Author signature.
Philip Henry Sheridan, Commander-in-chief of the United States Army, and the last and most brilliant of the great generals of the North, was born at Albany, N. Y. March 6, 1831. He had few advantages of early education and training, but in 1848 he obtained a cadetship at West Point. Sheridan's hot blood and impulsive temperament were manifested even in his student days, and a quarrel with a comrade resulted in his suspension for a year. He was consequently unable to graduate in 1852, as he should have done, but in the following year he concluded his studies and was appointed a brevet second lieutenant of infantry. In 1854 he was assigned to the First Infantry in Texas, and the same year he received his commissionas second lieutenant of the Fourth Infantry. With the latter regiment he served during the next six years in Washington Territory and Oregon. In the attack upon the Indians at the Cascades, Washington Territory, in April, 1856, the United States troops landed under fire, and routed and dispersed the enemy at every point. General Scott drew special attention to Sheridan's bravery on this occasion.
Philip Henry Sheridan.
But it was the great Civil War which developed Sheridan's talents, as in the case of many other distinguished officers, and made promotion rapid. The resignation of commanders with Southern sympathies and the creation of new regiments secured Sheridan a first lieutenancy in the Fourth Infantry in March, 1861, and a captaincy in the Thirteenth Infantry in the following May. Yet that memorable year in the history of the United States "brought him little employment and no laurels." After various minor services he was commissioned as colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry on May 25, 1862. He at once engaged with the regiment in Elliot's raid against the railroad, which was destroyed at Booneville. During the month of June he commanded the Second Cavalry Brigade in several skirmishes, and on July 1st gained a brilliant victory at Booneville over a superior cavalry force. His appointment as brigadier-general of volunteers dated from this action. In the autumn of 1862 Sheridan received the command of the Eleventh Division of the Army of the Ohio, under General Buell. Moving out of Louisville with Buell, against Bragg, he took part, on October 8th, in the stoutly contested battle of Perryville, where he manœuvred his division with conspicuous skill and effect, holding the key of the Northern position, and using the point to its utmost advantage.
At the famous battle of Murfreesboro, which was one of the bloodiest and most prolonged of the campaign, Sheridan held the key-point for several hours in the first day's fighting, "displaying superb tactical skill and the greatest gallantry." After repulsing four desperate assaults his ammunition unfortunately gave out. He then ordered a bayonet charge and withdrew his lines from the field; but by his obstinate resistance invaluable time had been gained by his chief, General Rosecrans, to make new dispositions. Sheridan's commission as major-general followed upon these services. From this time little of interest occurred until September 19 and 20, 1863, when Sheridan again distinguished himself at the battle of Chickamauga, rescuing his division from a perilous position. General Thomas was transferred to the command of Rosecrans' besieged army at Chattanooga, and thither General Grant arrived with reinforcements from Vicksburg. Grant was determined to dislodge the Southern commander, Bragg, who was posted on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.Hooker carried Lookout Mountain and Thomas captured the Ridge on November 25th. In the latter operation Sheridan's division was the first to cross the crest, and it pressed the enemy's rear-guard until long after dark, seizing wagons and artillery. By his successful conduct in the West, Sheridan had now thoroughly established his military reputation.
Grant, who had now become lieutenant-general, established his head-quarters in Virginia in March, 1864. He was very badly off for an energetic commander of cavalry there, and discussed the matter with General Halleck. The latter at once suggested Sheridan, remembering his splendid dash and bravery at Missionary Ridge. "The very man!" exclaimed the laconic Grant, and Sheridan accordingly became commander of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Sheridan's progress during the campaign of 1864 was like a whirlwind. His troops covered the front and flanks of the infantry through the battle of the "Wilderness" until May 8th, when the greater part of the force was withdrawn, and next morning Sheridan started on a raid against the enemy's points of communication with Richmond. Getting within the Confederate lines he dashed upon the outworks of Richmond itself, where he took one hundred prisoners, and thence moved to Haxall's Landing, from which point he returned to the Northern army, having destroyed many miles of railroad track, besides trains and a great quantity of rations, and liberated Union soldiers. This expedition included repulses of the enemy at Beaver Dam and Meadow Bridge, and the defeat of the enemy's cavalry at Yellow Tavern, where their best cavalry leader, J. E. B. Stuart, was killed. From May 27th to June 24th Sheridan was engaged in almost daily engagements and skirmishes, harassing the enemy, and, with that good fortune which sometimes attends the most daring soldiers, resisting all attempts to defeat or capture him.
The Middle Department and the Department of West Virginia, Washington, and Susquehanna were constituted the "Middle Military Division" in August, 1864, and General Grant put Sheridan in command of the same. He chafed for opportunities of further distinguishing himself and justifying his appointment; but the enemy, under General Early, had been reinforced, and for six weeks Sheridan was kept on the defensive near Harper's Ferry. At length, when Early's forces had been diminished, Sheridan expressed such confidence of success if he were allowed to attack, that Grant gave him permission in only two words of instruction, "Go in!" Sheridan went in, attacking Early with great vigor, on September 19th, at the crossing of the Opequan. After a severe battle the enemy was routed; Sheridan captured three thousand prisoners and five guns, and sent Early, as he expressed it, "whirling through Winchester." Next day President Lincoln, on Grant's recommendation, appointed the victorious soldier a brigadier-general in the regular army. Taking up the pursuit of Early in the Shenandoah Valley, Sheridan found him on the 20th strongly posted on Fisher's Hill, just beyond Strasburg. Quietly moving Crook's command through the wood, he turned the enemy's left on the 22d, and drove him from his stronghold, capturing sixteen guns.
The losses of Sheridan and those of Early in these two battles were almost precisely equal, being about fifty-four hundred men each; but the Northern general had captured many guns and small arms. Sheridan continued the pursuit up the valley, but finding it impracticable to proceed either to Lynchburg or Charlottesville, he returned through the valley, devastating it on his way and rendering it untenable for an enemy's army. By Sheridan's successes Grant obtained the unobstructed use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, whereas his defeat would have exposed Maryland and Pennsylvania to invasion.
