On the field of Sharpsburg, with less than one-third his num bers, you resisted, from daylight until dark, the whole army of the enemy, and repulsed every attack along his entire front, of more than four miles in extent.

The whole of the following day you stood prepared to resume the conflict on the same ground, and retired next morning, without molestation, across the Potomac.

Two attempts, subsequently made by the enemy, to follow you across the river, have resulted in his complete discomfiture and being driven back with loss.

Achievements such as these demanded much valour and patriotism. History records few examples of greater fortitude and endurance than this army has exhibited; and I am commissioned by the President to thank you in the name of the Confederate States for the undying fame you have won for their arms.

Much as you have done, much more remains to be accomplished. The enemy again threatens us with invasion, and to your tried valour and patriotism the country looks with confidence for deliverance and safety. Your past exploits give assurance that this confidence is not misplaced.

R. E. LEE, General Commanding.

The moral effect of the campaign which Gen. Lee bad now concluded is too large and brilliant to be omitted from any estimate of results. To the world it was a chapter of wonders. It had accomplished a sum of victories unequalled in the same space of time by anything in the previous or subsequent experience of the war; it had made a record of toils, hardships, and glories famous in history; it had accumulated a brilliant spoil; and the wonderful statement is derived from the books of the provost-marshal in Richmond, that in twelve or fifteen weeks the Confederates had taken and paroled no less than forty-odd thousand prisoners! If "the opinion of foreign nations may be taken as an anticipation of the judgment of posterity," the Confederates had already for these achievements an assurance of historical memory that nothing could defeat. Of the events we have narrated, the leading journal of Europe-the London Times-declared: "The people of the Confederate States have made themselves famous. If the renown of brilliant courage, stern devotion to a cause, and military achieve

ments almost without a parallel, can compensate men for the toil and privations of the hour, then the countrymen of Lee and Jackson may be consoled amid their sufferings. From all parts of Europe, from their enemies as well as their friends, from those who condemn their acts as well as those who sympathize with them, comes the tribute of admiration. When the history of this war is written, the admiration will doubtless become deeper and stronger, for the veil which has covered the South will be drawn away, and disclose a picture of patriotism, of unanimous self-sacrifice, of wise and firm administration, which we can now only see indistinctly. The details of extraordinary national effort which has led to the repulse and almost to the destruction of an invading force of more than half a million of men, will then become known to the world; and, whatever may be the fate of the new nationality, or its subsequent claims to the respect of mankind, it will assuredly begin its career with a reputation for genius and valour which the most famous nations may envy."

Even the enemy was forced to tributes of admiration.

*

"It was

not," writes a historian of the events, "without mixed feelings that the better classes in the North heard of the exploits of their former fellow-countrymen. They could not but admire the military qualities and personal character of the leaders of the Confederate armies; and although feeling the reproach that their own well-equipped troops had been beaten by men who possessed few of their advantages, yet they received some comfort from the fact that their opponents were Americans. Even if a portion of the Democratic party could scarce refrain from the opinion that a Union under President Davis and Gen. Lee would be preferable to discord under President Lincoln and Mr. Stanton, few can blame them."

Indeed, this admiration of the Confederates went so far that popular orators in New York freely and abundantly declared that the war had increased the respect felt by the North for the South. For once, without the fear of Federal authorities before their eyes, they pointed to what appeared to them the miraculous resources of the "rebel" government, the bravery of its troops, their patience under hardships, their unshrinking firmness in the

* Fletcher: History of the American War. BENTLEY, London.

desperate position they had assumed, the wonderful sucess with which they had extemporized manufactures and munitions of war, and kept themselves in communication with the world in spite of a magnificent blockade; the elasticity with which they had risen from defeat, and the courage they had shown in threatening again and · again the capital of the North, and even its interiour. It will be recollected that such a eulogy of the Confederates was publicly pronounced by Dr. Bellows, one of the most popular preachers of New York. He concluded: "Well is Gen. McClellan reported to have said (privately), as he watched their obstinate fighting at Antietam, and saw them retiring in perfect order in the midst of the most frightful carnage, 'What terrible neighbours these would be! We must conquer them, or they will conquer us!'"

