Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 03.djvu/45

 Pennsylvania, a campaign whose only fault was the generous fault of over confidence in an army whose great deeds might, if anything, excuse it; an over confidence, as we ourselves know, felt by every man he led, and which made us reckless of all difficulties, ready to think that to us nothing was impossible. He was a commander who had met no equal; we were an army who saw in half the guns of our train the spoil of the enemy, who bore upon our flags the blazon of consistent victory. If he and we confided in our daring and trusted to downright fighting for what strategy might have safely won, who shall blame us and which shall blame the other? It was a fault, if fault there were, such as in a soldier leans to virtue's side; it was the fault of MarlbrookMarlborough [sic] at Malplaquet, of Great Frederic at Torgau, of Napoleon at Borodino. It is the famous fault of the column of Fontenoy, and the generous haste that led Hampden to his death.

Lee chose no defensive of his own will. None knew better than he that axiom of the military art which finds the logical end of defence in surrender. None knew better than he that Fabius had never earned his fame by the policy some attribute to him, nor saved his country by retreats, however regular, or the skill, however great, to choose positions only to abandon them. The defensive was not his chosen field, but he was fated to conduct a defensive campaign rivaled by few, and surpassed by none in history. Of that wonderful work the details are yet to be gathered, but the outlines are known the world over. The tremendous onset of Lee in the tangled wilderness upon an enemy three times his force, who fancied him retreating; the grim wrestle of Spotsylvania; the terrible repulse of Cold Harbor, from which the veteran commanders of Grant shrank back aghast. These great actions will be known so long as war shall be studied, and future generations will read with admiration of that battlefield of seventy miles, where Lee with 51,000 men confronted Grant with his 190,000—attacked him wherever he showed uncovered front, killed, wounded and captured more men than his own army numbered, and in a campaign of thirty-five days, forced the most tenacious soldier of the Union armies to abandon utterly his line of attack, to take a new position always open to him but never chosen, and to exchange the warfare of the open field for the slow and safe approach of the earthworks and the siege.

They will read, too, that in the midst of this campaign, Lee was bold to spare from his little army force enough to take once more