in face of the hesitating Federals, his pontoon bridges being completed, he crossed the river, was again in Virginia, and by leisurely movements succeeded in planting his suffering and diminished army on the banks of the Rapidan. His scheme of invasion had been baulked and brought to naught; he had sustained a severe defeat; but he had reason to congratulate himself that he had extricated his army, which the whole Northern public had waited to hear would be cut off by Meade, as the crowning prize of his campaign. "The fruit seemed so ripe, so ready for plucking," said President Lincoln, "that it was very hard to lose it."

CHAPTER IX.

Decline of the fortunes of the Confederacy.-Operations in the autumn of 1863.-Gen. Lee's patriotic exhortation to his troops.-His great care for them.-Meeting of the chaplains in his army.-Relations between General Lee and his troops.— His habits on the battle-field.-Intercourse with his men.-Simplicity of his manners. His feelings towards the public enemy.-How he rebuked a Yankee-phobist.—Sufferings of the Confederate troops.—Commissary Northrop.—General Lee demands food for his troops.-Touching address to his half-starved men.-Anecdote of Gen. Lee and his cook.-Personal recollections of the great commander. -An English officer's description of his person and habits.

THE recoil at Gettysburg marked a period when the Southern fortunes commenced to decline, and on its disastrous field was buried much of the former prestige of the Army of Northern Virginia. But the army had saved itself and its honour, if it had not done all that popular admiration had predicted for it; and it obtained at least the advantage of several months' repose. It was not in motion again until October, and the remainder of the year was consumed by a campaign of manoeuvres, which, as it was generally without result, we need not give in detail here. An attempted flank march on Centreville, by which Gen. Lee aimed to get between Meade and Washington, was anticipated by the enemy, and proved a failure; and in the month of November the enemy appeared to make a retaliatory signal of attack, advancing, and crossing the Rapidan at several points. Gen. Lee, noticing the movement, issued the following general order, in which his patriotic exhortation and appeal to the army were expressed in words of more than usual urgency and power:

"The enemy is again advancing upon our capital, and the country once more looks to this army for its protection. Under the blessings of God, your valour has repelled every previous attempt, and, invoking the continuance of His favour, we cheerfully commit to Him the issue of the coming contest..

"A cruel enemy seeks to reduce our fathers and our mothers, our wives and our children, to abject slavery; to strip them of

their property, and drive them from their homes. Upon you these helpless ones rely to avert these terrible calamities, and to secure to them the blessings of liberty and safety. Your past history gives them the assurance that their trust will not be in vain. Let every man remember that all he holds dear depends upon the faithful discharge of his duty, and resolve to fight, and if need be to die, in defence of a cause so sacred and worthy the name won by this army on so many bloody fields.”

But the expected battle did not occur; Meade's plan of action came to an abortive issue, and, in a few days, he withdrew across the Rapidan, and resumed his old camps. Both armies went into winter-quarters; and Gen. Lee, who was always busy in the intervals of action in recruiting and improving his army, again addressed himself to the usual tasks of winter, providing for the comfort of his men, and corresponding with the War Department at Richmond on the many needs of the military service.

It is interesting to observe how the religious interests of his men were attended to by a commander who appears to have taken into his heart every comfort and care of the soldiers he commanded, and to have omitted nothing from his scheme of welfare. In November, all the chaplains of Gen. Lee's army held a meeting or convention in the camps on the Rapidan, to invoke the God of Battles, and to consult about their spiritual cares. Most interesting reports were made, showing a high state of religious feeling throughout the army. At a later day, in his winter-quarters, Gen. Lee appointed a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer;" requiring military duties to be suspended, and desiring the chaplains to hold divine service in their regiments and brigades. A correspondent of the Richmond Dispatch said: "The great suc cess of Gen. Lee's army is due to the religious element which reaches every corner of it; whilst, on the other hand, I am very much disposed to fear, from what I have been told by officers who have served in the Army of Tennessee, that the lack of success of that army is due, in a large measure, to the want of religious influence upon the troops."

