Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/337

 The Monument to General Bohert E, Lee, 329

ative which Lee was now able to seize, in the submissive and tell-tale docility with which Hooker thenceforth followed every motion of the magic wand of the Confederate commander.

The march to the Potomac and the captures by the way renewed the glories of 1862. For a few short weeks Virginia was freed from the tramp of armies. But, as before, the invasion, begun with an intoxicating outburst of martial hope, was doomed to end in a drawn and doubtful battle. After a bloody struggle on the heights of Get- tysburg, the two armies stood the greater part of two long summer days defiantly looking into each other's eyes. Neither was willing to attack its adversary. However deeply Lee may have felt the failure of his daring stroke, he took upon himself all the reproach and all the responsibility of the result. No word of criticism or censure passed his lips. But, confident of the devotion and the steadiness of his army, he promptly turned to the duty of the hour. What an example of serenity, of imperturbable firmness ! We owe to Gettysburg not only the most thrilling spectacle of the unsur- passed valor of the Confederate soldier, but a matchless exhibition of composure and magnanimity in the Confederate commander. The aggressive campaign failed, but neither the army nor its general was shaken. We find them during the remainder of 1863 facing their old foe with undiminished spirit. And soon Lee gives proof of equal firmness, enterprise, and generosity in detaching Longstreet's corps to strike a decisive blow, eight hundred miles away, by the side of Bragg at Chickamauga. The annals of war do not exhibit a more unselfish act.

How shall I briefly describe the added titles to enduring fame with which the campaign of the next year, 1864, invested our great leader? Who that lived through that time can forget the awful hush of those calm spring days, which ushered in the tremendous outburst of the Federal attack along a thousand miles of front ?

In every quarter, at one and the same moment, the Confederacy felt the furious impact of a whole nation's force driven on by the re- sistless will of a single commander. Grant's aggressiveness, Grant's stubbornness. Grant's unyielding resolve to destroy the Confederate armies, seemed suddenly to animate every corps, every division, almost every man of the Federal host. Even now we stand aghast at the awful disparity in the numbers and resources of the two armies. Swinton puts the force under Grant's immediate eye on the first day of the campaign at 140,000 men. Grant himself puts it at 116,000. It is certain that Lee had less than 64,000 soldiers of all