some twenty feet in height. On the great stones which support the roof are mystic emblems. On the floor is a large stone hollowed out in the shape of a bowl. It suggests human sacrifices. A gloomier chamber for weird rites could not be imagined.

Who were the worshipers? Druid or pre-Druid? The archæologists tell us that they belonged to the Early Bronze period. Now Early Bronze is a good enough term for articles in a museum, but it does not suggest a human being. We cannot get on terms of spiritual intimacy with the Early Bronze people. We may know what they did, but there is no intimation of 'the moving why they did it.' What spurred them on to their feats of prodigious industry? Was it fear or love? First they built their chapel of great stones and then piled a huge hill on top of it. Were they still under the influence of the Glacial period and attempting to imitate the wild doings of Nature? The passage of the ages does not make these men seem venerable, because their deeds are no longer intelligible. Mellefont Abbey is in ruins but we can easily restore it in imagination. We can picture the great buildings as they were before Henry VIII destroyed them. The prehistoric place of worship in the middle of the hill is practically unchanged. But the clue to its meaning is lost.

I could not make the ancient builders and worshipers seem real. It was a relief to come up into the sunshine

where people of our own kind had walked, the Kings of Tara and their harpers, and St. Patrick and St. Malachy and Oliver Cromwell and William III. After the unintelligible symbols on the rocks, how familiar and homelike seemed the sculptures on the Celtic crosses. They were mostly about people, and people whom we had known from earliest childhood. There were Adam and Eve, and Cain slaying Abel, and the Magi. They were members of one family.

But between us and the builders of the underground chapel there was a great gulf. There was no means of spiritual communication across the abyss. A scrap of writing, a bit of poetry, a name handed down by tradition, would have been worth all the relics discovered by archaeologists.

There is justification for the traveler's preference for the things he has read about, for these are the things which resist the changes of time. Only he must remember that they are better preserved in the book than in the places where they happened. The impression which any generation makes on the surface of the earth is very slight. It cannot give the true story of the brief occupancy. That requires some more direct interpretation.

The magic carpet which carries us into any age not our own is woven by the poets and historians. Without their aid we may travel through space, but not through Time.

OPINIONS differ as to the quality of Johnston's generalship. Let us have the bare, indisputable facts first. After distinguished service with the United States Army, notably in Mexico, he was the highest officer in rank to join the Confederacy, although he was given only the fourth position among the five Confederate generals. His first command was at Harper's Ferry and in the Shenandoah Valley. Here he outmanoeuvred Patterson and appeared at Bull Run in time to assume control during that battle. He himself admits that he was opposed to following up the Confederate victory with a march on Washington. In the spring of 1862 Johnston led the Army of Northern Virginia, and fought the battles of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks. After this, a severe wound kept him inactive through the summer and Lee took his place.

During the first half of 1863 Johnston held a somewhat vague control over the western armies of the Confederacy. Davis hoped that he would defeat Grant and save Vicksburg; but he did neither. After Bragg had been worsted, and had become so unpopular that Davis could no longer support him, Johnston was given the command of the Army of Tennessee, and commissioned to resist Sherman's advance

through Georgia. This he did in slow and careful retreat, disputing every disputable point, inflicting greater losses than he received, and wonderfully preserving the discipline, courage, and energy of his army. The government was not satisfied, however, and preferred to substitute Hood and his disastrous offensive. Early in 1865, when Lee became commander-in-chief, he restored Johnston, who conducted a skillful, if hopeless, campaign in the Carolinas, and finally surrendered to Sherman on favorable terms.

Admirable in retreat and defense, a wide reader and thinker and a profound military student, Johnston was no offensive fighter, say his critics. Among Northern writers Cox, who admired him greatly, remarks, ‘His abilities are undoubted, and when once committed to an offensive campaign, he conducted it with vigor and skill. The bent of his mind, however, was plainly in favor of the course which he steadily urged — to await his adversary's advance, and watch for errors which would give him a manifest opportunity to ruin him.' And on the Southern side Alexander's summary is that 'Johnston never fought but one aggressive battle, the battle of Seven Pines, which was phenomenally mismanaged.'

