seventy-one thousand nine 
 hundred and forty-seven troops (number of the French) 
 been tactically formed like the Emperor's. 
 
 The battle of Gettysburg was fought forty-eight 
 years after that of Waterloo. A comparison of the two 
 strikingly shows the changes in the art of war in a half- 
 century only. There was a similarity of purpose on the 
 part of Lee on the third day's encounter at Gettysburg 
 and the French emperor at Waterloo. The sun rises in 
 Belgium in June at 3.48 a.m., in Pennsylvania in July 
 at 4.30 A.M. Napoleon, at ir.30 a. m., ordered Reille, 
 on his left, to attack Hougoumont on the English right 
 with his left division as a diversion, while his main in- 
 tention was to attack the British center and left center 
 by his first corps, under D'Erlon, and brought up sev- 
 enty-eight cannon to fire an hour and a half, at less than 
 a third of a mile from the crest which the English occu- 
 pied ; but D'Erlon was not ordered forward .until half- 
 past one. Ewell, on Lee's left, was ordered to make a 
 demonstration on the Federal right ; cannon fired for 
 hours, and then Pickett's assaulting column attempted 
 to pierce the center and left center of the Union lines. 
 Count Reille managed to get nearly the whole of his 
 corps engaged, but effected nothing. Ewell got his 
 troops early in action, but with no results. The fight- 
 ing of both had terminated before the main operations 
 began. Napoleon's object was to seize Mont St. Jean, 
 in rear of Wellington's center, so as to possess himself 
 of the principal avenue of retreat open to the British — 
 the road to Brussels. Lee's object was to get posses- 
 sion of the Baltimore pike and road to Westminster, 
 Meade's chief route of retreat to his base of supplies. 
 D'Erlon was unsuccessful ; so was Pickett. Before the 
 
422 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 former moved out, the Prussians of Bliicher were seen 
 on the heights of St. Lambert ; and the Sixth French 
 Corps, instead of supporting the operations of the First 
 Corps, as had been intended, was taken away and em- 
 ployed in resisting their progress. The troops ordered 
 to support General Pickett lay on their arms waiting 
 orders from a corps commander charged with the assault, 
 which were never given. 
 
 The formation of Count d'Erlon's corps for the 
 charge in 1815, and that of Pickett in 1863, is an apt 
 illustration of tactical mutability. D'Erlon's attack was 
 made in four columns in echelon, the left in advance ; 
 the first or left column was composed of two brigades, 
 each brigade of four battalions, one behind the other ; 
 each battalion was in three ranks, and the distance be- 
 tween the battalions five paces ; the next column had 
 nine battalions, and the other two eight each — twenty- 
 nine battalions in all. Sixteen thousand men in twenty- 
 nine battalions would give approximately six hundred 
 men to the battalion; and when in three ranks a front 
 of two hundred men for each one of the four charging 
 columns. If the front of each column had been on the 
 same line, instead of in echelon, eight hundred men 
 would have been in the front rank. It was intended 
 that this force should break through by impact, for only 
 the few men in front could fire. Pickett, with nearly as 
 many troops,* had nine brigades in two ranks, in two 
 long lines — six brigades in the first and three in the 
 second. The front line had some ten thousand men, 
 which in two ranks would give a front of five thousand 
 men instead of eight hundred ! The dense masses of 
 D'Erlon's corps would have been butchered by the con- 
 centrated, converging, rapid fire of modern breech-load- 
 ing guns, big and small, before their banners could have 
 been shaken to the breeze. We say, therefore, it is not 
 easy to compare Lee with the great soldiers of former 
 ages, except as a strategist. 
 
 In strategy it is certain Lee stands in the front rank 
 of the great warriors of the world. He was a greater 
 soldier than Sir Henry Havelock, and equally as devout 
 
 * Exclusive of Wilcox's brigade, which was not in the charge proper. J 
 
MILITARY CHARACTER. 
 
 423 
 
 a Christian. " There was not a heart in England," it 
 was said, when' Havelock died, thirteen years before 
 Lee, at about the same age, "that did not feel it to be a 
 subject for private as well as public mourning"; and so 
 the South felt toward Lee. It is stated that it was im- 
 possible to gauge the full measure of Moltke's potentiali- 
 ties as a strategist and organizer, but perhaps Lee with 
 the same opportunities would have been equally as skill- 
 ful and far-seeing. The success of the former and fail- 
 ure of the latter does not prevent comparison. Kossuth 
 failed in Hungary, but the close of his long life has been 
 strewn with flowers. Scotland may never become an 
 independent country, but Scotchmen everywhere cherish 
 with pride the fame of Wallace and Bruce. If given an 
 opportunity, said General Scott, who commanded the 
 army of the United States in 1861, Lee "will prove 
 himself the greatest captain of history." He had the 
 swift intuition to discern the purpose of his opponent, 
 and the power of rapid combination to oppose to it 
 prompt resistance. The very essence of modern war 
 was comprised in the four years' campaign, demanding 
 a greater tax upon the mental and physical qualifica- 
 tions of a leader than the fifteen years of Hannibal in 
 the remote past. Military misconceptions have been 
 charged to him ; but Marshal Turenne has said, " Show 
 me the man who never made mistakes, and I will show 
 you one who has never made war." 
 
 The impartial historian, in reviewing Lee's campaigns 
 and the difficult conditions with which he was always 
 confronted, must at least declare that no commander 
 could have accomplished more. In his favor was, how- 
 ever, that ponderous force known as the spirit of the 
 army, which counterbalanced his enemy's excess of men 
 and guns. Important battles are sometimes lost in spite 
 of the best-conceived plans of the general commanding. 
 The battle of Ligny, with the fate of a great campaign 
 trembling on the result, was not made a decisive victory 
 because Ney, at Quatre-Bras, showed a distrust of his 
 emperor's judgment, was unwilling to take the most 
 obvious step, and finally disobeyed orders; and like 
 behavior of a corps commander at Gettysburg defeated 
 the well-devised designs of Lee. 
 
424 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 It has been wisely said that man is under no circui^i- 
 stance so nearly independent as he is when the next step 
 is for life or death ; and an infinite number of such inde- 
 pendent forces influences the course of a battle — a course 
 which can never be foreseen, and can never coincide with 
 that which it would take under the impulsion of a sin- 
 gle force. ^There are always inevitable conditions under 
 which a commander in chief carries on his operations.'^ 
 The world places Lee by the side of its greatest cap- 
 tains, because surrounded on all sides by conflicting 
 anxieties, interests, and the gravity of issues involved, 
 he only surrendered his battle-stained, bullet-riddled 
 banners after demonstrating that all had been done 
 that mortal could accomplish. The profession of the 
 soldier has been honored by his renown, the cause of 
 education by his virtues, religion by his piety. 
 
