been believed. The troops were organized and equipped, all the strategic positions in the territory were occupied and fortified, and an unheard of life and activity were impressed on all the military services. Attention was also given to turning three steamers into ships of war.

On the 16th of May, Virginia formally entered the Southern Confederacy, and the Virginian soldiers were incorporated with the Confederate army. Lee passed as general into the service of the Confederacy, the third on the list, taking rank after Generals Cooper and Sidney Johnston. Generals Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard completed the list of division generals. With that extreme modesty which was one of the most notable features of his character, Lee never sought opportunities to push himself forward, and however trifling the task assigned him, he was always happy to obey. Later, during the war, he well expressed his guiding sentiment when he said: "I will accept every position to which the country appoints me, and I will do my best in it." Here is the secret of all his success. He always did his best, never thinking, however trifling might be the thing he undertook, that it was too little to be done conscientiously.

In May, 1861, General Lee was fifty-four years old. All his faculties had arrived at their complete development. Of tall figure, he had still at that time a carriage somewhat stiff, owing to his military education; but gradually his appearance changed, and gave place to a grave and reflective air, the result of his heavy responsibility as commander-in-chief. The rude trials of the Civil War had not yet whitened his hair. His moustache was black, the rest of his beard close-shaved. His fine clear blue eyes, full of sweetness and benevolence, shone beneath his black eyebrows. One could not meet his look without loving him. His temperance was nearly absolute; he seldom drank anything but water, and was completely indifferent as to what he ate. Excess had never enfeebled his robust vigour. Grave, silent, shut up in himself, he impressed those who saw him for the

first time with the idea that he was a man endued with little sensibility. His sincerity, his frankness at all times, his great and generous heart, full of honour and candid simplicity, could only become known during the war.

The following letter, addressed to his eldest son, G. W. Custis Lee, a little while before the events narrated above, will show the degree to which his frankness and freedom from all subterfuge was carried:

"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 favour, 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 any one, 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 any one. It is not only best as a matter of principle, but it is the path to peace and honour.

"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. Some one, 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 be found 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. cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. Never let me and your mother wear one grey hair for any lack of duty on your part."

Lee's greatest glory consisted in this, that he never failed in any of these precepts, that he always allowed himself to be guided by these wise maxims in the most terrible storms of a troubled life, and the most gloomy moments of the civil strife. His military glory, however great it may be, yields to that of his having had continually before his eyes the accomplishment of his duty as the supreme end of his life. He tendered his resignation from a sentiment of what was owing to the state in which he was born; at every step in his career this sentiment was his only guide, and when the grand collapse came, and the cause for which he fought was crushed, the inward conviction of having done his best took away from him the bitterness of defeat, and gave him that fearless calm which cannot be contemplated without admiration. "Human virtues ought, in case of need, to equal human calamities,” were his words when all was lost, when all the minds around him bent under the accumulated weight of so much anguish and so many disasters. These words could only be uttered by a man who had made duty the first object of his life, and who had found the only glory worthy of the name in the accomplishment of it.

There are some persons who think that Lee was mistaken in embracing the cause of the South. This objection takes nothing from his greatness. What he did he at least regarded as right. The old Puritan whom he so much admired was neither calmer nor more resolute than he, when the last day of the cause for

which he struggled came. In the spring of 1865, it was manifest to all those who beheld him unshaken in the midst of the universal downfall, that his only ambition was "that he might be found at his post doing his duty."

It has been said that he sought to influence other officers of the United States army, natives of the South like himself, and so cause them to send in their resignation. Nothing can be less true. One of his old companions in arms testifies to the contrary in the following letter:

"Immediately after Mr. Lincoln's election, I wrote to him (i. e. General Lee) in the effusion of our old friendship, asking his advice, and seeking to know what he intended to do. My letter was not answered. We could not help being struck with this fact, that the scrupulous reserve which he always maintained in the discussion of political affairs, or the rigid exactness which he showed in fulfilling his military duties, had never been greater than in this moment of solemn crisis."

CHAPTER III.

THE COMPARATIVE RESOURCES AND FORCES OF THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN STATES.

BEFORE pursuing this recital further, let us say a few words on the relative forces of the two adversaries in the great Civil War of 1861. According to the official census of 1860, the states and territories of the North contained a population of 22,877,000, in which were included some hundreds of thousands of negroes.

According to the same census, the population of the Confederate States was only 8,733,000, of whom 3,664,000 were negroes, so that, after deducting these from both sides, there remain in round figures 5,000,000 whites to uphold the struggle against 22,000,000. In these calculations we have taken no account of Kentucky and Missouri as Confederate States, inasmuch as the North occupied their territories, and made use of their resources, during the whole war. To be exact, we must remember that, after the month of May, 1862, the Northern armies were masters of the centre and west of Tennessee, nearly all Louisiana, part of Florida, the coasts of North and South Carolina, and the east and north of Virginia. The number of the inhabitants of the South who, for this reason, could not contribute to the support of the Confederate cause, may be estimated at 1,200,000. The South, therefore, during the greater part of the war, had only 3,800,000 whites to contend against 22,000,000 of the North. The neighbouring territories, beyond the frontiers of the Confederacy, furnished, it is true, some combatants to the