Sheridan's next operations, however, were the most important, as they have become the most renowned, in his career. Passing through Strasburg, he posted his troops on the further bank of Cedar Creek, while he himself, on October 16th, went to Washington, in response to a request from Secretary Stanton, for consultation. Before the sun rose on the morning of the 19th, Early, who had been reinforced, surprised, during a fog, the left of the Union army and uncovered the position also of the Nineteenth Corps, capturing twenty-four guns and about fourteen hundred prisoners. General Wright succeeded in retaining his grasp on the turnpike by moving the Sixth Corps to its western side and the cavalry to its eastern; but the whole army in the process had been driven back beyond Middletown.
Sheridan was at Winchester at this time, on his return from Washington. Hearing the noise of battle, he dashed up the turnpike with an escort of twenty men, rallying the fugitives on his way, and after a ride of a dozen miles reached the army, where he was received with indescribable enthusiasm. This famous incident gave rise to Buchanan Read's stirring poem of Sheridan's ride, now one of the most popular pieces in the repertories of public readers, both in England and the United States. After the lapse of a few hours, spent in preparing his forces, Sheridan ordered an advance, and literally swept the enemy from the field in one of the most overwhelming and decisive engagements of the war. All the lost Union guns were retaken, and twenty-four Confederate guns and many wagons and stores were captured. Congress passed a vote of thanks to Sheridan and his troops for the "brilliant series of victories in the valley," and especially the one at Cedar Creek. Sheridan was appointed by the President a major-general in the army "for the personal gallantry, military skill, and just confidence in the courage and patriotism of your troops," as the order expressed it, "displayed by you on October 19th."
On February 27, 1865, Sheridan, with his cavalry, 10,000 strong, moved up the valley, destroying the Virginia Central Railroad, the James River Canal, and immense quantities of supplies, and defeating Early again at Waynesboro. He then made his way toward Grant's army and arrived at the White House on March 19th. In subsequent operations he acted immediately under General Grant. The final campaign of the war began, and on March 31st Sheridan was attacked by a heavy force of Lee's infantry, under Picket and Johnson; but on the following day, being reinforced by Warren, he entrapped and completely routed Picket and Johnson's forces at Five Forks, taking thousands of prisoners.Sheridan displayed great tactical skill and generalship on this occasion, and the decisive battle of Five Forks compelled General Lee to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond. Lee was soon in flight, but Sheridan was speedily on his trail, and, far away in the Northern van, he constantly harassed the enemy. Overtaking the flying army at Sailor's Creek, he captured sixteen guns and four hundred wagons, and detained the enemy until the Sixth Corps could come up, when a combined attack resulted in the capture of more than six thousand prisoners.
On April 8th Sheridan again engaged the Confederates at Appomattox Station. Early on the morning of the 9th the enemy endeavored to break through, but abandoned the attempt when Sheridan, moving aside, disclosed the infantry behind. Sheridan mounted his men and was about to charge, when the white flag betokening surrender was displayed in his front. This brought the war in Virginia to a close, though in Alabama and other districts the conflict continued to a somewhat later period. The Confederate power, however, was broken by the surrender at Appomattox Court-house, which practically ended the Civil War.
Sheridan subsequently conducted an expedition into North Carolina. On June 3, 1865, he took command of the Military Division of the Southwest, at New Orleans, and was appointed to the Fifth Military District (Louisiana and Texas) in March, 1867. President Johnson, being dissatisfied with his administration, relieved him of his appointment during the reconstruction troubles in Louisiana, and transferred him to the Department of the Missouri. He continued in command until March 4, 1869, when he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, and assigned the command of the Division of the Missouri, with head-quarters at Chicago.
During the Franco-German War of 1870-71 General Sheridan visited Europe, and was present as a spectator with the German forces at several celebrated engagements. He was held in high esteem by Prince Bismarck and Count Von Moltke. After the sanguinary battle of Gravelotte, which Sheridan witnessed, Bismarck returned with the King to Pont-à-Mousson, and on the evening of the next day the German Chancellor entertained at dinner General Sheridan and his American companions, "with whom he talked eagerly in good English, while champagne and porter circulated." At one point of the Franco-German War, when Bismarck was at Versailles, anxiously desiring a French government with which he could conclude a durable peace, "it almost seemed," says Mr. Lowe, in his "Life of Bismarck," "as if he had no other resource but to pursue the war on the principles laid down by General Sheridan." The American soldier had said to the Chancellor: "First deal as hard blows at the enemy's soldiers as possible, and then cause so much suffering to the inhabitants of the country that they will long for peace and press their government to make it. Nothing should be left to the people but eyes to see and lament the war."
Sheridan ride.
Sheridan ride.
In 1875, during the political disturbances in Louisiana, General Sheridan was sent to New Orleans, returning to Chicago on quiet being restored. On the retirement of General Sherman, in March, 1884, he was appointed Commander-in-chiefof the Army of the United States. He died August 5, 1888. General Sheridan was the most brilliant cavalry officer whom America has produced. In addition to conspicuous personal bravery, he had an eagle eye for piercing through the designs of an enemy and for detecting at a glance all their weak points. He possessed wonderful energy, remained undepressed in the presence of overwhelming odds, and had a superb confidence in moments of the greatest danger. His career was one of the most romantic and adventurous called forth by the great American civil struggle.[Back to Contents]
Robert Lee.
It is my wish to give a short outline of General Lee's life, and to describe him as I saw him in the autumn of 1862, when at the head of proud and victorious troops he smiled at the notion of defeat by any army that could be sent against him. I desire to make known to the reader not only the renowned soldier, whom I believe to have been the greatest of his age, but to give some insight into the character of one whom I have always considered the most perfect man I ever met.