 " The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
 Is to have been a hero." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acquia Creek, Va., 102, 135. 
 Addison, Joseph, quoted, 171. 
 Alexander, Colonel E. P., mentioned, 
 
 231, 253, 292, 293. 
 Amelia Court House, Va., 379, 380, 
 
 383. 
 
 Anderson, Colonel G. T., mentioned, 
 212. 
 
 Anderson, General, mentioned, 141, 
 206, 254 ; at Gettysburg, 279, 288 ; 
 succeeds Longstreet, 331 ; recalled, 
 352 ; at Five Forks, 376. 
 
 Anderson, General Robert, men- 
 tioned, 87, 
 
 Andrew, Governor John A,, men- 
 tioned, 145. 
 
 Antietam, battle of, 208. 
 
 Appomattox Court House, Va., 386, 
 
 3S7. 
 
 Arab couplet quoted, 114. 
 
 Archer's brigade at Gettysburg, 296, 
 
 Aristo, General Mariano, 32. 
 
 Arlington Heights, 108. 
 
 Arlington House, Va., mentioned, 
 26, 49, 63, 65, 71, 72, 76, 77, 85, 88, 
 89, 99, 1 98, 366. 
 
 Arlington slaves liberated, 236, 238. 
 
 Armies of the Confederacy, 326. 
 
 Armistead, General Lewis, men- 
 tioned, 58, 288; killed at Gettys- 
 burg, 296. 
 
 Army of the James, 387. 
 
 Army of Northern Virginia, 311, 312, 
 348, 379, 386. 
 
 Army of the Potomac, 173, 182, 309, 
 313, 351, 377. 
 
 Army of the Shenandoah, 352. 
 
 Army of the Tennessee, 372. 
 
 Army of Virginia, 175. 
 
 Assault on Fort Stedman, 371. 
 
 Austin, Stephen F., mentioned, 31. 
 
 Averell, General William W., men- 
 tioned, 241, 242, 340, 341. 
 
 Babcock, Colonel, of Grant's staff, 
 mentioned, 392, 393. 
 
 (425; 
 
 Ball, Mary, mentioned, i. 
 
 Banks Ford, Va., 244. 
 
 Banks, General Nathaniel P., men- 
 tioned, 109, 143, 180. 
 
 Barksdale's brigade, 224 ; killed at 
 Gettysburg, 302. 
 
 Barlow, General, wounded at Get- 
 tysburg, 302. 
 
 Bayard, General George D., men- 
 tioned, 228. 
 
 Beauregard, General P. G. T., men- 
 tioned, 48, 87, 107, 108, no. III, 
 
 132, 137, 346 ; notice of, 100 ; pro- 
 moted, 133, 134 ; at Petersburg, 
 360 ; sent against Sherman, 369. 
 
 Beaver Dam Creek, 158, 160, 168. 
 
 Beckwith, General Amos, 103. 
 
 Benedict, Colonel G. G., letter to, 
 299. 
 
 Benjamin, Judah P., 324. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., 52. 
 
 Berkeley, Sir William, mentioned, 3, 
 4- 
 
 Birney, General James G., men- 
 tioned, 247. 
 
 Black Hawk, mentioned, 48. 
 
 Blackburn's Ford, Va., 189. 
 
 Blair, Francis P., mentioned, 85. 
 
 Blenker, General, mentioned, 109. 
 
 Bloody angle, the, Gettysburg, 335. 
 
 Blucher, Field-Martial, 142, 422. 
 
 Bohemia, the blind King of, 420. 
 
 Bolivar Heights, 202. 
 
 Boswell, Captain, killed at Chancel- 
 lorsville, 251. 
 
 Brackett, Captain Albert G., men- 
 tioned, 54. 
 
 Bragg, General Braxton, mentioned, 
 47, 54 ; re-enforced, 313 ; opposed 
 to Schofield, 370. 
 
 Branch, General L. O. B., killed at 
 Antietam, 215. 
 
 Breckinridge, General John C, men- 
 tioned, 83, 341, 369. 
 
 Bristol Station, 1S7, i?9. 
 
 Brockenbrough's brigade, 2S8. 
 
426 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Brockenbrough, Judge John W., 403. 
 
 Brown, John, mentioned, 74, 75, 76, 
 83. 
 
 Bryan, Lee's steward, 233, 234, 366. 
 
 Buckingham, Governor, of Connecti- 
 cut, 221. 
 
 Buckland Races, 317. 
 
 Buena Vista, the battle of, 109. 
 
 Buford, General John, at Gettys- 
 burg, 270, 271. I 
 
 Bull Run, the battle of, 109. I 
 
 Burnside, General Ambrose E., men- 1 
 tioned, 47, 48, 105, 176, 177, 180, 
 182, 205, 215 ; commands army, 
 character, 222 ; mentioned, 224, 
 225, 225, 228, 229, 238, 239, 240 ; 
 his corps at Petersburg, 355. 
 
 Burnt House Fields, 4. 
 
 Bustamente, General, mentioned, 32. ! 
 
 Butler, General Benjamin F., men- 
 tioned, no, 323, 340; "bottled 
 up," 341- ! 
 
 Butterfield, General Daniel, men- 
 tioned, 226, 241, 302. j 
 
 Calhoun, John C, mentioned, 43. ' 
 Cameron, Simon, mentioned, 88, 
 
 103. I 
 
 Campbell Court House, 387. | 
 
 Camp Cooper, Texas, 59, 61, 66, 68, 
 
 69. 
 Carnot, quotation from, 49. 
 Carrick's Ford, 115. 
 Carroll, Governor, of Maryland, 300. 
 Carter, Anne Hill, 16. 
 Carter, Charles Hill, 16. 
 Casey, General Silas, 167. 
 Catumseh, a chief, 73. 
 Cavalry contest at Gettysburg, 298. 
 Cavalry raids, 266. 
 Cemetery Heights, 292. 
 Cemetery Hill, 273, 
 Cemeter)' Ridge, 289-296. 
 Cerro Gordo, battle of, 38, 40. 
 Chambhss, General John R., killed, 
 
 362. 
 Champe, Sergeant, 9. 
 Chancellorsville, battle of, 241. 
 Chapman, Major WiUiam, 63. 
 Chapultepec, battle of, 41, 42. 
 Charleston Harbor, 86. 
 Charles H, 3, 4. 
 Chase, Salmon P., 268. 
 Chester Gap, 307. 
 Childe, Edward, 19. 
 Childe, Matilda Lee, 19, 60. 
 Chilton, R. H., mentioned, 159. 
 Clay, Henry, mentioned, 32. | 
 
 Clitz, General Henry, 172. j 
 
 Cobb, General Thomas R., men- 
 tioned, 231 ; killed at Fredericks- 
 burg, 233. 
 
