Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/570

 564 Southern Historical Society Papers.

corps, we expected a book of deep interest and great historic value. JVe have not been disappointed. General Long has done his work admirably, and deserves the thanks of all admirers of our grand old chieftain — all lovers of true greatness and true nobility.

The real object of General Long's book is best given in the follow- ing extract from his preface: "To overcome the inactivity to which loss of sight has for some years subjected me, I have sought occupa- tion in recording the recollection of familiar events. Having ob- tained a slate prepared for the use of the blind, I soon learned to write with a moderate degree of legibility. In order to excite a pleasing interest in my work, I undertook something that might prove of future benefit. Having served on General Lee's personal staff during the most important period of hi? military career, I began an eye-witness narrative of his campaigns in the war between the States. ******* My work is now completed, and I offer it to the public, hoping it may prove of value as a record of events which passed under my own observation, and many of which have been described directly from my notes made at the time of their occurrence. It is not intended to be a history of the war in detail, but a statement of my personal knowledge of General Lee's life, actions, and character, and of the part played by him in the great events of which he was the ruling spirit." * *

This design to make a narrative of personal recollections of Lee, and of the great events of the war in which he figured under the eyes of our author, has been so admirably done and is so valuable a contribution to the material for a biography of the great chieftain, as to make us on the one hand admire the patient perseverance of the blind soldier whose memory was quickened as he "fought his bat- tles o'er again," and, on the other hand, to deeply regret that the sad affliction of his blindness prevented his thorough study of the official records on both sides, so that he might have added to his exceedingly valuable work the full statement of relative numbers and able criticism of military movements of which General Long is so capable.

But, then, had he been spared this sore affliction — this " thorn in the flesh" — in the loss of his vision, he might have been (like Venable, and Marshall, and W. H. Taylor, of Lee's staff, and others of our ablest soldiers) so absorbed in active business that we should have lost these invaluable Recollections of Lee, as a gallant and ac- complished soldier saw him.

The genealogy of the Lee family, and the account of the early