Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/145

 General Lee at Gettysburg. 141

of fair leather an inch wide. He was himself a soldier and lived as a soldier in a tent, and on the plainest fare. He neither knew tobacco nor cared for wine. He had the quiet bearing of a powerful yet harmonious nature. An unruffled calm upon his countenance betokened the concentration and control of the whole being w r ithin. He was a kingly man whom all men who came into his presence expected to obey. His son, recalling all his life with his father, says: "I always knew it was impossible to disobey my father." With his natural dignity and reserve he was by no meanc inacces- sible. He had a fine knowledge of men and conversed with his generals and younger men that he might know them better. He had a shrewd perception of the enemy's purpose. He had the general's courage to do great and perilous things. He was strong in the formation of his lines, and imperious in pressing them to battle to the utmost of victory. He was amiable and considerate of his generals; with an unwillingness to wound their feelings that did honor to his gentleness, if it did not weaken his power over them. To one of his sons, he once wrote, in one of those model letters of a father: "Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less."

THE CORPS COMMANDERS.

About General Lee were three corps commanders. Lieutenant- General James Longstreet, forty-three years of age, was born in South Carolina, long a resident of Alabama, and after the war re- sided in Georgia. He graduated at West Point in 1842. He was an officer of infantry in the United States army, and commanded 'the companies which stormed the gates of Monterey, with Lieu- tenant George Meade, against whom he fought at Gettysburg, as an engineer officer. He was calm, self-possessed, unobtrusive, though determined, and a hard fighter of troops when he got them into position. ^ At Gettysburg he was unwilling and recal- citrant to say the least, and many think he was seriously disobe- dient to the wishes of his commander. But there, as before and after, he fought with a vigor and determination that made him always a lion in the way.

Lieutenant-General Richard Stoddard Ewell, forty-six years old at Gettysburg, was a native of Prince William county, Va. He graduated at West Point in 1845. He became a captain of cavalry and served his country in the West with gallantry and distinction. As Fitz Lee says: "He was a brave officer and a