 Cocke, Mrs. Elizabeth R., 402. 
 
 Coleston's division, 25. 
 
 Comanches, tribe of, 72. 
 
 Confederate cavalry, 387. 
 
 Confederate Congress, 93. 
 
 Confederate conscription, 350. 
 
 Confederate currency, 350, 402. 
 
 Confederate rations, 350, 367, 383, 
 396. 
 
 Confederate States, 86, 94. 
 
 Confederates, large capture of, 335. 
 
 Cooper, General Samuel, 59 ; pro- 
 moted, 133, 134. 
 
 Corbin, Letitia, mentioned, 5. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, 136. 
 
 Cortez, Hernando, 31, 45. 
 
 Couch, General, 206, 218, 229, 243, 
 244 ; succeeds Hooker, 254. 
 
 Cox, General Jacob D., 116. 
 
 Crampton's Gap, 205, 206. 
 
 Cregy, the battle of, 420. 
 
 Creole, a favorite horse, 34. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 34, 56. 
 
 Crook, General, mentioned, 340, 350, 
 
 373- 
 
 Culpeper Court House, 140, 179, 220. 
 
 Gulp's Hill, 274, 277, 284, 299. 
 
 Cumberland Sound, Ga., 14, 15. 
 
 Gushing, Lieutenant A. H., at Get- 
 tysburg, 296, 
 
 Custer's cavalry division, 373. 
 
 Custis, George Washington Parke, 
 mentioned, 25, 65, 84 ; death of, 
 71 ; his will, 237. 
 
 Custis, John Parke, 71. 
 
 Custis, Mrs. G. W. P., death of, 51. 
 
 Custis, Mary A. R,, 25, 26. 
 
 Dahlgren, Colonel Ulric, death of, 
 
 324- 
 Davis, Colonel B. F., mentioned, 203. 
 Davis, Jefferson, mentioned, 52, 53, 
 
 54, 62, 95, 96, 108, 134, 149, 260; 
 
 letter to Lee, 310 ; his cabinet, 324 ; 
 
 mentioned, 369 ; at church, 379, 
 
 384 ; indicted, 400 ; comments on 
 
 Lee, 418. 
 Dearing, General, killed, 384. 
 Deep Bottom, on the James, 350. 
 D'Erlon's First Corps, 421, 422. 
 Devil's Den, Gettysburg, 274, 2S5. 
 Devin, General Thomas C, 373. 
 Dinwiddle Court House, 376. 
 Disaster at Five Forks, 376. 
 Dix, General John A., 109, 172. 
 Doubleday, General, 209, 227. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 427 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 83. 
 Drewry's Blurf on the James, 350. 
 Dungeness, Cumberland Island, 14, 
 
 15, 410. 
 Dutch Gap Canal, 361. 
 
 Early, General Jubal, notice of, 47 ; 
 mentioned, 228, 266, 276 ; defeats 
 Wallace, 351 ; in front of Wash- 
 ington, 351. 
 
 Elliott's infantry brigade, 355 ; 
 wounded at Petersburg, 358. 
 
 Embargo Act, the, 81. 
 
 Emory, General W^illiam H., 54, 352. 
 
 Evans, Captain, mentioned, 235. 
 
 Evelington Heights, 166. 
 
 Everett, Washington, 84. 
 
 Ewell, General Richard S., notice of, 
 47; mentioned, 109, 137, 143, 177, 
 1 88, 190 ; his character, 259 ; men- 
 tioned, 263, 265, 277, 299 ; in com- 
 mand of Richmond, 381 ; captured, 
 385. 
 
 Fairfax Court House, 195, 
 Fair Oaks, battle of, 146, 148. 
 Falling Waters, 303, 304, 306. 
 Ferrero, General, mentioned, 359. 
 Field, Charles, mentioned, 54. 
 Fitzhugh, Major, mentioned, 182. 
 Floyd, John B., 113, 11 7-1 19, 123, 
 
 125, 134. 
 
 Fort Brovi^n, Texas, 65, 66. 
 
 Fort Donelson taken by Grant, 131. 
 
 Fort Fisher, fall of, 368. 
 
 Fort Hamilton, 30. 
 
 Fort Henry captured, 131. 
 
 Fort Monroe, 75, 135, 137, 308. 
 
 Fort Moultrie, 87. 
 
 Fort Sumter, 86, 87, loi. 
 
 Fourth United States Infantry, 327. 
 
 Foy, General, quoted, 56. 
 
 Forrest, General N. B., 24. 
 
 Franklin, General William B., men- 
 tioned, 138, 140, 194, 196, 206, 226, 
 228. 
 
 Fredericksburg, battle of, 222. 
 
 Fremont, General John C., 143, 179. 
 
 French, General, mentioned, 230. 
 
 Fry, Colonel D. B., at Fredericks- 
 burg, 296. 
 
 Gaines Mill, battle of. 145, 169. 
 Garland, General, killed, 207. 
 Garnett, General, mentioned, 207, 
 
 294, 296 ; killed at Gett-sburg, 294. 
 Garnett, Robert S., mentioned, 102, 
 
 113. 
 General Orders No. t, Lee's, 368. 
 
 ( George i mentioned, 79. 
 Germania Ford, 243. 
 Gettysburg, battle of, 142, 270 ; losses 
 
 in, 302. 
 Gettysburg and Vicksburg, 309 ; re- 
 moval of dead, 409 ; compared with 
 Waterloo, 421. 
 Gibbons, General, 244. 
 Gloucester Point, Va., 136. 
 ; Gooch, Sir William, mentioned, 5. 
 , Gordon, General James B., 337. 
 j Gordon, General John B. , mentioned, 
 
 ! 241, 336, 371, 387. 
 