As a looker-on, I feel that both parties in the war have so much to be proud of that both can afford to hear what impartial Englishmen, or foreigners, have to say about it. Inflated and bubble reputations were acquired during its progress, few of which will bear the test of time. The idol momentarily set up, often for political reasons, crumbles in time into the dust from which its limbs were perhaps originally moulded. To me, however, two figures stand out in that history, towering above all others, both cast in hard metal that will be forever proof against the belittling efforts of all future detractors: one, General Lee, the great soldier; the other, Mr. Lincoln, the far-seeing statesman of iron will, of unflinching determination. Each is a good representative of the genius that characterized his country. As I study the history of the secession war, these seem to me the two men who influenced it most, and who will be recognized as its greatest heroes when future generations of American historians record its stirring events with impartiality.
General Lee came from the class of landed gentry that has furnished England at all times with her most able and distinguished leaders. The first of his family who went to America was Richard Lee, who, in 1641, became Colonial Secretary to the Governor of Virginia. The family settled in Westmoreland, one of the most lovely counties in that historic State, and members of it from time to time held high positions in the government. Several of the family distinguished themselves during the War of Independence, among whom was Henry, the father of General Robert E. Lee. He raised a mounted corps known as "Lee's Legion," in command of which he obtained the reputation of being an able and gallant soldier. He was nicknamed by his comrades "Light-Horse Harry." He was three times Governor of his native State. To him is attributed the authorship of the eulogy on General Washington, in which occurs the so-often quoted sentence, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," praise that with equal truth might have been subsequently applied to his own distinguished son.
The subject of this slight sketch, Robert Edmund Lee, was born January 9, 1807, at the family place of Stratford, in the county of Westmoreland, State of Virginia. When only a few years old, his parents moved to the small town of Alexandria, which is on the right bank of the Potomac River, nearly opposite Washington, but a little below it.
He was but a boy of eleven when his father died, leaving his family in straitened circumstances. Like many other great commanders, he was in consequence brought up in comparative poverty, a condition which has been pronounced by the greatest of them as the best training for soldiers. During his early years he attended a day-school near his home in Alexandria. He was thus able in his leisure hours to help his invalid mother in all her household concerns, and to afford her that watchful care which, owing to her very delicate health, she so much needed. She was a clever, highly gifted woman, and by her fond care his character was formed and stamped with honest truthfulness. By her he was taught never to forget that he was well born, and that, as a gentleman, honor must be his guiding star through life. It was from her lips he learned his Bible, from her teaching he drank in the sincere belief in revealed religion which he never lost. It was she who imbued her great son with an ineradicable belief in the efficacy of prayer, and in the reality of God's interposition in the every-day affairs of the true believer. No son ever returned a mother's love with more heartfelt intensity. She was his idol, and he worshipped her with the deep-seated inborn love which is known only to the son in whom filial affection is strengthened by respect and personal admiration for the woman who bore him. He was her all in all, or, as she described it, he was both son and daughter to her. He watched over her in weary hours of pain, and served her with all that soft tenderness which was such a marked trait in the character of this great, stern leader of men.
He seems to have been throughout his boyhood and early youth perfect in disposition, in bearing, and in conduct—a model of all that was noble, honorable, and manly. Of the early life of very few great men can this be said. Many whohave left behind the greatest reputations for usefulness, in whom middle age was a model of virtue and perhaps of noble self-denial, began their career in a whirlwind of wild excess. Often, again, we find that, like Nero, the virtuous youth develops into the middle-aged fiend, who leaves behind him a name to be execrated for all time. It would be difficult to find in history a great man, be he soldier or statesman, with a character so irreproachable throughout his whole life as that which in boyhood, youth, manhood, and to his death, distinguished Robert Lee from all contemporaries.
He entered the Military Academy of West Point at the age of eighteen, where he worked hard, became adjutant of the cadet corps, and finally graduated at the head of his class. There he mastered the theory of war and studied the campaigns of the great masters in that most ancient of all sciences. Whatever he did, even as a boy, he did thoroughly, with order and method. Even at this early age he was the model Christian gentleman in thought, word, and deed; careful and exact in the obedience he rendered his superiors, but remarkable for that dignity of deportment which all through his career struck strangers with admiring respect.
He left West Point when twenty-two, having gained its highest honors, and at once obtained a commission in the engineers. Two years afterward he married the granddaughter and heiress of Mrs. Custis, whose second husband had been General Washington, but by whom she left no children. It was a great match for a poor subaltern officer, as his wife was heiress to a very extensive property and to a large number of slaves. She was clever, very well educated, and a general favorite; he was handsome, tall, well made, with a graceful figure, and a good rider; his manners were at once easy and captivating. These young people had long known one another, and each was the other's first love. She brought with her as part of her fortune General Washington's beautiful property of Arlington, situated on the picturesque wooded heights that overhang the Potomac River, opposite the capital to which the great Washington had given his name. In talking to me of the Northern troops, whose conduct in Virginia was then denounced by every local paper, no bitter expression passed his lips, but tears filled his eyes as he referred to the destruction of his place, that had been the cherished home of the father of the United States. He could forgive their cutting down his trees, their wanton conversion of his pleasure-grounds into a graveyard, but he could never forget their reckless plunder of all the camp equipment and other relics of General Washington that Arlington House had contained.
