CHAPTER XI ROBERT E. LEE I DID not serve under General Lee, and am glad I did not; but may I venture to write a chapter on General Lee also? It may be dangerous business, but has not the time come to marshal the facts and try to arrive at some just estimate of General Lee also? It has become the fashion to place General Lee on a pedestal, and worship him afar off at the expense of our Union generals, particularly of General Grant-as vide General Lord Wolseley and others. But let us take the scales of history, and see how they balance. I will at least try to hold them level, whichever "kicks the beam." I beg pardon of his Confederate friends in advance, if I seem to be unfair. But really I do not mean to be so, if I can help it. Of course, Secession was a sophism, and the Southern Confederacy from the first a thing doomed. It was an anachronism in the nineteenth century-a pirate ship still afloat, but sure to sink or be sunk in due time. How could they expect a government to succeed or endure, "whose corner stone was slavery," as its Vice President Stephens himself boasted? Every American of real clearheadedness, I submit, saw this from the beginning, and why a man of Robert E. Lee's conceded caliber did not, or could not, or would not see it (as his brother Virginian, George H. Thomas, readily did) is one of the puzzles of human nature. But without discussing the right or wrong of General Lee's conduct in joining the Southern Confederacy, of which much might be said; for he owed his education, his career, and his allegiance to the United States -he had so sworn; or his responsibility, direct or indirect, for the horrors of Libby and Andersonville, which he certainly knew all about and could have stopped, had he so chosen; or the moral character of the Rebellion, about which, I suppose, men will long differ-let us, notwithstanding, now proceed to weigh and measure him as a military commander alone. Lee's first independent command, it will be recollected, was in West Virginia early in 1861; and it will not be denied that even Rosecrans was enough for him then and there. Next he succeeded to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia at Fair Oaks in June, 1862, after Joseph E. Johnston was wounded on the first day there; and it must be admitted, that the second day at Fair Oaks was not a Confederate success. Then came the "Seven Days' Battle," so called, with McClellan; and though his great lieutenants, Jackson and Longstreet, fought superbly, yet General Lee failed to detect or divine our "change of base" to the James, but sent Jackson off on a wild goose chase toward the White House, at right angles to our line of retreat, when he ought to have been hammering hard at our affrighted rear-no, not "affrighted," but stunned and bleeding rear. The Army of the Potomac never became affrighted; in its personnel it was incapable of fear. At Malvern Hill he put in his troops "by piecemeal,” and was bloodily repulsed, as he deserved, and only his good luck saved Richmond then from dangerous attack, had not McClellan lost his head. Of course, I admit General Lee was too much for our "Little Mac," as a rule; but does that entitle him to rank as a first-class commander? At second Bull Run, of course, he beat Pope, because Pope never had much head, and it is conceded Porter and Franklin both failed him. But at Antietam, it must be admitted, even McClellan worsted him, or at least persuaded him to fall back into Virginia, from which history will aver he ought never to have moved. At Fredericks burg he certainly made a superb defense, but he had only Burnside against him, and all the advantages of position with him. But when, after the awful slaughter there, we lay beaten-left, right, and center-why did he not give us a counter-thrust, or at least attempt it? Or, more significantly still, why did he allow our defeated and demoralized army there to recross the Rappahannock at night, free and unmolested? Why did he not detect or divine our retrograde movement of despair, and strike us suddenly and furiously, like Thomas struck Hood after Nashville? A wellordered night attack there, while we were crossing the few pontoon bridges, or waiting to cross them, our columns. halting, mixed up, and all crowding to the bridge-heads, with the chances incalculably on his side, might have resulted in a great and unspeakable calamity to us there— probably would have so resulted. At Chancellorsville, it is conceded, he whipped Hooker well. But why did he let Hooker escape so easily?. I don't know how it was down on the left with Sedgwick, for I was not there; but upon our right, our main army, we expected grave trouble in crossing the river again, but were practically unmolested. He had lost Stonewall Jackson, and Longstreet was absent, it is true. But why did he not send "Billy" Mahone, or McLaws, or Anderson to smite us "hip and thigh," while we were crowding over like sheep at United States Ford, and marching thence dispirited, back to our old Stafford camps again? At Gettysburg, it will not now be denied, Lee was well whipped by Meade, and only his good luck and Meade's overprudence saved him from ruin. He certainly “lost his head" somewhat there; and had Meade divined how dazed Lee was by Pickett's awful defeat, he would have ordered a "counter-thrust " immediately, as Lee expected, or, at least, would have hammered and whacked away at his rear so vigorously, as he staggered back to the Poto mac, that he would never have got across it into Virginia again. I think history will declare that Lee's two invasions of both Maryland (1862) and Pennsylvania (1863) were military mistakes, as well as political blunders. Of what possible good could they be to the Southern Confederacy? Did he suppose he (Robert E. Lee) could dictate terms of peace to Abraham Lincoln, even if he penetrated to Philadelphia or New York temporarily? Did he not know, could he not perceive, that the North had only begun to fight, and would never, never permit the American Republic to be divided, least of all on the line of slavery? Both of these invasions, I submit, will seem to history as huge wastes of time and blood and treasure, hard to be excused. They were certainly military failures. Politically they consolidated the North. Clearly they did not help the South, and they cost General Lee thousands upon thousands of gallant men he could never replace. In the Wilderness, and from the Rapidan to the James, it will be admitted he fought magnificently, with bent brows and flashing eyes, like a Roman gladiator. But, it must be remembered, his arena there-also like a Roman gladiator's-was all his own. Like MacGregor, “his foot was on his native heather" there. He was easily familiar with every mile of it. He had just campaigned over it, for three years in succession, against McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, and he knew every wood path, as well as turnpike and crossroad; while to Grant, who had never been there before, it was all a terra incognita. So the inhabitants there were friendly and devoted to him, while to Grant they were savagely hostile. So, also, the country as a whole was horribly wooded—a veritable tangled wilderness of Virginia pines, scrub oaks, underbrush, etc.-so that while Grant, it is true, largely outnumbered Lee, yet numbers counted for but little there, |