 Gorgas, General, 99, no, 
 
 Gosport na\y yard, 139. 
 
 Grace Church, Lexington, Va., 411. 
 
 Grace Darling, Lee's horse, 181. 
 
 Graham, William, mentioned, 405. 
 
 Grant, L'lysses S., mentioned, 46, 
 48 ; character, 326 ; crosses the 
 Rapidan, 328 ; in the Wilderness, 
 332 ; dispatch to Halleck, 336 ; 
 crosses the Pamunkey, 340 ; at Cold 
 Harbor, 341, 342; attacks Peters- 
 burg, 346 ; at City Point, 349 ; or- 
 ders assault, 377 ; enters Peters- 
 burg, 382 ; proposes surrender, 
 388 ; sends second letter, 389 ; his 
 third note, 391 ; final note to Lee, 
 392 ; receives Lee's surrender, 393 ; 
 conditions, 394 ; liberal terms, 395 ; 
 generosity at Appomattox, 398 ; in- 
 terferes in behalf of Lee, 401. 
 
 Grape Vine Bridge, 162. 
 
 Gray, General William, 10. 
 
 Greene, General Nathanael, 10, 14, 
 15, 16, 410. 
 
 Gregg, General, killed at Fredericks- 
 burg. 233. 
 
 Gregg's cavalry division, 270, 284, 
 298, 315, 343 ; captured, 386. 
 
 Griffin's division in the Wilderness, 
 329- 
 
 Halleck, General William H., 
 tioned, 175, 179, iSo, 194, 105 
 200, 202, 216, 218, 219, 220, 
 262, 268, 305, 306. 
 
 Hamilton's Crossing, 226, 227. 
 
 Hampton, General Wade, 
 tioned, iSi, 183, 205, 219, 2^4, 
 wounded at Gettysburg. 298 ; 
 fronts Sheridan. 344. 
 
 Hampton Roads, Va., 27. 
 
 Hancock, General Winfield S. 
 tice of, 47 ; mentioned, 230, 
 2S1, 3:;4, 330. 347, 36'>. 
 
 Hanover Court House, 153, 
 305- 
 
 men- 
 239. 
 
 men- 
 241; 
 con- 
 
 , no- 
 
 272, 
 
428 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Hardee, General James, mentioned, 
 
 269. 
 Hardee, General William J., 54, 58, 
 
 59, 369- 
 Harold at Hastings, 278. 
 Harper's Ferry, 74, 75, 76, 103, 202, 
 
 203, 220, 303. 
 Harrison, Benjamin, the signer, 10. 
 Harrison's Landing, Va., 170. 
 Harvie's, Lewis, statement, 3S3. 
 Haskell, Lieutenant-Colonel John, 
 
 358. 
 Hatcher's Run, Va., 376. 
 Havelock, Sir Henry, 422. 
 Havens, Benny, of West Point, 
 
 222. 
 Haxall's plantation, Va., 170. 
 Heintzelman, General, mentioned, 
 
 140, 145, 186. 
 Henry, Patrick, 10. 
 Heth's division, 270. 
 Hickory Hill, Va., 305. 
 Hill, General AmlDrose P., notice of, 
 
 47 ; mentioned, 104, 253, 260 ; 
 
 killed, 378 ; described, 378. 
 Hill, Benjamin, tribute to Lee, 418. 
 Hill, General D. H., notice of, 47; 
 
 mentioned, 140, 148, 172, 203, 205, 
 
 208. 
 Hilton Head, 130. 
 Hoke's brigade, 339. 
 Holmes, General, loi, 133, 135, 160, 
 Hood, General John B., 54, 203; at 
 
 Gettysburg, 279, 280. 
 Hooker, General Joseph, notice of, 
 
 47, 48 ; mentioned, 188, 195, 205 ; 
 
 succeeds Burnside, 234 ; mentioned, 
 
 240, 242, 243, 244 ; wounded at 
 
 Chancellorsville, 254 ; Order No. 
 
 49, 257 ; mentioned, 262, 263, 264 ; 
 
 relieved, 268 ; sent to the South- 
 west, 314. 
 Hope, Beresford, A. B., 417. 
 Hope, Lady Mildred, 417. 
 Hougoumont, Chateau of, 420, 421. 
 Houston, General Sam, 53. 
 Howard, General Oliver O., men- 
 tioned, 229, 272, 284. 
 Huger, General Benjamin, lOi. 
 Humphreys, General, mentioned, 
 
 218, 230, 389. 
 Hunt, General Henry J,, 290. 
 Hunter, General David, mentioned, 
 
 341, 351, 405. 
 Hunter, R. M. T., mentioned, 52. 
 
 Imboden, General, at Gettysburg, 
 
 300. 
 Invasion of Virginia, 99. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, mentioned, 17 ; 
 toast to, 222. 
 
 Jackson, General Thomas J., notice 
 of, 47 ; mentioned, 133, 135, 137, 
 140, 141, 144, 153, 155, 157, 165, 
 177, 181, 186, 187, 190, 191, 201, 
 209, 211, 224, 228, 232, 245, 246; 
 his last note, 249 ; last words, 252 ; 
 death at Chancellorsville, 252 ; last 
 order, 252. 
 
 Jackson, General H. R., 118, 123. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 6, 10, 32. 
 
 Jenkins's cavalrj' brigade, 263, 265 ; 
 at Gettysburg, 297. 
 
 Jesup, General Thomas S., 134. 
 
 Johnson, General Bushrod, men- 
 tioned, 347. 
 
 Johnson, General Edward, 116, 143; 
 captured, 335. 
 
 Johnson, Marmaduke, 90. 
 
 Johnson, Reverdy, mentioned, 85 ; 
 offers to defend Lee, 401. 
 
 Johnston, Colonel S., mentioned, 
 300. 
 
 Johnston, General Albert Sidney, 
 notice of, 47 ; mentioned, 54, 102, 
 
 133, 134- 
 
 Johnston, General Joseph E., men- 
 tioned, 9, 38, 47, 48, 54, loi, 104, 
 no. III, 116, 132, 133, 134, 136, 
 137, 138, 139, 140, 146, 147, 148; 
 promoted, 133 ; wounded, 149 ; 
 praised, 369 ; to oppose Sherman, 
 372 ; letter to Mrs. Lee, 416. 
 
 Johnston, Peter, mentioned, 9. 
 