Robert Lee first saw active service during the American war with Mexico in 1846, where he was wounded, and evinced a remarkable talent for war that brought him prominently into notice. He was afterward engaged in operations against hostile Indians, and obtained the reputation in the army of being an able officer of great promise. General Scott, then the general of greatest repute in the United States, was especially attracted by the zeal and soldierly instinct of the young captain of engineers, and frequently employed him on distant expeditionsthat required cool nerve, confidence, and plenty of common sense. It is a curious fact that throughout the Mexican War General Scott in his despatches and reports made frequent mention of three officers—Lee, Beauregard, and McClellan—whose names became household words in America afterward, during the great Southern struggle for independence. General Scott had the highest opinion of Lee's military genius, and did not hesitate to ascribe much of his success in Mexico as due to Lee's "skill, valor, and undaunted energy." Indeed, subsequently, when the day came that these two men should part, each to take a different side in the horrible contest before them, General Scott is said to have urged Mr. Lincoln's Government to secure Lee at any price, alleging he "would be worth fifty thousand men to them." His valuable services were duly recognized at Washington by more than one step of brevet promotion: he obtained the rank of colonel and was given command of a cavalry regiment shortly afterward.
I must now pass to the most important epoch of his life, when the Southern States left the Union and set up a government of their own. Mr. Lincoln was in 1860 elected President of the United States in the abolitionist interest. Both parties were so angry that thoughtful men soon began to see that war alone could end this bitter dispute. Shipwreck was before the vessel of state which General Washington had built and guided with so much care during his long and hard-fought contest. Civil war stared the American citizen in the face, and Lee's heart was well-nigh broken at the prospect. Early in 1861 the seven Cotton States passed acts declaring their withdrawal from the Union, and their establishment of an independent republic, under the title of "The Confederate States of America." This declaration of independence was in reality a revolution; war alone could ever bring all the States together.
Lee viewed this secession with horror. Until the month of April, when Virginia, his own dearly cherished State, joined the Confederacy, he clung fondly to the hope that the gulf which separated the North from the South might yet be bridged over. He believed the dissolution of the Union to be a dire calamity not only for his own country, but for civilization and all mankind. "Still," he said, "a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me." In common with all Southerners he firmly believed that each of the old States had a legal and indisputable right, by its individual constitution, and by its act of union, to leave at will the great Union into which each had separately entered as a sovereign State. This was with him an article of faith of which he was as sure as of any divine truths he found in the Bible. This fact must be kept always in mind by those who would rightly understand his character, or the course he pursued in 1861. He loved the Union for which his father and family in the previous century had fought so hard and done so much. But he loved his own State still more. She was the sovereign to whom in the first place he owed allegiance, and whose orders, as expressed through her legally constituted government, he was, he felt, bound in law, in honor, and inlove to obey without doubt or hesitation. This belief was the mainspring that kept the Southern Confederacy going, as it was also the corner-stone of its constitution.
In April, 1861, at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, the first shot was fired in a war that was only ended in April, 1865, by the surrender of General Lee's army at Appomattox Court House, in Virginia. In duration it is the longest war waged since the great Napoleon's power was finally crushed at Waterloo. As the heroic struggle of a small population that was cut off from all outside help, against a great, populous, and very rich republic, with every market in the world open to it, and to whom all Europe was a recruiting ground, this secession war stands out prominently in the history of the world. When the vast numbers of men put into the field by the Northern States, and the scale upon which their operations were carried on, are duly considered, it must be regarded as a war fully equal in magnitude to the successful invasion of France by Germany in 1870. If the mind be allowed to speculate on the course that events will take in centuries to come, as they flow surely on with varying swiftness to the ocean of the unknown future, the influence which the result of this Confederate war is bound to exercise upon man's future history will seem very great. Think of what a power the re-United States will be in another century! Of what it will be in the twenty-first century of the Christian era! If, as many believe, China is destined to absorb all Asia and then to overrun Europe, may it not be in the possible future that Armageddon, the final contest between heathendom and Christianity, may be fought out between China and North America? Had secession been victorious, it is tolerably certain that the United States would have broken up still further, and instead of the present magnificent and English-speaking empire, we should now see in its place a number of small powers with separate interests.
Most certainly it was the existence of slavery in the South that gave rise to the bitter antagonism of feeling which led to secession. But it was not to secure emancipation that the North took up arms, although during the progress of the war Mr. Lincoln proclaimed it, for the purpose of striking his enemy a serious blow. Lee hated slavery, but, as he explained to me, he thought it wicked to give freedom suddenly to some millions of people who were incapable of using it with profit to themselves or the State. He assured me he had long intended to gradually give his slaves their liberty. He believed the institution to be a moral and political evil, and more hurtful to the white than to the black man. He had a strong affection for the negro; but he deprecated any sudden or violent interference on the part of the State between master and slave. Nothing would have induced him to fight for the continuance of slavery; indeed, he declared that had he owned every slave in the South he would willingly give them all up if by so doing he could preserve the Union. He was opposed to secession, and to prevent it he would willingly sacrifice everything except honor and duty, which forbade him to desert his State. When in April, 1861, she formally and by an act of her Legislature left the Union, he resigned his commission in the UnitedStates army with the intention of retiring into private life. He endeavored to choose what was right. Every personal interest bade him throw in his lot with the Union. His property lay so close to Washington that it was certain to be destroyed and swept of every slave, as belonging to a rebel. But the die was cast; he forsook everything for principle and the stern duty it entailed. Then came that final temptation which opened out before him a vista of power and importance greater than that which any man since Washington had held in America. General Long's book proves beyond all further doubt that he was offered the post of commander-in-chief of the Federal army. General Scott, his great friend and leader, whom he loved and respected, then commanding that army, used all his influence to persuade him to throw in his lot with the North, but to no purpose. Nothing would induce him to have any part in the invasion of his own State, much as he abhorred the war into which he felt she was rushing. His love of country, his unselfish patriotism, caused him to relinquish home, fortune, a certain future, in fact, everything, for her sake.
