Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 04.djvu/97

Rh feet, presented it playfully to his guest, who the previous day had ridden with Jackson in his last great flank attack.

Major Scheibert remained six months in the Confederacy, gathering information by observation and otherwise of the operations of all the arms of our service. On his return home in 1863, we have heard that he delivered a lecture on the military operations of the Confederate army with especial reference to the Army of Northern Virginia, before 800 Prussian officers—among them the Prince of Prussia and other generals of high rank—and that at the close of the lecture the assembled officers rose to their feet and gave three cheers for General Lee. To fit himself for the preparation of his admirable work, Major Scheibert has added to his personal observations while in the Confederate States a profound study of the best Northern sources of information on the war. The motto of the author is  sine ira et studio.

That he should have fallen into some errors is natural, especially from the paucity of Southern documents accessible to him on the campaign of 1864 of the Army of Northern Virginia—the greatest of all of Lee's campaigns—and of the army of the West, under General Johnston. But his love of truth and spirit of fairness is manifest throughout the book.

The work is divided into eight chapters. In the first chapter we have a brief sketch of the war. The next six chapters treat, respectively, of the infantry, the cavalry, artillery and engineer corps, strategy, naval operations and the sanitary corps. Chapter VIII is devoted to some final considerations and brief sketches of Generals Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Sherman, Grant and of General Lee.

Our author's sketch of Lee is a splendid piece of military criticism. In the closing paragraph of the book he thus compares him to Von Moltke, his own loved commander: "Thus died this rare man, whom a clear intellect and naturalness and simplicity of character, joined to an unswerving fidelity to duty, and reposing on firm confidence in God, made one of the first generals of his