 Jones, General J. R., wounded, 212- 
 214. 
 
 Jones, General W. E., mentioned, 
 219, 224, 241. 
 
 Kautz's cavalry expedition, 364. 
 Kearnev, General Philip, 34, 196. 
 Kelly's Ford, 187. 
 Kelton, General, 197. 
 Keith, Rev. John, 26. 
 Kemper, General, wounded at Get- 
 tysburg, 296. 
 Kershaw's division in the Valley, 
 
 353- 
 Kershaw, General, captured, 385. 
 Keyes, General E. D., 140, 145. 
 Kilpatrick's cavalry, 266, 270, 315 ; 
 
 raid on Richmond, 323. 
 King's division, 191, 192, 193. 
 Kossuth, General Louis, 423. 
 
 Lacy House, 229. 
 
 Lacy, Rev. Dr. B. T., 246. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 429 
 
 Lafayette, Marquis, 10. 
 
 La Haye, Sainte, 420. 
 
 Last cavalry engagement, 393. 
 
 Latane, Captain, killed, 153. 
 
 Lawton, General, 130. 
 
 League of Gileadites, 75. 
 
 Ledlie, General, 357, 35S, 359. 
 
 Lee, Algernon Sydney, 17, 
 
 Lee, Anne Hill, 20. 
 
 Lee, Annie, mentioned, 217, 235. 
 
 Lee, Cassius F., 29, 30. 
 
 Lee, Charles Carter, 13, 17. 
 
 Lee, Charles, 7. 
 
 Lee, Edmund L, 416. 
 
 Lee, Francis Lightfoot, 6. 
 
 Lee genealog}', 21. 
 
 Lee, General Fitzhugh, mentioned, 
 172, 183, 187, 188, 194, 206, 219, 
 318, 371, 375, 376, 385, 387 ; let- 
 ter to, 408. 
 
 Lee, General George Washington 
 Custis, mentioned, 23, 71, 72, 94, 
 95, 330, 380, 401 ; captured, 3S5. 
 
 Lee, General Henry, " Light-Horse 
 Harry," mentioned, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 
 II, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 80; his 
 grave, 410. 
 
 LEE, General ROBERT E., birth, 
 20; ancestry and education; 21; 
 at Military Academy, 23 ; enters 
 army, 24 ; marriage, 25 ; at Hamp- 
 ton Roads, 27 ; happy life, 28 ; 
 letters, 29, 30 ; stationed at Fort 
 Hamilton, 30 ; promotion, 31 ; 
 joins Scott's staff, 33 ; Lee's 
 horses, 34 ; at Vera Cruz, 36 ; 
 battle of Cerro Gordo, 38 ; his 
 gallantry, 42 ; brevetted, 42 ; let- 
 ters, 44, 45 ; Lee's comrades, 47, 
 48 ; returns to Virginia, 49 ; Su- 
 perintendent United States Mili- 
 tary Academy, 51 ; becomes Lieu- 
 tenant Colonel, Second Cavalry, 54; 
 his qualifications, 56 ; court-mar- 
 tial duty, 57 ; in Texas, 59 ; at 
 Ringgold Barracks, 61 ; Christmas 
 at Fort Brown, 63, 64 ; letters to 
 Mrs. Lee, 66 ; president of a court- 
 martial, 69 ; returns to Virginia, 
 70 ; in command of regiment, 70 ; 
 visits Comanche chief, 73 ; ap- 
 pointed executor, 74 ; leave of ab- 
 sence, 74 ; John Brown raid, 74- 
 76 ; return to Texas, 77 ; sum- 
 moned to Washington, 77 ; notice 
 of Lee, 78-87 ; resigns his com- 
 mission, SS ; farewell to Arlington, 
 89 ; appointed major-general, 89 ; 
 addresses Virginia Convention, 92 ; 
 
 assumes command, 93 ; prepara- 
 tions for war, 99 ; working inces- 
 santly, 108 ; goes to Western Vir- 
 gina, 116 ; commands the armies, 
 117; unsuccessful operations, 120, 
 121 ; campaign closed, 125 ; pro- 
 ceeds to South CaroHna, 128 ; im- 
 proves defenses of Charleston, 130 ; 
 made commander-in-chief, 132 ; 
 appointed full general, 133 ; dis- 
 approves of Johnston's plans, 138 ; 
 assumes command of the army, 
 150 ; sends Stuart on a raid, 153 ; 
 issues orders, 154, 155 ; Jackson 
 ordered to join Lee, 156 ; battle 
 order, 158 ; gains a success, 162 ; 
 Malvern Hill, 163 ; seven days' bat- 
 tle, 164 ; exhibits military ability, 
 172; defeats Pope, 196; battle of 
 Antietam, 212-215 ; victory of 
 Fredericksburg, 226-229 ? home- 
 sickness, 234 ; favorite hen eaten, 
 234 ; emancipates slaves, 237 ; bat- 
 tle of Chancellorsville, 248 ; fear- 
 lessness, 261 ; Gettysburg cam- 
 paign, 270-298 ; retreat of Lee's 
 army, 300 ; crosses Potomac, 307 ; 
 comments on the campaign, 308, 
 309 ; offers to resign, 310 ; de- 
 scribed by an Enghsh officer, 312 ; 
 presented with a house, 319 ; visits 
 Richmond, 324 ; battles of the 
 Wilderness, 328-345 ; siege of Pe- 
 tersburg, 346-378 ; evacuation of 
 Richmond, 379-394 ; surrender at 
 Appomattox, 395 ; takes leave of 
 his army, 396 ; signs parole, 399 ; 
 returns to Richmond, 400 ; accepts 
 presidency of Washington College, 
 404, 405 ; inaugurated, 406 ; goes 
 South, 410 ; visits his father's grave, 
 410; failing health, 411; sickness 
 and death, 412 ; public funeral, 
 414 ; equestrian statue in Rich- 
 mond, 415 ; marble statue in Lex- 
 ington, 416 ; tributes to his mem- 
 ory, 416-418 ; his military charac- 
 ter, 420 ; a great soldier, 422. 
 Lee, General William H. F., men- 
 tioned, 29, 118, 121, 122, 261 ; 
 captured, 305 ; mentioned, 321, 
 
 371- 
 Lee, John, mentioned, 5. 
 Lee, Lancelot, mentioned, 2. 
 Lee, Lionel, mentioned, 2. 
 Lee, Mary Custis, mentioned, 25, 26, 
 
 71, 106, 381, 411, 412. 
 Lee, PhiHp, 5. 
 Lee, Philip Ludwell, 5, 16. 
 