The task of reorganizing and inspiriting his army, after the most arduous campaigns, was one in which Gen. Lee was more successful than any other Confederate commander. And while engaged in this work, preparatory to the great spring campaign of

1864, it will be convenient for us to pause here to make some estimate of the commander for which the accounts of so many battles already fought will prepare the reader, and to explain those relations to his army in which he was so fortunate and powerful.

A great element of Gen. Lee's popularity in his army was his exceeding, almost paternal, care for his men. It is a remarkable circumstance that he never harangued his troops on a battle-field; he employed but little of rhetoric, and was innocent of theatrical machinery in maintaining the resolution and spirit of his army. He was never a conspicuous figure in the field of battle. His habit was to consult the plan of battle thoroughly; assign to each corps commander his precise work, and leave the active conduct of the field to his lieutenant-generals, unless in some case of critical emergency. He but seldom gave an order on the field of battle. It is indeed remarkable that with such little display of his person, and with a habit bordering on taciturnity, Gen. Lee should have obtained such control over the affections of men whom he tried not only by constant battle but by tests of hardship, privation and suffering, and by a measure of general endurance such as has not been applied to any army of modern times.

But his intercourse with his army was peculiar. He mingled with the troops on every proper occasion; he spoke a few simple words here and there to the wounded and distressed soldier; and his kindliness of manner was so unaffected that it at once gained the confidence and touched the heart. He had a rare gift, which many persons copy or affect, but which can never be perfectly possessed unless by a great man and a true gentleman-a voice whose tones of politeness never varied, whether uttered to the highest or lowest in rank. His men not only felt a supreme confidence in his judgment as a commander, but they were conscious everywhere of his sympathy with their sufferings, and his attention to their wants; and they therefore accepted every sacrifice and trial as inevitable necessity imposed upon them by a paternal hand. In those long and weary marches which try the patience of the soldier, he would not allow the men to be hurried without necessity, gave them sufficient opportunities for rest and refreshment, and would inquire among them at the end of the day how they had stood the march, and receive any suggestions for making that of the next day less irksome. When the march was necessarily a hard one, it

was his custom to send back couriers, when the point aimed at was near at hand, to encourage his weary men with the intelligence.

The habits of Gen. Lee was those of a thorough soldier, and all that men can require in the assurance that their commander shares with them the hardships of war. On a march, when camping out, he did not, as some of his brigade commanders did, select the finest dwelling-house in the neighbourhood of his camp, and insist upon the occupant entertaining himself and staff. It was only when he had established headquarters at a place where he was likely to remain some time, that he sought the protection of a house. He dressed without unnecessary display of his rank; he endured the commonest hardships without the affectation that calls attention to them; and in the sincere simplicity of his manners he afforded an example how readily even the much-abused populace will distinguish between the arts of the demagogue and the virtues of the

man.

In all his official intercourse and private conversation Gen. Lee never breathed a vindictive sentiment towards the enemy who so severely taxed his resources and ingenuity, and put against him so many advantages in superiour means and numbers. He had none of that Yankee-phobia common in the Southern army; he spoke of the Northern people without malevolence, and in a style that deprecated their political delusions rather than denounced their crimes; and he generally referred to the enemy in quiet and indif ferent words, quite in contrast to the epithets and anathemas which were popularly showered on "the Yankees." On one occasion, a spectator describes him riding up to the Rockbridge Artillery, which was fiercely engaging the enemy, and greeting his son Robert, who as a private soldier was bravely working one of the guns. "How d'ye do, father?" was all that Robert had to say as he continued his duty at his gun; and Gen. Lee replied quietly: "That's right, my son; drive those people back."* At another time,

* Gen. Lee had three sons, all of whom did hard and noble service in the Confederate army. Brig.-Gen. G. W. Custis Lee, was for some time aide-de-camp to the President, and held part of the Richmond defences; Maj.-Gen. W. H. F Lee commanded a division of cavalry in the Army of Northerh Virginia: and Robert Edward Lee, to whom we have referred as a private in the Rockbridge Artillery, was afterwards on the staff of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, a son of Commodore Lee, and nephew of the great commander.