had remained calm; he had written of those successes with the air of one who sees no especial merit in any thing which he has performed; and, so marked was this tone of moderation and dignity, that, in reading his official reports to-day, it seems wellnigh impossible that they could have been written in the hot atmosphere of a war which aroused the bitterest passions of the human soul.

Upon this point of Lee's personal and official dignity it is unnecessary to dwell further, as the quality has long since been conceded by every one acquainted with the character of the individual, in the Old World and the New. It is the trait, perhaps, the most prominent to the observer, looking back now upon the individual; and it was, doubtless, this august moderation, dignity, and apparent exemption from natural infirmity, which produced the impression upon many persons that Lee was cold and unimpressible. We shall speak, in future, at greater length of his real character than is necessary in this place; but it may here be said, that the fancy that he was cold and unimpressible was a very great error. No man had stronger or warmer feelings, or regarded the invasion of the South with greater indignation, than himself. The sole difference was, that he had his feelings under greater control, and permitted no temptation to overcome his sense of that august dignity and composure becoming in the chief leader of a great people struggling for independent government.

The sentiment of the Southern people toward Lee may be summed up in the statement that they regarded him, in his personal and private character, with an admiration which was becoming unbounded, and reposed in him, as commander of the army, the most implicit confidence.

These expressions are strong, but they do not convey more than the truth. And this confidence was never withdrawn from him. It remained as strong in his hours of disaster as in his noontide of success. A few soured or desponding people might lose heart, indulge in "croaking," and denounce, under their breath, the commander of the army as responsible for failure when it occurred; but these fainthearted people were in a small minority, and had little encouragement in their muttered criticisms. The Southern people, from Virginia to the utmost limits of the Gulf States, resolutely persisted in regarding Lee as one of the greatest soldiers of history, and retained their confidence in him unimpaired to the end.

The army had set the example of this implicit reliance upon Lee as the chief leader and military head of the Confederacy. The brave fighting-men had not taken his reputation on trust, but had seen him win it fairly on some of the hardest-contested fields of history. The heavy blow at General McClellan on the Chickahominy had first shown the troops that they were under command of a thorough soldier. The rout of Pope at Manassas had followed in the ensuing month. At Sharpsburg, with less than forty thousand men, Lee had repulsed the attack of nearly ninety thousand; and at Fredericksburg General Burnside's great force had been driven back with inconsiderable loss to the Southern army. These successes, in the eyes of the troops, were the proofs of true leadership, and it did not detract from Lee's popularity that, on all occasions, he had carefully refrained from unnecessary exposure of the troops, especially at Fredericksburg, where an ambitious commander would have spared no amount of bloodshed to complete his glory

by a great victory. Such was Lee's repute as army commander in the eyes of men accustomed to close scrutiny of their leaders. He was regarded as a thorough soldier, at once brave, wise, cool, resolute, and devoted, heart and soul, to the cause.

Personally, the commander-in-chief was also, by this time, extremely popular. He did not mingle with the troops to any great extent, nor often relax the air of dignity, somewhat tinged with reserve, which was natural with him. This reserve, however, never amounted to stiffness or "official" coolness. On the contrary, Lee was markedly free from the chill demeanor of the martinet, and had become greatly endeared to the men by the unmistakable evidences which he had given them of his honesty, sincerity, and kindly feeling for them. It cannot, indeed, be said that he sustained the same relation toward the troops as General Jackson. For the latter illustrious soldier, the men had a species of familiar affection, the result, in a great degree, of the informal and often eccentric demeanor of the individual. There was little or nothing in Jackson to indicate that he was an officer holding important command. He was without reserve, and exhibited none of that formal courtesy which characterized Lee. His manners, on the contrary, were quite informal, familiar, and conciliated in return a familiar regard. We repeat the word familiar as conveying precisely the idea intended to be expressed. It indicated the difference between these two great soldiers in their outward appearance. Lee retained about him, upon all occasions, more or less of the commander-in-chief, passing before the troops on an excellent and well-groomed horse, his figure erect and graceful in the saddle, for he was one of the best riders in

the army; his demeanor grave and thoughtful; his whole bearing that of a man intrusted with great responsibilities and the general care of the whole army. Jackson's personal appearance and air were very different. His dress was generally dingy: a faded cadet-cap tilted over his eyes, causing him to raise his chin into the air; his stirrups were apt to be too short, and his knees were thus elevated ungracefully, and he would amble along on his rawboned horse with a singularly absent-minded expression of countenance, raising, from time to time, his right hand and slapping his knee. This brief outline of the two commanders will serve to show the difference between them personally, and it must be added that Jackson's eccentric bearing was the source, in some degree, of his popularity. The men admired him immensely for his great military ability, and his odd ways procured for him that familiar liking to which we have alluded.

It is not intended, however, in these observations to convey the idea that General Lee was regarded as a stiff and unapproachable personage of whom the private soldiers stood in awe. Such a statement would not express the truth. Lee was perfectly approachable, and no instance is upon record, or ever came to the knowledge of the present writer, in which he repelled the approach of his men, or received the humblest of them with any thing but kindness. He was naturally simple and kind, with great gentleness and patience; and it will not be credible, to any who knew the man, that he ever made any difference in his treatment of those who approached him from a consideration of their rank in the army. His theory, expressed upon many occasions, was, that the private soldiers-men who fought without the stimulus of rank, emolument, or individual renown

-were the most meritorious class of the army, and that they deserved and should receive the utmost respect and consideration. This statement, however, is doubtless unnecessary. Men of Lee's pride and dignity never make a dif ference in their treatment of men, because one is humble, and the other of high rank. Of such human beings it may be said that noblesse oblige.

The men of the army had thus found their commander all that they could wish, and his increasing personal popularity was shown by the greater frequency with which they now spoke of him as "Marse Robert," "Old Uncle Robert," and by other familiar titles. This tendency in troops is always an indication of personal regard; these nicknames had been already showered upon Jackson, and General Lee was having his turn. The troops regarded him now more as their fellow-soldier than formerly, having found that his dignity was not coldness, and that he would, under no temptation, indulge his personal convenience, or fare better than themselves. It was said-we know not with what truth-that the habit of Northern generals in the war was to look assiduously to their individual comfort in selecting their quarters, and to take pleasure in surrounding themselves with glittering staff-officers, body-guards, and other indications of their rank, and the consideration which they expected. In these particulars Lee differed extremely from his opponents, and there were no evidences whatever, at his headquarters, that he was the commander-in-chief, or even an officer of high rank. He uniformly lived in a tent, in spite of the urgent invitations of citizens to use their houses for his headquarters; and this refusal was the result both of an indisposition to expose these gentlemen to annoyance