430 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Lee, Richard, 2, 3, 4, 5. 
 
 Lee, Richard Henry, 6, 8, 83. 
 
 Lee, Robert, mentioned, 93, ic8, 132, 
 
 2 3 7. 323- 
 
 Lee, Stephen D., mentioned, 194. 
 
 Lee, Sydney Smith, mentioned, 36, 
 37, 45, 76, 89, 139. 
 
 Lee, Thomas, mentioned, 5, 6. 
 
 Lees of Virginia, 2. 
 
 Letcher, Governor John, mentioned, 
 go, loi, 126, 318. 
 
 Liberty Hall Academy, 405. 
 
 Ligny, battle of, 424. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, elected President, 
 83 ; mentioned, 96, 103, 136, 137, 
 157, 166, 169, 170, 175, 176, 177, 
 197, 207, 218, 219, 221 ; warning 
 to Hooker, 24c ; mentioned, 243, 
 262, 264 ; Grant and Lincoln meet, 
 382 ; Lincoln in Richmond, 382 ; 
 assassination of, 400. 
 
 Little Napoleon — McClellan, 214. 
 
 Little Round Top — Gettysburg, 274, 
 280, 282, 283. 
 
 Logan, General John A., mentioned, 
 24. 
 
 Lomax, General L. L., in the Valley, 
 
 370- 
 
 Long, General, mentioned, 28, 276. 
 
 Longstreet, General James, notice of, 
 47 ; mentioned, 138, 139, 148, 158, 
 165, 180, 181, 190, 191, 192, 193, 
 
 203, 205, 208, 220, 222, 226, 260, 
 262, 264, 265, 275, 276, 277, 278, 
 279, 283, 2S4, 294 ; sent to the South- 
 west, 313 ; wounded in the Wilder- 
 ness, 331 ; return to duty, 365 ; 
 joins General Lee, pursued, 387. 
 
 Loring, General, mentioned, 116, 
 
 118. 
 Loudoun Heights, Va., 202. 
 Louisa Court House, 177. 
 Ludwell, Hannah, mentioned, 6. 
 
 ]\Iackenzie, General Ronalds, 373. 
 
 Macomb, Captain, 28. 
 
 Madison, James, 2, 10, 11. 
 
 Magruder, John Bankhead, notice 
 of, 47 ; mentioned, loi, 136, 137, 
 138, 151. 
 
 Mahone's brigade in the Wilderness, 
 331 ; at Petersburg, 3C0. 
 
 McClellan, General George B,, notice 
 of, 46 ; skillful retreat, 164, 166, 
 168 ; removed, 218 ; shortcomings, 
 221, 222; mentioned, 71, 104, 114, 
 132, J34, 138, 141, 144, 148, 156, 
 171, 173, 177, 181, 195, 198, 200, 
 
 204, 206, 209, 214. 
 
 McDowell, General Irvin, notice of, 
 106, 108 ; mentioned, 137, 140, 
 144, 156, 177, 189, 192, 197. 
 
 McLaws, General, at Gettysburg, 
 279, 280 ; mentioned, 198, 202, 
 204, 206, 209, 254. 
 
 McLean, Wilmer, of Appomattox, 
 
 393- 
 Mcpherson Heights, 271. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 171, 288. 
 Malvern Hill, battle of, 163, 165, 173. 
 Manassas, second battle of, j86. 
 Mangold, Captain of German army, 
 
 301. 
 Mansfield, General, killed at Antie- 
 
 tam, 213. 
 Marye's Hill, 230, 231, 
 Maryland Heights, 104, 203, 2c6, 213. 
 Marshall, Colonel Charles, of Lee's 
 
 staff, 393. 
 Marshall, John, 10. 
 Marshall, William, 19. 
 Mason, Captain, 39. 
 Matamoras, city of, 63. 
 Mattapony River, 338. 
 Matthews, John, 9. 
 Maxey, General, killed at Fredericks- 
 burg, 233. 
 Mayflower, slaves on, 83. 
 Meade, Bishop, 95. 
 Meade, General George G., succeeds 
 
 Hooker, 269; his character, 269; 
 
 statement by, 299 ; censured, 306 ; 
 
 mentioned, 227, 228, 277, 278, 283, 
 
 302, 304. 
 Meagher's Irish brigade, 231. 
 Meigs, General, 107. 
 Merrimac frigate, 138. 
 Merritt, General Wesley, mentioned, 
 
 333, 373- 
 Mexican Republic, 31. 
 Mexican treaty, 40. 
 Miles, Colonel, 203. 
 Milroy, General, mentioned, 143, 262, 
 
 263, 264. 
 Minnigerode, Rev. Dr., 379. 
 Mitchell, Private W. B., 204, 
 Moltke, Field-Marshal, 261, 423. 
 Molino del Rey, 41. 
 Monocacy, battle of, 351, 
 Mont St. Jean, Waterloo, 421. 
 Monroe, James, i. 
 Montezuma's gifts, 31. 
 Moore, Anne, 20. 
 Morales, General, 35. 
 Mosby, Colonel John, 183. 
 Mount Vernon, Ala., 99. 
 Mount Vernon plate, 94. 
 I Mount Vernon, Va., 71. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 Napier, General, quoted, 148. 
 Napoleon at Austerlitz, 247 ; at 
 Waterloo, 27S, 421 ; mentioned, 
 
 13- 17- 
 
 Ne^ro division at Petersburg, 356. 
 
 New England States, 82. 
 
 Newton, General John, at Gettys- 
 burg, 2S6 ; mentioned, 362. 
 
 Ney, Field-Marshal, 424. 
 
 Nineteenth Corps, the, 352. 
 
