Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/711

Rh was left without adequate support and was quickly hurled back, broken, and almost annihilated.

This in effect ended the battle, of Gettysburg. As at Antietarn, so on this field, no decisive vic- tory had been won by either array, but Lee's su- preme effort had ended in a repulse, and the ad- vantage rested with the National arms. " It is with an invading army as with an insurrection : an indecisive action is equivalent to a defeat." Lee was not driven from the field, and his army was still unbroken ; but he had failed to overthrow his adversary, and his project of successful inva- sion of the enemy's country was necessarily at an end. He tarried a day in inactivity, and then retired without serious* molestation to ' Virginia, whither Meade followed. The two armies having returned to the line of the Rapidan, and neither being dis- posed to undertake active operations, the campaign of 1863 ended in August. The campaign of 1864 was begun by the advance of the National army under Gen. Grant, who crossed the Rapidan on 4 May with about 120,000 men, including non-com- batants, teamsters, etc. Lee's force at that time was about 66,000 men, not including commissioned officers, teamsters, and other non-combatants, but he determined to attack his adversary as quickly as possible. There followed a succession of stub- bornly contested battles and movements by flank from the Wilderness, where the adversaries first met. by way of Spottsylvania Court-House and Cold Harbor, to Petersburg, for an account of which, and of the siege of Petersburg, see Grant, Ulysses S. Grant sat down before Petersburg about the middle of June, and prepared for a pa- tient siege of that place and of Richmond, to which it afforded a key. By extending his lines farther and farther to the south, and pressing his left for- ward, he forced Lee to stretch his own correspond- ingly, until they were drawn out to dangerous tenuity, there being no source from which the Con- federate commander could draw re-enforcements, while his already scant force was slowly wasting away under the operations of the siege. Grant was gradually enveloping the position, and pushing back the Confederate right, so as to secure the lines of railway leading to the south, and it was mani- festly only a question of time when Petersburg, and Richmond with it, must fall into the hands of the enemy. By all military considerations it was the part of wisdom for the Confederates to with- draw from the obviously untenable position while there was yet opportunity for them to retire to the line of the Roanoke, and there is the best authority for saying that if he had been free to determine the matter for himself, Lee would have abandoned Richmond many weeks before the date of its ac- tual fall, and would have endeavored, by concen- tration, to win important advantages in the field, where strategy, celerity of movement, and advan- tages of position might offset disparity of forces. But the Confederate government had decided upon the policy of holding Richmond at all hazards, and Lee was bound by its decision. The end of his power of resistance in that false position came early in the spring of 1865. Grant broke through his defences, south of Petersburg, and compelled the hasty evacuation of the entire Richmond line on 2 April. Meantime Sherman had successfully transferred his base from northern Georgia to Sa- vannah, and was following Johnston in his retreat toward North Carolina and Virginia. Lee made an ineffectual attempt to retreat and form a junc- tion with Johnston somewhere south of the Roa- noke ; but the head of Grant's column was so far in advance on his left as to be able to beat him back toward the upper James river, capturing a large portion of his force, and the small remnant, in a state of actual starvation, was surrendered on 9 April, at Appomattox Court-House, its total strength being fewer than 10,000 men.

The war being at an end, Lee withdrew at once from public affairs, betaking himself to the work of a simple citizen, not morosely, or in sullen vexa- tion 'of spirit, but manfully, and with a firm con- viction of duty. He frankly accepted the result, and used his great influence for the restoration of friendly relations between the lately warring sec- tions, for the prompt return of his soldiers to peaceful pursuits, and for the turning of their de- votion to the southern cause into a patriotic pride of American citizenship. He became president of Washington college, at Lexington, Va. (now Wash- ington and Lee university), and passed the remain- der of his life in earnest work as an educator of youth. Physically, intellectually, and morally, Lee was a man of large proportions and unusual sym- metry. Whether or not he possessed the highest or- der of genius, he had a mind of large grasp, great vigor and activity, and perfect self-possession. He was modest in his estimate of himself, but not lack- ing in that self-confidence which gives strength. His mind was pure, and his character upright in an eminent degree. His ruling characteristic was an inflexible devotion to duty, as he understood it, accompanied by a f>erfect readiness to make any and every sacrifice of self that might be required of hiin by circumstance. In manner he was digni- fied, courteous, and perfectly simple; in temper he was calm, with the placidity of strength that is accustomed to rigid self-control. He was a type of perfectly healthy manhood, in which body and mind are equally under the control of clearly de- fined conceptions of right and duty. Descended from men who had won distinction by worth, and allied to others of like character, he was deeply imbued with a sense of his obligation to live and act in all things worthily. As a military com- mander he had thorough knowledge of the art of war. and large ability in its practice. His combi- nations were sound, and where opportunity per- mitted, brilliant, and his courage in undertaking great enterprises with scantily adequate means was supported by great skill in the effective employ- ment of such means as were at his command. The tasks he set himself were almost uniformly such as a man of smaller courage would have shrunk from, and a man of less ability would have undertaken only to meet disaster. His military problem was so to employ an inferior force as to baffle the de- signs of an enemy possessed of a superior one. His great strength lay in that form of defence which involves the employment of offensive manoeuvres as a means of choosing the times, places, and con- ditions of conflict. A military critic has said that he lacked the gift to seize upon the right moment for converting a successful defence into a success- ful attack, and the judgment appears to be in some measure sound. In the seven days' fight around Richmond his success was rendered much less complete than it apparently ought to have been by his failure so to handle his force as to bring its full strength to bear upon his adversary's retreating column at the critical moment. At Fredericksburg he seems to have put aside an opportunity to crush the enemy whom he had repelled, when he neglected to press Burnside on the river bank, and permitted him to withdraw to the other side unmolested. After his victory at Chancellorsville a greater readiness to press his retreating foe would have promised results that for lack of that readiness