He was not, however, to remain a spectator of the coming conflict; he was too well known to his countrymen in Virginia as the officer in whom the Federal army had most confidence. The State of Virginia appointed him major-general and commander-in-chief of all her military forces. In open and crowded convention he formally accepted this position, saying, with all that dignity and grace of manner which distinguished him, that he did so "trusting in Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow-citizens." The scene was most impressive. There were present all the leading men of Virginia, and representatives of all the first families in a State where great store was attached to gentle birth, and where society was very exclusive. General Lee's presence commanded respect, even from strangers, by a calm, self-possessed dignity the like of which I have never seen in other men. Naturally of strong passions, he kept them under perfect control by that iron and determined will, of which his expression and his face gave evidence. As this tall, handsome soldier stood before his countrymen, he was the picture of the ideal patriot, unconscious and self-possessed in his strength; he indulged in no theatrical display of feeling; there was in his face and about him that placid resolve which bespoke great confidence in self, and which in his case—one knows not how—quickly communicated its magnetic influence to others. He was then just fifty-four years old, the age of Marlborough when he destroyed the French army at Blenheim. In many ways and on many points these two great men much resembled each other. Both were of a dignified and commanding exterior; eminently handsome, with a figure tall, graceful, and erect, while a muscular, square-built frame bespoke great activity of body. The charm of manner which I have mentioned as very winning in Lee, was possessed in the highest degree by Marlborough. Both, at the outset of their great career of victory, were regarded as essentially national commanders. Both had married young, and were faithful husbands and devoted fathers. Both had in all their campaigns the same belief in an ever-watchful Providence, in whose help they trusted implicitly, and for whose interpositionthey prayed at all times. They were gifted with the same military instinct, the same genius for war. The power of fascinating those with whom they were associated, the spell which they cast over their soldiers, who believed almost superstitiously in their certainty of victory, their contempt of danger, their daring courage, constitute a parallel that is difficult to equal between any other two great men of modern times.
From the first Lee anticipated a long and bloody struggle, although from the bombastic oratory of self-elected politicians and patriots the people were led to believe that the whole business would be settled in a few weeks. This folly led to a serious evil, namely, the enlistment of soldiers for only ninety days. Lee, who understood war, pleaded in favor of the engagement being for the term of war, but he pleaded in vain. To add to his military difficulties, the politicians insisted upon the officers being elected by their men. This was a point which, in describing to me the constitution of his army, Lee most deplored.
The formation of an army with the means alone at his disposal was a colossal task. Everything had to be created by this extraordinary man. The South was an agricultural, not a manufacturing, country, and the resources of foreign lands were denied it by the blockade of its ports maintained by the fleet of the United States. Lee was a thorough man of business, quick in decision, yet methodical in all he did. He knew what he wanted. He knew what an army should be, and how it should be organized, both in a purely military as well as an administrative sense. In about two months he had created a little army of fifty thousand men, animated by a lofty patriotism and courage that made them unconquerable by any similarly constituted army. In another month this army, at Bull Run, gained a complete victory over the Northern invaders, who were driven back across the Potomac like herds of frightened sheep.
The Confederates did not follow up their victory at Bull Run. A rapid and daring advance would have given them possession of Washington, their enemy's capital. Political considerations at Richmond were allowed to outweigh the very evident military expediency of reaping a solid advantage from this their first great success. Often afterward, when this attempt to allay the angry feelings of the North against the act of secession had entirely failed, was this action of their political rulers lamented by the Confederate commanders.
In this article, to attempt even a sketch of the subsequent military operations is not to be thought of. Both sides fought well, and both have such true reason to be proud of their achievements that they can now afford to hear the professional criticisms of their English friends in the same spirit that we Britishers have learned to read of the many defeats inflicted upon our arms by General Washington.
As a student of war I would fain linger over the interesting lessons to be learned from Lee's campaigns; of the same race as both belligerents, I could with the utmost pleasure dwell upon the many brilliant feats of arms on both sides; but I cannot do so here.
The end came at last, when the well-supplied North, rich enough to pay recruits,no matter where they came from, a bounty of over five hundred dollars a head, triumphed over an exhausted South, hemmed in on all sides, and even cut off from all communication with the outside world. The desperate, though drawn battle of Gettysburg was the death-knell of Southern independence; and General Sherman's splendid but almost unopposed march to the sea showed the world that all further resistance on the part of the Confederate States could only be a profitless waste of blood. In the thirty-five days of fighting near Richmond which ended the war in 1865, General Grant's army numbered 190,000, that of Lee only 51,000 men. Every man lost by the former was easily replaced, but an exhausted South could find no more soldiers. "The right of self-government," which Washington won and for which Lee fought, was no longer to be a watchword to stir men's blood in the United States. The South was humbled and beaten by its own flesh and blood in the North, and it is difficult to know which to admire most, the good sense with which the result was accepted in the so-called Confederate States, or the wise magnanimity displayed by the victors. The wounds are now healed on both sides; Northerners and Southerners are now once more a united people, with a future before them to which no other nation can aspire. If the English-speaking people of the earth cannot all acknowledge the same sovereign, they can, and I am sure they will, at least combine to work in the interests of truth and of peace for the good of mankind. The wise men on both sides of the Atlantic will take care to chase away all passing clouds that may at any time throw even a shadow of dispute or discord between the two great families into which our race is divided.
Like all men, Lee had his faults; like all the greatest of generals, he sometimes made mistakes. His nature shrank with such horror from the dread of wounding the feelings of others, that upon occasions he left men in positions of responsibility to which their abilities were not equal. This softness of heart, amiable as that quality may be, amounts to a crime in the man intrusted with the direction of public affairs at critical moments. Lee's devotion to duty and great respect for obedience seem at times to have made him too subservient to those charged with the civil government of his country. He carried out too literally the orders of those whom the Confederate constitution made his superiors, although he must have known them to be entirely ignorant of the science of war. He appears to have forgotten that he was the great revolutionary chief engaged in a great revolutionary war, that he was no mere leader in a political struggle of parties carried on within the lines of an old, well-established form of government. It was very clear to many at the time, as it will be commonly acknowledged now, that the South could only hope to win under the rule of a military dictator. If General Washington had had a Mr. Davis over him, could he have accomplished what he did? It will, I am sure, be news to many that General Lee was given the command over all the Confederate armies a month or two only before the final collapse; and that the military policy of the South was all throughout the war dictated by Mr. Davis as President of the Confederate States. Lee had no power to reward soldiers or to promote officers. It was Mr. Davis who selectedthe men to command divisions and armies. Is it to be supposed that Cromwell, King William the Third, Washington, or Napoleon could have succeeded in the revolutions with which their names are identified, had they submitted to the will and authority of a politician as Lee did to Mr. Davis?