 Gates, Colonel, 2S2. 
 On-to-Richmond movement, 327. 
 Orange Court House, Va., 182, 183, 
 
 222, 320, 32S. 
 Ordinance of Secession, 87. 
 Ordnance Department, the, 350. 
 Ord's Eighteenth Corps, 359, 3S7, 
 Ould, Judge Robert, 76, 419, 
 
 Palo Alto, battle of, 32. 
 Paris, Count of, quoted, 53. 
 Patterson, General Robert, 38, 46, 
 
 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 269. 
 Paxton, General, killed at Chancel- 
 
 lorsville, 257. 
 Payne, General W. H., 375. 
 Peace Conference, 86, 
 Peck, General, 243. 
 Pegram, General John, 114, 115, 
 
 Pelham, Major John, killed, 242. 
 Pender's North Carolina brigade, 
 
 252. 
 Pendleton, Edmund, 8o. 
 Pendleton, General W. N., 260, 276, 
 
 302, 293, 414. 
 Perote, castle of, 40. 
 Perry, Colonel Herman H., 390. 
 Perry, Commodore Matthew C., 18. 
 Petersburg battery, 358. 
 Petersburg nearly lost, 348 ; mine 
 
 exploded, 357 ; evacuated, 379. 
 Pettigrew, General, 270 ; killed, 307. 
 Pickett, General, 225 ; mentioned, 
 
 283 ; charge at Gettysburg, 294 ; 
 
 defeated, 296 ; mentioned, 376, 
 
 421, 422. 
 Pierce, Franklin, 96. 
 Pillow, General Gideon J., 38, 47. 
 Pipe Creek, Pa., 273. 
 Pleasonton, General, 210, 254, 263. 
 PI; mouth Rock, S3. 
 Polk, James K., 32. 
 Pope, General John, T73, 177, 180, 
 
 184, 1S6, 191, 193. 
 Pope's Creek Church, 6, 48. 
 Porter, General Fitz John, 103, 140, 
 Porter, Major Giles, 61. 
 
 Porteus, Bishop, 7. 
 Pottawattamies, massacre of, 75. 
 Powers Hill, Gettysburg, 290. 
 Prince Edward Court House, 387. 
 145, 161, 1S2, 186, 189, 193, 197. 
 Prince Rupert, 152. 
 
 Quantico Creek, 133. 
 Quatre Bras, battle of, 424. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 242. 
 
 Ramseur, General, mortally wound- 
 ed, 353. 
 
 Randolph, Edmund, 10 ; grand- 
 daughter, 402. 
 
 Randolph, George W., 156. 
 
 Rappahannock River, 14. 
 
 Reed, General Theodore, killed, 384. 
 
 Reno, General, 205 ; killed, 207. 
 
 Reynolds, General, mentioned, 118, 
 119, 127, 186, 190, 192, 226, 227, 
 247, 270 ; killed at Gettysburg, 
 272. 
 
 Rice Station, battle of, 384. 
 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, 2. 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 65. 
 
 Richmond, the race for, 333 ; Pe- 
 tersburg and Richmond lines aban- 
 doned, 379 ; occupied by United 
 States troops, 381 ; evacuated, 381. 
 
 Ricketts, General, mentioned, 190, 
 192. 
 
 Ringgold Barracks, 61, 62. 
 
 Ripley, General, 130. 
 
 Robertson, General Beverley, 184, 
 187, 285. 
 
 Rockbridge Artillery, 323. 
 
 Rodes, General, 249-2^2. 
 
 Rosecrans, General William S., 115, 
 127, 122, 123, 119. 
 
 Rosser's cavalry brigade, 353, 3S4, 
 
 371- 
 Round Top, 282. 
 Russell's division, 318, 319. 
 Rust, Colonel Albert, 119, 120, 121. 
 
 Sanders, General, killed, 363. 
 Sanford, General Charles, 105. 
 Santa Anna, General, 31, 32, 38. 
 San Jacinto, battle of, 31. 
 Schenck, General, mentioned, 143. 
 Schofield, General John M., joins 
 
 Sherman, 372. 
 Scott, General Winfield, mentioned, 
 
 19. 33? 4O) 44) 4^ ; notice of, 48 ; 
 
 mentioned, 52, 54, 85, loi, 103, 
 
 105, 176; autobiography, 374; 
 
 mentioned, 423. 
 Seceding States, the, 84. 
 
432 
 
 GENERAL LEE. 
 
 Second United States Cavalry, 54, 
 56, 58. 
 
 Seddon's dispatch from Lee, 368. 
 
 Sedgwick, General John, mentioned, 
 212, 213, 244, 247 ; at Chancellors- 
 ville, 255, 256 ; mentioned, 318, 
 319 ; killed in the Wilderness, 334. 
 
 Seminary Ridge, Gettysburg, 275, 
 276, 291. 
 
 Seminole War, the, 32. 
 
 Seven days' battle, 201. 
 
 Seven Pines, battle of, 151. 
 
 Seventh United States Infantry, 32. 
 
 Sharpsburg, the battle of, 208. 
 
 Shaw, Mrs. James, mentioned, 14. 
 
 Sheridan, General Philip H., notice 
 of, 327; cavalry raid, 343; sent to 
 the Valley, 352 ; victory at Fisher's 
 Hill, 353 ; defeats Early, 353 ; at 
 Five Forks, 377 ; at Titusville, 383. 
 
 Sherman, Senator John, 103. 
 
 Sherman, General William T., at 
 Savannah, 368 ; marching North, 
 370 ; at Goldsborough, 372 ; advice 
 about Lee, 374. 
 
 Shields, General James, 39, 52, 144. 
 
 Shippen, Dr. William, 8. 
 
 Shirley on the James, 16, 20. 
 
 Shropshire Lees, 2, 3. 
 
 Sibley Tent, the, 72. 
 
 Sickles, General D. E., 244, 248, 
 273, 281. 
 
 Sigel, General, 179, 190, 192, 341. 
 
 Slavery abolished, 219. 
 
 Slocum, General Henry W., 187, 248, 
 290. 
 
 Smith, General Gustavus W,, 138, 
 139, 147, 148, 181. 
 
 Smith, General Purcifor F., men- 
 tioned, 41 ; noticed, 46, 47. 
 
 Smith, General William F., 227, 
 266, 341, 342, 346, 347. 
 
 Solferino flag, the, 327. 
 
 Sorrel General, mentioned, 390. 
 
 Southern cavalry, 154. 
 
 Spot ts wood, Alexander, 21. 
 
 Spottsylvania Court House, 259, 333. 
 
 Stafford Heights, 225. 
 
 Stanard's Vermont troops, 294. 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., mentioned, 167, 
 221, 242, 268. 
 
 Starke, General, killed, 212. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., 90. 
 
 Stevens, General, mentioned, 196. 
 
 Stevens, Mrs. Martha, 232. 
 
 Stewart, John, of Brook Hill, Va., 
 401. 
 
 St. John, General J. M., 383. 
 
