quick but placable; his inspiration in the war that of a champion of a cause rather than a personal enemy. He had none of the coarser animosities of the war; he was animated by the principles he fought for, rather than by the phobia of brutal conflict. He was faultlessly brave; he had social qualities of the highest order; his genial humour, his high spirits, his strong friendships, made him not only a popular man, but a choice and adinirable companion.

It is said of him that he had not a personal enemy in the world. He was always the favourite of his school companions; and the pranks we have related at West Point were conceived in the purest spirit of fun. He was merry and innocent, all his tricks and jokes being rather for sport than injury. His habit of signing his name "F. Lee" gave a handle to his gay companions at West Point to nickname him "Flea." He was the most popular cadet in the academy. In the stern task of war he never abandoned his gaiety of disposition. He was always in for anything like "fun," and nothing pleased him better than to get off jokes on his staff and couriers. In this respect he resembled Stuart very much. The two commanders seemed to have established a mutual admiration society, and suited each other famously; and, next to killing Yankees, they enjoyed cracking jokes at each other more than anything else. On the march they generally rode together, and the peals of laughter and cavalry songs which they gave vent to in unison could often be heard far down the column, above the tramping of the horses and the clinking of the sabres. Both were very fond of music, and during the winter of '63 Fitz. Lee organized in his brigade a band of ten or twelve musicians, who were known as "Fitz. Lee's Minstrels."

A prominent trait in his character (and in that of all the Lees) was an excessive fondness for the fair sex; and, it is said, he has been seen to produce from his pocket-book a dozen rings received from a dozen young ladies, to prove that he was not a badlytreated man.

His character may be summed up as an excellent soldier, a true patriot, a boon companion, a remarkable type of engaging manners. Virginia has reason to be proud of him as one of her first living gentlemen, and a brilliant contribution to her history in the war.

BRIG.-GEN. HENRY A. WISE.

CHAPTER LII.

An extraordinary excitement in Richmond.-The days of the Secession Convention.Wise's idea of "fighting in the Union."-His style of eloquence in the Convention. A remarkable conversation in his hotel.-His rhetorical bravura.Short-sighted vanity of the South.-Gen. Wise's campaign in Western Virginia. The disaster of Roanoke Island.-Gen. Wise relieved from censure.Death of his son.-An affecting scene.-Interview between Gen. Wise and Secretary Randolph.-His command in South Carolina.-At Petersburg.-Gen. Wise's fame as a soldier.-His mental gifts.-Marks of an afflicted intellect.— His tribute to the private soldiers of the Confederacy.

IN the latter days of April, 1861, there was in Richmond, Virginia-a city already of no mean historical memories—an excitement unsurpassed within the memory of its living citizens, and equal to any that had occurred in the political annals of America. The Convention, summoned by the voters of the State, was debating the high question of peace or war, and the revolution that had gathered in the Cotton States paused for the decision of the powerful and dominant commonwealth of Virginia. All commercial business in Richmond was well nigh suspended; the political excitement involved all classes of the population; and, in a city which had voted largely for the Union in the call of the Convention, secession demonstrations were now prevalent on the streets, and the nightly caucuses and political gatherings in the hotels pronounced for war, declared themselves the equivalents of the Convention, and even threatened it with the violence of the mob. Men who, a few days before, had upheld Governor Letcher in his "conservatism," were now stricken dumb amid the popular clamour for immediate action; all the newspapers of the city declared for

instant Secession, and complained that, on the verge of a plain necessity for war, the Convention were splitting hairs over proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution; large crowds besieged the hall in which this body deliberated, and on one occasion a procession of citizens, dragging cannon and making some military show, proceeded to the Public Square, and, mounting their spokesman on the portals of the State House, declared that the secession of the State should be accomplished, even if popular violence had to be invoked, and the arms of the people turned against the Governor, who, with pale face, watched from his windows this demonstration of the people, and heard, not without alarm, the near outcry against himself. So far indeed did this violence progress that it was seriously proposed that a mass-meeting, assuming the character of another Convention, should declare the popular will, and by the shortest and most expeditious method, override the Federal and all other authority that stood between Virginia and the cause of the seceded States. It was a period of great excite ment, in which the clash and outcry of popular revolution mingled with the anxious and serious tones of the official debate.