These testimonies to Confederate heroism are not idly repeated here. Each year of the war had some characteristic by which it is easily remembered; and that of 1862 may be taken as the period of the greatest lustre of the Confederate arms. Whatever its sequel, what is testified of it here remains, cannot be recalled from the memory of the world, and constitutes a secure monument of history, which no after-thought of envy, no modification of opinions on the part of an enemy ultimately successful, can possibly destroy or diminish.

CHAPTER VII.

General Lee's perilous situation in North Virginia.-His alarming etter to the War Office. The happy fortune of McClellan's removal.-The Batte of Fredericks burg.-Gen. Lee's great mistake in not renewing the attack.-His own confession of errour.-He detaches nearly a third of his army to cover the south side of Richmond. He writes a severe letter to the Government.-The enemy's fifth grand attempt on Richmond.-Gen Lee in a desperate extremity.-The Battles of Chancellorsville.-Three victories for the Confederates.-The masterpiece of Geu. Lee's military life.

AFTER the battle of Sharpsburg, Gen. Lee did not indicate an immediate purpose to retire from the Potomac, but remained in the neighbourhood of Winchester, anxiously waiting for the development of McClellan's designs. There was serious reason to apprehend that the enemy would again press him to battle. But the extreme moral timidity of McClellan again gave opportunities to the Confederates; and while with an army already triple that of Lee, he was yet entreating and importuning the government at Washington for reinforcements, the latter was recruiting his strength so terribly diminished by the hardships of the Gordonsville and Maryland campaign, and making necessary preparations for the renewal of operations. In not pressing Lee after his retirement into Virginia, McClellan made the great mistake of his military career. Of the reality and extent of his opportunity at this time, we have in evidence a letter of Gen. Lee himself. In the first days of November, 1862, he wrote to the War Department that he had not half men enough to resist McClellan's advance with his mighty army, and that he would have to resort to manoeuvring in preference to risking his army in battle. He added that threefourths of the cavalry horses were sick with sore-tongue, and their hoofs were falling off; he complained that his soldiers were not fed and clad as they should be; and he expressed the greatest anxiety as to any movement of McClellan threatening battle.

But most happily for the Confederates, the uncertainty of McClellan's designs terminated in his removal from command, and

the appointment of Gen. Burnside to succeed him; event which gave occasion to a new meditation and plan of campaign, and secured for Gen. Lee the delay which he so much needed. It was a deliverance from an alarming crisis. Gen. Lee had at first supposed that Burnside intended to embark his army for the south. side of James River, to operate probably in eastern North Carolina; but in the latter part of November, the enemy showed plainly another design, and the Confederate scouts reported large masses of infantry advancing on Fredericksburg. On the 18th November, a portion of Longstreet's corps was marched thither; and Gen. Lee wrote to Richmond: "Before the enemy's trains can leave Fredericksburg" (i.e. for Richmond) "this whole army will be in position." The assurance was faithfully and fully kept, and Burnside found his alert antagonist in full force on the banks of the Rappahannock.

The battle of Fredericksburg, on the 13th December, 1862, was one of the most easily and cheaply won Confederate victories of the war. It was a striking illustration of the advantage of fighting in a strong position-an advantage too little regarded by the Confederates during the war; for although victories in open fields obtained for the South a certain prestige, it was at the woful price of the flower of her people, for which there was but little compensation in the loss of life in the enemy's ranks, recruited as they were from the dregs of his own society, and the mercenary markets of the whole world.* At Fredericksburg, the Confederate position was all that could be desired by Gen. Lee. His army was drawn up along the heights, which, retiring in a semicircle from the river, embraced within their arms a plain six miles in length, and from two to three in depth. This semicircle of hills terminated at Massaponax River, about five miles below Fredericksburg. The right

* Dr. Dabney, the biographer of Stonewall Jackson, writing in 1863, says: "Onehalf of the prisoners of war, registered by the victorious armies of the South, have been foreign mercenaries. Mr. Smith O'Brien, warning his race against the unhallowed enterprise, declares that the Moloch of Yankee ambition has already sacrificed 200,000 Irishmen to it. And still, as the flaming sword of the South mows down these hireling invaders, fresh hordes throng the shores. Last, our country has to wage this strife only on these cruel terms, that the blood of her chivalrous sons shall be matched against the sordid streams of this cloaca populorum. In the words of Lord Lindsay, at Flodden Field, we must play our 'Rose Nobles of gold, against crooked sixpences.""