 St. Lambart Heights, 422. 
 
 St. Paul, toast to, 222. 
 
 St. Paul's Church, Richmond, 379. 
 
 Stoneman, General, 163, 242, 243 ; 
 at Knoxville, 370. 
 
 Stonewall brigade, 324, 325. 
 
 Stratford, estate of, 5, 6, 16. 
 
 Stuart, General J. E. B., mentioned, 
 54, 76, 163, 165, 182, 184, 187, 193, 
 205, 215, 222, 228, 244, 253, 254, 
 262, 263, 265, 285, 315 ; notice of, 
 152 ; Pennsylvania raid, 220 ; at 
 Gettysburg, 298, 299 ; killed at 
 Yellow Tavern, 337 ; described, 
 
 337- 
 
 Stuart, the house of, 3. 
 
 Sumner, General Edwin V., men- 
 tioned, 54, 57, 140, 147, 194, 222, 
 223, 226, 229, 
 
 Suwanee University, Tennessee, 404. 
 
 Sword of General Lee, 394. 
 
 Sykes, General, mentioned, 283. 
 
 Tabernacle Church, 246. 
 Taliaferro, General, 76, 186, 190, 191- 
 
 228. 
 Taney, Chief Justice, 82, 
 Tayloe, Colonel G. E., 390. 
 Taylor, Colonel, W. H., 150, 166, 
 
 126, 271, 301. 
 Taylor, Zachary, 32, 33, 54. 
 Terry, General, 24. 
 Texan troops in the Wilderness, 
 
 331. 
 Thomas, General George H., notice 
 
 of, 47 ; mentioned, 61, 62, 58, 60, 
 
 103. 
 Thomas, G. H., Mrs., mentioned, 
 
 67.69. 
 Thomas, General Lorenzo, 115. 
 Thoroughfare Gap, 189, 190, 192, 
 
 193- 
 
 Todd's Tavern, Va., 244. 
 
 Toombs, General Robert, 213, 214. 
 
 Torbert's cavalry division, 343. 
 
 Totopatomoy Creek, 158. 
 
 Traveler, Lee's favorite horse, 210, 
 I 312, 4o5. 
 I Trevilian's, cavalry fight at, 344. 
 
 Trimble, General, at Gettysburg, 287. 
 
 Trist, Nicholas P., commissioner, 46. 
 
 Tucker's, Commodore, naval bat- 
 talion, 381. 
 
 Tunstall's Station, Va., 154. 
 
 Turenne, Field-Marshal, 13, 423. 
 
 Turner's Gap, Va., 205, 206. 
 
 Twiggs, General David E., 38, 40. 
 
 United States Ford, 245, 
 Upton's brigade, 319. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 Valley of Virginia, 104, 107. 
 Van Buren, Martin, 32. 
 Van Doin, General, 133. 
 Venable, Colonel, 277. 
 Vendome, Marshal, defeated, 288. 
 Vera Cruz, siege of, 33, 35, 36, 37. 
 Verdiersville, 330. 
 Vidaun, General, 62. 
 Vicksburg, surrender of, 305. 
 Vincent, General, Idlled at Gettys- 
 burg, 302. 
 Virginia Convention, 87. 
 Virginia Military Institute, 414. 
 Virginians and Georgians, 336. 
 Volunteer officers, 24. 
 
 Wadsworth, General, mentioned, 
 
 137, 277, 271. 
 Walker, General R. L., 202, 290, 
 
 293- 
 Wallace and Bruce, 423. 
 Walton, Colonel, 227. 
 Warren, General Gouverneur K., at 
 
 Gettysburg, 283 ; mentioned, 316- 
 
 339- 
 Washington Artillery, 214, 227, 230, 
 
 233 ; at Gettysburg, 250. 
 Washington, Augustine, mentioned, 
 
 I. 
 Washington, Colonel John A., 116, 
 
 117, 121, 122. 
 Washington College, 403, 406, 407. 
 Washington, General George, men- 
 tioned, I, 6, II, 169, 415. 
 Washington, Lawrence, i, 10, 11, 
 
 13, 26, 71, 80, 137. 
 Washington and Lee University, 
 
 281, 413. 
 Washington, Mrs. Mary, 26. 
 Waterloo, battle of, 13. 
 Waterloo Bridge, 182, 184, 186. 
 Wellington, Duke of, mentioned, 
 
 171, 228, 247, 278; at Waterloo, 
 
 343. 420. 
 Webb's brigade at Gettysburg, 295. 
 Webster, Daniel, McClellan's horse, 
 
 Weed, General, killed at Gettysburg, 
 302. 
 
 Weiseger, General, at Petersburg, 
 360. 
 
 Weitzel, General, commands Eight- 
 eenth Corps, 365. 
 
 Western armies, success of, 347. 
 
 Westmoreland County, 146. 
 
 Westover estate, Virginia, 164. 
 
 West Point graduates, 24. 
 
 Whisky Insurrection, 10. 
 
 White House, 164, 167, 
 
 White Oak Swamp, 153, 162. 
 
 White, Professor, 281. 
 
 White, William, of Lexingfton, 406. 
 
 Whiting, General W. H. C, 155. 
 
 Whittier, Colonel, of Humphreys's 
 staff, 391. 
 
 Wickham family, the, 305. 
 
 Wigfall, Senator, of Texas, 332, 
 
 Wilcox's brigade at Gettysburg, 
 279-297. 
 
 ^^'ildemess, battles of the, 329. 
 
 Wilderness tavern, 247, 329. 
 
 William and Mary College, 33. 
 
 William the Conqueror, 2, 141, 278. 
 
 Williams, General Seth, 262, 389, 
 
 390- 
 Windsor Forest estate, 18. 
 Windsor, General Charles, 180. 
 Wirtz, Captain, trial of, 407, 
 Wise, General Henry A., 76, no, 
 
 113, 117, 118, 119, 123, 347. 
 Withers, John, 150. 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, mentioned, 65. 
 Wool, General John E., 34, 35. 
 Worth, General Wilham J., 40. 
 Wright, General H. G., succeeds 
 
 Sedgwick, 334. 
 
 Yellow Tavern, battle of, 337. 
 Yorktown, 136. 
 Young Napoleon, 114. 
 
 Ziegler's Grove at Gettysburg, 296. 
 Zook, General, killed at Gettysburg, 
 302. 
 
 THE END . 
 
^<; 
 
 V 
 
 V