meritorious conduct at Cerro Gordo, he was made brevet major; for the same at Contreras and Cherubusco, brevet lieutenant-colonel; and, after Chapultepec, he received the additional brevet of colonel-distinctions fairly earned by energy and courage.

When the war ended, Lee returned to his former duties in the Corps of Topographical Engineers, and was placed in charge of the works, then in process of construction, at Fort Carroll, near Baltimore. His assignment to the duty of thus superintending the military defences of Hampton Roads, New York Bay, and the approaches to Baltimore, in succession, would seem to indicate that his abilities as engineer were highly esteemed. Of his possession of such ability there can be no doubt. The young officer was not only thoroughly trained in this high department of military science, but had for his duties unmistakable natural endowments. This fact was clearly indicated on many occasions in the Confederate struggle-his eye for positions never failed him. It is certain that, had Lee never commanded troops in the field, he would have left behind him the reputation of an excellent engineer.

In 1855 he was called for the first time to command men, for his duties hitherto had been those of military engineer, astronomer, or staff-officer. The act of Congress directing that two new cavalry regiments should be raised excited an ardent desire in the officers of the army to receive appointments in them, and Lee was transferred from his place of engineer to the post of lieutenant-colonel in the Second Cavalry, one of the regiments in question. The extraordinary number of names of officers in this regiment who afterward became famous is worthy of notice.

The

colonel was Albert Sydney Johnston; the lieutenant-coonel, R. E. Lee; the senior major, William J. Hardee; the junior major, George H. Thomas; the senior captain, Carl Van Dorn; the next ranking captain, Kirby Smith; the lieutenants, Hood, Fields, Cosby, Major, Fitzhugh Lee, Johnson, Palmer, and Stoneman, all of whom became general officers afterward on the Southern side, with the ex ception of Thomas, and the three last named, who became prominent generals in the Federal army. It is rare that such a constellation of famous names is found in the list of officers of a single regiment. The explanation is, nevertheless simple. Positions in the new regiments were eagerly coveted by the best soldiers of the army, and, in appointing the officers, those of conspicuous ability only were selected. The Second Regiment of cavalry thus became the corps d'élite of the United States Army; and, after Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee was the ranking officer.

Lee proceeded with his regiment to Texas, remaining there for several years on frontier duty, and does not reappear again until 1859.

Such was the early career in the army of the soldier soon to become famous on a greater theatre-that of a thoroughly-trained, hard-working, and conscientious officer. With the single exception of his brief record in the Mexican War, his life had been passed in official duties, unconnected with active military operations. He was undoubtedly what is called a "rising man," but he had had no opportunity to display the greatest faculties of the soldier. The time was coming now when he was to be tested, and the measure of his faculties taken in one of the greatest wars which darken the pages of history.

A single incident of public importance marks the life of Lee between 1855 and 1861. This was what is known to the world as the "John Brown raid "-an incident of the year 1859, and preluding the approaching storm. This occurrence is too well known to require a minute account in these pages, and we shall accordingly pass over it briefly, indicating simply the part borne in the affair by Lee. He was in Washington at the time-the fall of 1859-on a visit to his family, then residing at Arlington, near the city, when intelligence came that a party of desperadoes had attacked and captured Harper's Ferry, with the avowed intent of arming and inciting to insurrection the slaves of the neighborhood and entire State. Lee was immediately, thereupon, directed by President Buchanan to proceed to the point of danger and arrest the rioters. He did so promptly; found upon his arrival that Brown and his confederates had shut themselves up in an engine-house of the town, with a number of their prisoners. Brown was summoned to surrender, to be delivered over to the authorities for civil trial -he refused; and Lee then proceeded to assault, with a force of marines, the stronghold to which Brown had retreated. The doors were driven in, Brown firing upon the assailants and killing or wounding two; but he and his men were cut down and captured; they were turned over to the Virginia authorities, and Lee, having performed the duty assigned him returned to Washington, and soon afterward to Texas.

He remained there, commanding the department, until the early spring of 1861. He was then recalled to Washington at the moment when the conflict between the North and the South was about to commence.

VI.

LEE AND SCOTT.

LEE found the country burning as with fever, and the air hot with contending passions. The animosity, long smouldering between the two sections, was about to burst into the flame of civil war; all men were taking sides; the war of discussion on the floor of Congress was about to yield to the clash of bayonets and the roar of cannon on the battle-field.

Any enumeration of the causes which led to this unhappy state of affairs would be worse than useless in a volume like the present. Even less desirable would be a discussion of the respective blame to be attached to each of the great opponents in inaugurating the bitter and longcontinued struggle. Such a discussion would lead to nothing, and would probably leave every reader of the same opinion as before. It would also be the repetition of a worn-out and wearisome story. These events are known of all men; for the political history of the United States, from 1820, when the slavery agitation began, on the question of the Missouri restriction, to 1861, when it ended in civil convulsion, has been discussed, rediscussed, and discussed again, in every journal, great and small, in the whole country. The person who is not familiar, therefore, with the main points at issue, must be ignorant beyond the power of any writer to enlighten him. We need only say that the election of Abraham Lincoln, the nominee of the Republican party, had determined the Gulf States to leave the Union. South Carolina accordingly seceded, on the 20th of December, 1860; and by the 1st of February, 1861, she had been fol

lowed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The struggle thus approached. Military movements began at many points, like those distant flashes of lightning and vague mutterings which herald the tempest. Early in February Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected President of the Confederate States, at Montgomery. On the 13th of April Fort Sumter surrendered to General Beauregard, and on the next day, April 14, 1861, President Lincoln issued his proclamation declaring the Gulf States in rebellion, and calling upon the States which had not seceded for seventy-five thousand men to enforce the Federal authority.

Of the great States of the South, Virginia alone had persistently resisted secession. Her refusal to array herself against the General Government had been based upon an unconquerable repugnance, it seemed, for the dissolution of that Union which she had so long loved; from real attachment to the flag which she had done so much to make honorable, and from a natural indisposition to rush headlong into a conflict whose whole fury would burst upon and desolate her own soil. The proclamation of President Lincoln, however, decided her course. The convention had obdurately refused, week after week, to pass the ordinance of secession. Now the naked question was, whether Virginia should fight with or against her sisters of the Gulf States. She was directed to furnish her quota of the seventy-five thousand troops called for by President Lincoln, and must decide at once. On the 17th of April, 1861, accordingly, an ordinance of secession passed the Virginia Convention, and that Commonwealth cast her fortunes for weal or woe with the Southern Confederacy.