Equally competent authorities are

more enthusiastic. Longstreet speaks of Johnston as 'the foremost soldier of the South,' and Pollard as 'the greatest military man in the Confederacy.' The English observer and critic, Chesney, says, 'What he might have ventured had a rasher or less wary commander been before him, is as impossible to say as it would be to declare what would have been the result to Lee had Sherman taken the place of Grant in Virginia. As things were actually disposed, it is not too much to declare that Johnston's doing what he did with the limited means at his command is a feat that should leave his name in the annals of defensive war at least as high as that of Fabius or Turenne or Moreau.' Among Johnston's enemies, Grant said to Bishop Lay, 'When I heard your government had removed Johnston from command, I was as happy as if I had reinforced Sherman with a large army corps'; and to Young, 'I have had nearly all of the Southern generals in high command in front of me, and Joe Johnston gave me more anxiety than any of the others. I was never half so anxious about Lee.' Sherman, who should have known, declares that 'Johnston is one of the most enterprising of all their generals.' And Ropes, writing in dispassionate study, says that 'Johnston had as good a military mind as any general on either side.'

Yet, I confess, I wish the man had achieved something. The skill, the prudence mixed with daring, which held every position before Sherman till the last possible moment and then slipped away, without loss, without disaster, cannot be enough commended. Perhaps Stonewall Jackson would have done no more. But I cannot help thinking that Stonewall Jackson would have tried.

No one understands a man better than his wife. Mrs. Johnston adored her husband. He was her knight, her

chevalier, her hero, as he deserved to be. But once he was scolding a girl who was attacked by a turkey-gobbler, and neither ran nor resisted. 'If she will not fight, sir,' he said, 'is not the best thing for her to do to run away, sir?' Whereupon Mrs. Johnston commented, with a burst of her hearty laughter, "That used to be your plan always, I know, sir.'

In short, too much of Johnston's career consists of the things he would have done, if circumstances had only been different.

And here it is urged, and justly urged, that fortune was against him. All his life he seems to have been the victim of ill-luck. Lee was wounded, I think, only once. Johnston was getting wounded perpetually. He himself told Fremantle that he had been wounded ten times. General Scott said of him before the war that he 'had an unfortunate knack of getting himself shot in every engagement.' A shell struck him down at Fair Oaks, just as it seemed that he might have beaten McClellan and saved Richmond.

Nor was it wounds only. Johnston had a vigorous frame, yet bodily illness would sometimes hamper him just at a crisis. On the voyage to Mexico Lee was enjoying himself, keenly alive to everything that went on about him. 'I have a nice stateroom on board this ship,' he writes; 'Joe Johnston and myself occupy it, but my poor Joe is so sick all the time I can do nothing with him.'

And external circumstance was no kinder than the clayey habitation. 'It seemed Johnston's fate to be always placed on posts of duty where extended efforts were necessarily devoted to organizing armies,' writes his biographer. He was always in time for toil, for discipline, for sacrifice. For achievement he was apt to be too late. It is surprising how often the phrase recurs in his

correspondence. It is very unfortunate to be placed in such a command after the enemy has had time to prepare his attack.' 'I arrived this evening, finding the enemy in full force between the place and General Pemberton, cutting off the communications. I am too late.' 'It is too late to expect me to concentrate troops capable of driving back Sherman.' At the greatest crisis of all, after retreating a hundred miles to draw his enemy on, he at last made his preparations with cunning skill for a decisive stand which should turn retreat into triumph- too late. For the order arrived, removing him from the command and robbing him once more of the gifts of Fortune.

It was from Davis that this blow came, and Davis, or so Johnston thought, was Johnston's ill-luck personified. Certainly, nothing could be more unfortunate for a general than to have the head of his government prejudiced against him from the first. It was for this reason, in Johnston's opinion, that commands were given him when it was too late to accomplish anything, and taken away when he was on the brink of achieving something great. It was for this reason that necessary support was denied, and necessary supplies were given grudgingly; for this reason that his powers were limited, his plans criticized, his intentions mistrusted. In the list of Destiny's unkindnesses, as summed up by one of the General's admirers, the ill-will and illtreatment of Davis, and Davis's favorites, figure so prominently that other accidental elements seem of minor account. If there is such a thing as ill-fortune, he had more than his share of it. He never had the chance that Lee had. If he had not been wounded at Seven Pines, a great victory would have crowned his arms with substantial results. If he had not been betrayed at Jackson, he would have joined

Pemberton and captured Grant's army. If he had not been removed at Atlanta, he would almost certainly have defeated Sherman.'