The Convention that held suspended the choice of Virginia was composed of the first men of the commonwealth; and whatever clamour was raised against it, there was no charge of intellectual deficiency. Among its most distinguished members was Henry A. Wise. His life anteriour to this period belonged to the general political history of the country; and there is but little necessity of reviewing it here to remind the reader of one of the most famous party-leaders of America. He had enjoyed the first honours of Virginia as her Governor; he had made the greatest partisan reputation of the country in defeating the Know-Nothing organization, and reestablishing the Democratic supremacy of Virginia; a true Southerner, a "fire-eater," according to the classification of the New York Herald; a Virginian intus et in cute, by his own definition, he was likely, in a Convention called to consider sectional questions, to excite an unusual interest, and to occupy a prominent place in the public eye.

But ex-Governor Wise entered the Convention, in some sense, as a Union man. His characteristic fondness for paradox, which always made it difficult to identify him with any party or with any well-established set of opinions, had at first led him to take

the novel and most extraordinary ground that the South should fight in the Union, and maintain the character of legitimacy, by holding on to the Federal insignia, and claiming the sword and purse at Washington. Whatever the merit of this ill-defined advice, it is easy to see that it contemplated an adequate coup d'état, on the part of the South, before the inauguration of President Lincoln, and that, with that opportunity passed, it was no longer available. There was, perhaps, a possibility of such an adventure when the Democratic party was writhing under the sting and mortification of defeat, and ready for desperate enterprises; but when the Government had been suffered to fall into possession of the enemy, and the sword and the purse had been seized, it was too late to dream of peace-in or out of the Union-and submission or secession became the only and severe alternative.

In the progress of events, ex-Governor Wise soon became a violent, uncompromising advocate of Secession, and whenever he raised his voice in the Convention it was in behalf of the South, and in bitter denunciation of the authority that had taken control at Washington. He was regarded as the most effective orator of the Secession party; but it must be admitted that, in addition to the natural force of his utterances, his tones were threatening, his manner overbearing, and his style of eloquence too violent and excessive for the chaste appreciation of the scholar. In one passage of debate it is remembered that he descended to a threat, which was too common in the Convention. When it was proposed to send a committee to ask Mr. Lincoln what was the object of his military movements, Mr. Carlisle, a marked Union man in the Convention, suggested that a similar committee should be sent to Montgomery, to ascertain from Jefferson Davis what he intended to do with the troops he was raising. Ex-Governor Wise inquired whether Mr. Carlisle would be named as one of the committee to be sent to Montgomery, for, "if so, that would be the last they would ever see of him." The remark was in the true spirit of that day; but there is a coarse unpleasantness about it, when repeated in history.

A friend who visited ex-Governor Wise in his hotel in Richmond, in the heat of the political excitement, thus describes an interesting and characteristic interview:-" He was worn out and prostrated by a distressing cough which threatened pneumonia.

But ever and anon his eagle eye assumed its wonted brilliancy He was surrounded by a number of his devoted friends, who listened with rapt attention to his surpassing eloquence. A test question, indicative of the purpose of the Convention to adjourn without action, had that day been carried by a decided majority. The Governor once rose from his recumbent position on the sofa and said, whatever the majority of Union men in the Convention might do, or leave undone, Virginia must array herself on one side or the other. She must fight either Lincoln or Davis. If the latter, he would renounce her, and tender his sword and his life to the Southern Confederacy. And although it was apparent that his physique was reduced, as he said, to a mere 'bag of bones,' yet it was evident that his spirit yet struggled with all its native fire and animation.

แ

'Smiling, he rose, and walked to a corner of the room, where I had noticed a bright musket with a sword-bayonet attached. He took it up, and criticized the sword as inferiour to the knife. Our men would require long drilling to become expert with the former like the French Zouaves; but they instinctively knew how to wield the bowie-knife. The conversation turning upon the probable deficiency of a supply of improved arms in the South, if a great war should ensue, the Governor said, with one of his inevitable expressions of feeling, that it was not the improved arm, but the improved man, which would win the day. Let brave men advance, with flint-locks and old-fashioned bayonets, on the popinjays of the Northern cities-advance on and on, under the fire, reckless of the slain-and he would answer for it with his life that the Yankees would break and run."

This nonsense about finishing the war with a flourish of bowieknives, etc., appears to have been a characteristic delusion of other minds quite as great as that of ex-Governor Wise, and may be taken as a reflection of the popular Southern vanity of the times, insolent almost to madness. But Wise appears to have fallen in love with this nonsense beyond all hope of recovery; it gave him a stock of rhetorical bravura from which he furnished a number of speeches, and, although guilty of many extravagances on the hustings, he fairly surpassed in absurdity, in sound and in fury, all the demagogical utterances about the war. Contrary to his