Lee was opposed to the final defence of Richmond that was urged upon him for political, not military, reasons. It was a great strategic error. General Grant's large army of men was easily fed and its daily losses easily recruited from a near base; whereas if it had been drawn far into the interior after the little army with which Lee endeavored to protect Richmond, its fighting strength would have been largely reduced by the detachments required to guard a long line of communications through a hostile country. It is profitless, however, to speculate upon what might have been, and the military student must take these campaigns as they were carried out. No fair estimate of Lee as a general can be made by a simple comparison of what he achieved with that which Napoleon, Wellington, or Von Moltke accomplished, unless due allowance is made for the difference in the nature of the American armies, and of the armies commanded and encountered by those great leaders. They were at the head of perfectly organized, thoroughly trained, and well disciplined troops; while Lee's soldiers, though gallant and daring to a fault, lacked the military cohesion and efficiency, the trained company leaders, and the educated staff which are only to be found in a regular army of long standing. A trial heat between two jockeys mounted on untrained horses may be interesting, but no one would ever quote the performance as an instance of great racing speed.
Who shall ever fathom the depth of Lee's anguish when the bitter end came, and when, beaten down by sheer force of numbers, and by absolutely nothing else, he found himself obliged to surrender! The handful of starving men remaining with him laid down their arms, and the proud Confederacy ceased to be. Surely the crushing, maddening anguish of awful sorrow is only known to the leader who has so failed to accomplish some lofty, some noble aim for which he has long striven with might and main, with heart and soul, in the interests of king or of country. A smiling face, a cheerful mien, may conceal the sore place from the eyes, possibly even from the knowledge of his friends; but there is no healing for such a wound, which eats into the very heart of him who has once received it.
General Lee survived the destruction of the Confederacy for five years, when, at the age of sixty-three, and surrounded by his family, life ebbed slowly from him. Where else in history is a great man to be found whose whole life was one such blameless record of duty nobly done? It was consistent in all its parts, complete in all its relations. The most perfect gentleman of a State long celebrated for its chivalry, he was just, gentle, and generous, and childlike in the simplicity of his character. Never elated with success, he bore reverse, and at last, complete overthrow, with dignified resignation. Throughout this long and cruel struggle his was all the responsibility, but not the power that should have accompanied it. The fierce light which beats upon the throne is as that of arush-light in comparison with the electric glare which our newspapers now focus upon the public man in Lee's position. His character has been subjected to that ordeal, and who can point to any spot upon it? His clear, sound judgment, personal courage, untiring activity, genius for war, and absolute devotion to his State mark him out as a public man, as a patriot to be forever remembered by all Americans. His amiability of disposition, deep sympathy with those in pain or sorrow, his love for children, nice sense of personal honor, and genial courtesy endeared him to all his friends. I shall never forget his sweet, winning smile, nor his clear, honest eyes, that seemed to look into your brain. I have met many of the great men of my time, but Lee alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the presence of a man who was cast in a grander mould, and made of different and of finer metal than all other men. He is stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to all others in every way: a man with whom none I ever knew, and very few of whom I have read, are worthy to be classed. I have met but two men who realize my ideas of what a true hero should be: my friend Charles Gordon, was one, General Lee was the other.
The following beautiful letter was written by Lee to his son in 1860:[11]
"You must study to be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right. If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it, if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot; you will wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind. Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly, with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not. If you have any fault to find with anyone, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back. We should live, act, and say, nothing to the injury of anyone. It is not only best as a matter of principle, but it is the path to peace and honor.
"In regard to duty, let me, in conclusion of this hasty letter, inform you that, nearly a hundred years ago, there was a day of remarkable gloom and darkness—still known as 'the dark day'—a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished, as if by an eclipse. The Legislature of Connecticut was in session, and as its members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the last day—the day of judgment—had come. Someone, in the consternation of the hour, moved an adjournment. Then there arose an old Puritan legislator, Davenport, of Stamford, and said that, if the last day had come, he desired to befound at his place doing his duty, and therefore, moved that candles be brought in, so that the House could proceed with its duty. There was quietness in that man's mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to obey present duty. Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things, like the old Puritan. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. Never let me and your mother wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part."[Back to Contents]
Thomas Jackson.
In 1842 a young man from Lewis County, Va., "dropped" discouraged out of his class in West Point, after a few weeks' trial of drill and curriculum, and returned home.
The story of his defeat was canvassed freely in the neighborhood smithy, the head-quarters of provincial gossip, and was under discussion one May day while Cummins Jackson, a planter and bachelor, waited to have a horse shod.
"There's a chance for Tom Jackson!" observed the blacksmith, with friendly officiousness.
The early life of Cummins Jackson's nephew was well known to speaker and bystanders. Left an orphan at seven years of age, he, with his brother, older than himself, and their little sister, were thrown upon the charity of uncles and aunts. "Tom" was accounted steady and industrious, yet there was a serious break in his record. The brothers had run away to seek their fortunes in company when Warren was fourteen, Tom but twelve years old, going down the Ohio to the Mississippi and maintaining themselves by cutting wood for passing steamboats until disabled by malarial fever. Thomas took the lead in the juvenile prodigals' return to relatives and respectability, and was kindly received by his bachelor uncle. Since then he had worked in Cummins Jackson's mill and upon his farm as diligently as he sought to "get an education" in the "old field school" nearest to his home.