When I survey this portentous concatenation of ifs, I ask myself whether, after all, Fortune deserved the full blame in the matter. You and I know scores of men who would have been rich and great and prosperous, if - if - if - And then a little reflection shows us that the if lies latent, or even patent, in the character or conduct of the men themselves. It would be unjust and cruel to deny that many cross accidents thwarted Johnston's career, that inevitable and undeserved misfortunes fell between him and glory. Yet a careful, thoughtful study of that career forces me to admit that the man was in some respects his own ill-fortune, and injured himself.

Take even the mere mechanical matter of wounds. Johnston may have got more than his share of blindly billeted projectiles. But every one agrees that his splendid recklessness took him often into unnecessary danger. One of his aides told Mrs. Chesnut that he had never seen a battle. 'No man exposes himself more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and no one strives harder to keep others out of it.' This is surely a noble quality, but it is apt to mean ill-luck in the matter of damages.

Some of Johnston's other qualities were less noble and, I think, bred illluck with no adequate compensation. In the original cause of the quarrel with Davis, Johnston probably had right on his side. The Confederate generals were to have ranked according to their position in the United States Army. In that Army Johnston stood highest. But Davis placed him below Cooper, A. S. Johnston, and Lee. Davis had, as always, ingenious arguments to support this procedure. Johnston thought the

real argument was personal preference, and he was probably right. At any rate, he did not like it, and said so.

Further, there was a radical difference between President and General as to military policy, throughout the war. Johnston believed that the true course was concentration, to let outlying regions go, mass forces, beat the enemy, and then more than recover what had been given up. Davis felt that the demoralization consequent upon such a course would more than outweigh the military advantages.

Neither was a man to give up his own opinion. Neither was a man to compromise. Neither was a man who could abandon his own view to work out honestly, heartily, successfully, the view of another. "They were too much alike to get along,' says Johnston's biographer; 'they were each high-tempered, impetuous, jealous of honor, of the love of their friends, and they could brook no rival. They required absolute devotion, without question.'

You see, we begin to get a little more insight into Johnston's ill-luck. Not that Davis was free from blame. To appreciate both sides, we must look more closely into the written words and comments of each. It is a painful, pitiable study, but absolutely necessary for understanding the character of Johnston.

Davis, then, was inclined to interfere when he should not. He had his own ideas of military policy and was anxious to have them carried out. Johnston was not at all inclined to carry out the President's ideas, and having urged his own at first with little profit, became reluctant to communicate them, and perhaps even a little to conceive them. Davis's eager temperament is annoyed, frets, appeals. 'Painfully anxious as to the result in Vicksburg, I have remained without information from you as to any plans proposed or

attempts to raise the siege. Equally uninformed as to your plans in relation to Port Hudson, I have to request such information in relation thereto as the Government has a right to expect from one of its commanding generals in the field.' Again, 'I wish to hear from you as to the present situation, and your plan of operations, so specifically as will enable me to anticipate events.'

When Johnston's replies are evasive or non-committal, Davis's attitude becomes crisply imperative. "The President instructs me to reply,' he writes through Cooper, 'that he adheres to his order and desires you to execute it.' No tact here, no attempt at conciliation or persuasion. Sometimes the tone is injured, hurt, resentful: 'While some have expressed surprise that my orders to you were not observed, I have at least hoped that you would recognize the desire to aid and sustain you, and that it would produce the corresponding action on your part.' Sometimes it is brusque to roughness: 'I do not perceive why a junction was not attempted, which would have made our force nearly equal in number to the estimated strength of the enemy, and might have resulted in his total defeat under circumstances which rendered retreat or reinforcement for him scarcely practicable.'

The President rates his second in command as if he were a refractory school-boy. "The original mistakes in your telegram of 12th June would gladly have been overlooked as accidental, if acknowledged when pointed out. The perseverance with which they have been insisted on has not permitted me to pass them by as mere oversights.' 'It is needless to say that you are not considered capable of giving countenance to such efforts at laudation of yourself and detraction of others.' "The language of your letter is, as you say, unusual, its insinuations unfound