I and. He had twice been brevetted in the Mexicar. war. For thirty years he had served the United States, and the period of disunion found him lieutenant-colonel of that famous regiment of cavalry of which Sydney Johnson was colonel.

Upon the secession of Virginia he was appointed commander in-chief of her forces, and organized an army with a system and rapidity that at once surprised and gratified the public. When President Davis made his appointments of generals, he was the third on the list: General Cooper being first, and General Sydney Johnson second. The appointments were made with reference to the rank held by each officer in the old army. The unfortunate campaign of General Lee in Western Virginia in the first year of the war threw a shadow on his fame; it disappointed his admirers and occasioned a very general denunciation of his ability. The battles around Richmond secured his fame. There was, in fact, but little military merit in them; but there was a great success, and results alone are the standards of popular appreciation. It was when General Lee moved out to the line of the Rappahannock that the true display of his abilities commenced; and his title to a substantial and abiding fame he had now crowned with the victory of Chancellors ville.

No one had ever accused General Lee of "genius." A sedate, methodical man, putting duty before everything else, illustrating the unselfish and Christian orders of virtue, almost sublime in his magnanimity, and uniting with these qualities a fair intellectual ability and an excellent practical judgment, this modern copy of Washington had nothing with which to dazzle mankind, but much with which to win its sober admiration. It has often been remarked how entirely limited by professional routine was the circle of intellectual accomplishments in the old army of the United States. Thirty years in this school had not made General Lee an "Admirable Crichton." Outside of his profession, his conversation was limited to a few commonplaces; he knew nothing of literature, and never attempted to draw an illustration from history. But the stranger who was at first shocked at such poverty of accomplishments in one so famous was soon won to admiration by the charming simplicity of a man who knew but little outside of the line of his duty, but in that was pre-eminently able

and thoroughly heroic. It may be said of him that he was one of those few self-depreciating men whose magnanimity was not sentimental, and whose modesty was not unmanly.

In taking up the thread of our story after the battle of Chan cellorsville, we must now follow this great commander in on of the most extraordinary movements of the war, and to on of its most critical and imposing fields.

A great battle had now been twice fought on the line of the Rappahannock with no other effect than driving the enemy back to the hills of Stafford. The position was one in which he could not be attacked to advantage. It was on this reflection that General Lee resolved to maneuver Hooker out of Virginia, to clear the Shenandoah Valley of the troops of the enemy, and to renew the experiment of the transfer of hostilities north of the Potomac. It was a blow to the summer canipaign of the enemy, calculated to disarrange it and relieve other parts of the Confederacy, but, above all, aimed at the prize of a great victory on Northern soil, long the aspiration of the Southern public.

The movement commenced on the 3d of June. The army of Northern Virginia had been thoroughly reorganized, and the question of Stonewall Jackson's successor had been deter mined to the satisfaction of the country. About the 20th of May the President commissioned both Major-generals R. S. Ewell and A. P. Hill as lieutenant-generals in the army of Northern Virginia. To each of these generals a corps was assigned, consisting of three divisions, General Longstreet, for this purpose, parting with one of his divisions (Anderson's), and A. P. Hill's old division being reduced by two brigades, was assigned to Major-general W. D. Pender. The two brigades thus taken from A. P. Hill's division, were united with Pettigrew's and another North Carolina brigade, and assigned to Major-general Heth, who, with Major-general Pender, was promoted from the rank of brigadier-generals. General A. P. Hill was assigned to the command of this corps, whilst General Ewell retained General Jackson's old corps, consisting of Early's division; Early having been made a Major-general in February, and receiving command of Ewell's old division; Rode's division and Trimble's division, to which General Edward Johnson, then just promoted to a major-gen

eralship, was assigned. Five of the six major-generals in the infantry department of this army, and the two corps generals, received their promotion within the twelve months past.

On the 3d of June McLaw's division of Longstreet's corps left Fredericksburg for Culpepper Court-house, and Hood's division, which was occupied on the Rapidan, marched to the same place. General Ewell's corps took up the line of march from its camps near Fredericksburg on the morning of June 4th, moving in the direction of Culpeper Court-House. On the same evening Longstreet's corps moved in the same direction. On Friday, June 5th, the enemy crossed a force below Fredericksburg, near the Bernard House, as if they intended to move once more upon our lines, stretching from Hamilton's crossing up to Fredericksburg. Ewell and Longstreet were halted at or near Locust Grove, in Orange county, to await the issue of the movement. Hooker having made this diversion in our front, set himself to work in removing his stores and in retiring his troops from the Stafford heights.

The forces of Longstreet and Ewell reached Culppeper Court house by the 8th, at which point the cavalry, under Genera! Stuart, was also concentrated. On the 9th a large force of Federal cavalry, strongly supported by infantry, crossed the Rappahannock at Beverly's and Kelly's fords, and attacked General Stuart. A severe engagement ensued, continuing from early in the morning until late in the afternoon, when the enemy was forced to recross the river with heavy loss, leaving four hundred prisoners, three pieces of artillery, and several colors in our hands.

This affair, popularly known as that of Brandy Station, was distinguished by an extraordinary exploit of Confederate troops. In one of the charges the Eleventh Virginia cavalry, under Colonel Lomax, captured, the third and last time, a battery of three pieces, the Sixth regiment and Thirty-fifth battalion having done so before them. Pushing his success, he divided his regiment, sending a squadron after the fugitives east of the railroad, while, with the remainder of his regiment, he assailed three regiments of cavalry, awaiting him at the depot. He routed this whole force completely.