His imagination took fire at his uncle's report of the blacksmith's suggestion. Armed with a letter of introduction signed by leading citizens of the county, to the Congressman from the district, he went in person to Washington andthrough the kindness of the representative obtained an interview with the Secretary of War.
"Gruff and heroic with the grit of Old Hickory himself" was the cabinet-officer's opinion of the country lad. He commended him to the West Point Board of Examiners in terms that secured him admission to the Military Academy in spite of certain grave deficiencies in his early education.
The story of the wrestle with these and other disabilities during the next four years is interesting and instructive. Three extracts from a list of rules for his personal conduct, set down at this time in a private note-book, sound the keynote of his subsequent career:
"Sacrifice your life rather than your word.
"Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
"You may be whatever you resolve to be."
He was respected by all his classmates, known and liked by a few. He was too reserved by nature, too busy in practice, to be a general favorite. His labors were unremitting, his recreations few and simple. With no prevision of the destinies awaiting them, Jackson, McClellan, A. T. Hill, Reno, Picket, Foster, and Maury, as beardless boys, studied and were drilled side by side for four terms and were graduated upon the same day. There were seventy in this remarkable class, and the name of Thomas Jonathan Jackson stood seventeenth upon the roll of merit.
"If we had to stay here one year more, old Jack would be at the head," the witnesses of the fierce ordeal of his West Point training used to say.
The class of '46 was ordered forthwith to the seat of war in Mexico. Jackson's first engagement was the siege of Vera Cruz; his next the battle of Cherubusco. The official report of this last mentions him favorably. As second lieutenant, he was called upon early in the action to take the place of the next in rank above him, the first lieutenant having fallen in the charge. After the battle Jackson was further promoted to the rank of brevet captain. His "devotion, industry, talent, and gallantry" were noted officially after Chapultepec, not only by his colonel, but by Generals Pillow and Worth, and by the Commander-in-chief, Winfield Scott.
What he afterward confessed as the "one wilful lie he ever told" is thus reported by a brother-officer:
"Lieutenant Jackson's section of Magruder's battery was subjected to a plunging fire from the Castle of Chapultepec. Horses were killed or disabled, and the men deserted the guns and sought shelter behind wall or embankment. Lieutenant Jackson remained at the guns, walking back and forth and kept saying, 'See, there is no danger;Iam not hit!' While standing with his legs wide apart, a cannon-ball passed between them.... No other officer in the army in Mexico was promoted so often for meritorious conduct, or made so great a stride in rank."
After peace was declared in 1848, he was stationed for two years at Fort Hamilton, and six months at Fort Meade in Florida; in 1851 he was electedProfessor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Artillery Tactics in the Virginia Military Institute, situated in Lexington, Va. In the decade succeeding this event, he was to the casual eye the least striking figure in the group of professors who taught the art of war in the beautiful mountain-girt "West Point of the South."
"I should have said that he was the least likely of our family to make a noise in the world," said his sister-in-law in 1862, when the popular voice was ranking him with Bayard, Roland, Sidney, and Napoleon.
"I knew that what I willed to do, I could do," he had said of his recovery from physical weaknesses which made his acceptance of the Lexington professorship of doubtful expediency, in the judgment of friends.
He never willed to be eloquent in the lecture-room or brilliant in society in his life as teacher, church official, and neighbor there was no evidence of the personal magnetism which was to make him the soul and genius of the Confederate army. While carrying into every detail of daily existence the military law of system and fidelity, he was aggressive in nothing. The grave, quiet gentleman who was never late in class, never negligent of the minutest professional duty, who was always punctual at religious services, and never missed a meeting of the Faculty of the V. M. I., or of the deacons of the Presbyterian Church, was reckoned a good Christian and upright citizen, exemplary in domestic and social relations—perhaps a trifle ultra-conscientious in some particulars. But for the prevalency of orthodoxy in "the Valley" he would have been considered eccentric in his religious views and practice. He established a Sunday-school for the negroes and superintended it in person; he gave a tenth of his substance to the church; he "weighed his lightest utterances in the balances of the sanctuary;" he would not pick up an apple in a neighbor's orchard unless he had permission to take it; he never wrote or read letters on Sunday, or mailed one that must travel on that day to reach its destination; used neither tobacco, tea, nor coffee, and during the war was "more afraid of a glass of wine than of Federal bullets." His reverence for women was deep and unfeigned; he was gentleness itself to little children; bowed down before the hoary head, and never sank the lover in the husband. All that he had and all he was, belonged first toGod, then to his wife.
"His person was tall, erect, and muscular.... His bearing was peculiarly English, and in the somewhat free society of America was regarded as constrained. Every movement was quick and decisive; his articulation was rapid, but distinct and emphatic, and often made the impression of curtness. He practised a military exactness in all the courtesies of society.... His brow was fair and expansive; his eyes blue-gray, large, and expressive; his nose Roman and well-chiselled, his cheeks were ruddy and sunburned; his mouth, firm and full of meaning; his beard was brown"—is a pen-picture drawn by a brother officer.
On December 2, 1859, a corps of cadets was sent to Charlestown, Va., to secure law and order during the execution of John Brown. Major Jackson'sgraphic description of the scene in a letter to his wife contains this passage:
"I was much impressed with the thought that before me stood a man in the full vigor of health, who must in a few moments enter eternity. I sent up the petition that he might be saved."
An officer upon duty, he saw the terrible spectacle with Cromwellian composure, but the man behind the impassive mask was upon his knees in prayer for the human soul. Under date of January 21, 1860, he writes:
"Viewing things at Washington from human appearances we have great reason for alarm, but my trust is in God. I cannot think that He will permit the madness of men to interfere so materially with the Christian labors of this country at home and abroad."
She who, of all the world, knew him best records:
"He never was a secessionist and maintained that it was better for the South to fight for her rights in the Union than out of it.... At this time (March 16, 1861) he was strongly for the Union. At the same time, he was a firm State's rights man."
At dawn, April 21st, he received an order from the Governor of Virginia to report to him immediately at Richmond, bringing the corps of cadets with him. At 1 o'clockP.M.he bade a final farewell to home and Lexington.
On June 4th he writes incidentally to his "Little One" from Harper's Ferry:
"The troops here have been divided into brigades, and the Virginia forces under General Johnston constitute the First Brigade, of which I am in command."
This brigade was to share with the commanding officers thesobriquetby which he is known better than under his real name. In the battery attached to it were forty-nine graduates of colleges, besides nineteen divinity students.
From the first victory of Manassas (June 21, 1861), when General Bee turned the tide of battle by shouting to the wavering lines, "Look at Jackson, standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!" to the fatal blunder of May 2, 1863, "Stonewall" Jackson was the flashing star that guided the Confederate armies to glorious success. His faith in the God of armies was so blended with the conviction that he was a chosen instrument in the Omnipotent hand to repel invasion and secure an honorable peace for his beloved State, that his sublime confidence infused officers and men.
A fragment of a camp ballad, popular in 1862, will give a faint idea of the enthusiasm excited by the "praying fighter:"
Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off!Old Blue-light's going to pray.Strangle the fool that dares to scoff!Attention! 'tis his way!Appealing from his native sodInforma pauperisto God;"Lay bare Thine arm—stretch forth Thy rod!Amen!"That'sStonewall's way.
Love-letters to his "only sweetheart," written in camp, in the saddle, from smoking battle-fields, red with the blood of the slain, reveal a heart as tender as it was stout, faith that never failed, the courage of a lion, the unspoiled simplicity of a child.
Our last extract from war papers is significant of what might have been but for the fall of the South's greatest chieftain at the most critical period of the struggle:
"Jackson alone stands forth the one advocate of 'ceaseless invasion' as our 'safest hope,' the first conviction of his mind and a policy in accord with Southern feeling."
Mrs. Jackson joined her husband at his quarters near Fredericksburg, bringing with her the baby-girl he had never seen until then, on April 20, 1863. On the 23d the little one, held in the proud father's arms, was baptized by the regimental chaplain. Nine golden days followed the reunion of the loving family before Hooker crossed the Rappahannock in force. Wife and baby were hurried off to Richmond after "a hasty, tender adieu," and the battle of Chancellorsville began.
"From the opening of this campaign," says Jackson's biographer, "it was observed that a wondrous change came over him. From the quiet, patient, but arduous laborer over his daily tasks, he seemed transformed into a thunderbolt of war."
During the three awful days of Chancellorsville "the thunderbolt" seemed omnipresent to the Confederate soldiers, oftenest in the hottest of the fight, always where he was most sorely needed.
On the afternoon of May 2d, in making his way from one part of the field to another with his staff and couriers, they were mistaken for Federal cavalry, and a volley of musketry was poured in upon them, wounding General Jackson mortally.
On the way to the rear a second disaster overtook the doomed band. A Federal battery opened a fire across the road, and the devoted attendants, laying the wounded chief in a shallow ditch, covered him with their own bodies while the tempest of shot tore up the earth on all sides of them. The danger was averted by a change in the range of the guns, and the mournful march was resumed. Meeting a North Carolina general who "feared," in reply to Jackson's eager questions, "that his troops could not maintain their position," the hero spoke out, in the accustomed tone of command:
"Youmusthold your ground, General Pender! you must hold your ground, sir!"
It was his last military order. Some hours later he lay in his tent, weak from pain and loss of blood, one arm gone, and his other wounds dressed, when a messenger arrived in haste from General J. E. B. Stuart, relating that he was contending against fearful odds in the field, and asking for counsel from the friend who would never more ride forth at his side. At the tidings of Stuart's extremity, General Jackson aroused himself to interrogate the bearer of the message,query succeeding query with characteristic impetuosity. Suddenly the martial fire faded ashily, his eyes dulled into mournfulness.
"I don't know. I can't tell—" as if groping for thought or words. "Tell General Stuart to do whathethinks best."
The "resolve" he and others had thought invincible, the iron nerve that had not quivered in the shock of fifty engagements, failed him. Yet he rallied as the cannonading jarred his bed and insisted upon receiving reports from hour to hour.
"Good! good!" he ejaculated, when told how his own brigade was behaving. "The men will some day be proud to say to their children, 'I was one of the Stonewall brigade.' The name belongs to them, not to me. It was their steadfast heroism at First Manassas that earned it. They are a noble body of men."
His wife and child were recalled in season to be with him for two days immediately preceding his death. Although confident up to the dawn of his last day on earth, thatGodstill had work for him to do, and would raise him up to do it, he received the news of his approaching dissolution with perfect calmness.
"He preferred the will ofGodto his own;" he "would be infinitely the gainer by the translation from earth to heaven." He gave his wife instructions as to his burial and her future home; smiled radiantly, in murmuring "Little darling! sweet one!" as the baby he had named for his mother was lifted for the father's last kiss.
"Jackson must recover," General Lee had exclaimed upon hearing of his condition. "God will not take him from us now that we need him so much. Say to him that he has lost his left arm,I my right!"
Men who had not blenched when brought face to face with death that menaced themselves, bowed to the earth, weeping like women, as mortal weakness stole upon the strong right arm of the Confederacy. Without the tent "the whole army was praying for him," while incoherent sentences of command and inarticulate murmurings fell from his lips—fainter with each utterance. The watchers thought speech and consciousness gone forever, when the voice that had pealed like the blast of Roland in charge and rally, sounded through the hushed chamber, sweet, distinct, and full of cheer, but in dreamy inflections:
"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees!"
Forced march, and midnight raid, and mad rush of battle were over. Victorious Greatheart slept upon the field.[Back to Contents]