SOUTHERN GENERALS.*
HERE is a volume containing sketches of seventeen general officers, all save one more or less distinguished for actual service in the field, the one exception being Samuel Cooper, a New Yorker, who was Adjutant-General at Washington before the War of Secession, and who went over in the wake of Mr. Davis and of his brother-in-law, Mr. Mason, to the Confederate side. Of the sixteen fighting generals, the oldest in 1861 were Lee and Polk, who were each born in 1806; the youngest Hood and J. E. B. Stuart, born in 1831 and 1833 respectively. Of this sixteen Virginia furnishes no fewer than seven—Lee, Jackson, Johnston, Ewell, Stuart, A. P. Hill, and Sterling Price, lately of Missouri. Kentucky gave to the cause A. S. Johnson, killed at Shiloh in 1862, Hood and John Morgan, killed last year in Tennessee. North Carolina was the birth-place of Bragg and the fighting prelate Polk ; Georgia was the mother of Hardee ; Beauregard, otherwise Toutant, hailed from Louisiana ; Long- street, who figures as an Alabamian, was born in South Carolina, where Wade Hampton was a great planter ; and Kirby Smith is the son of a Connecticut lawyer, who got a judgeship in Florida. Thus it will be seen that, taking only this roll of selected men, Virginia supplies more than twice as many as any other State, that among them are the two best commanders in the Confederate service, Robert Lae and Joseph Johnston, and that, admitting Longstreet as a set-off against Thomas Jackson —surnamed "Stonewall," because he commanded a brigade raised in the "stonewall counties"—Virginia, which has been called the mother of Presidents, is now entitled to rank also as the mother of Generals. No soldiers have come to the surface on the Con- federate side with such sound military principles as Lee and Johnston, for the Kentuckian Algernon Sidney Johnson, who was killed at Pittsburg Landing, had not time to show whether his reputation was deserved. Bragg, and Hardee, and Beau- regard have shown themselves to be respectable, but neither first nor second-rate ; while Hood, and Polk, and the Hills, and Ewell, and Early and the rest lead the ruck, to use a sporting phrase. The renown of some—of Beauregard and Hood to wit—has been far greater than their merits, while Joseph Johnston has been depre- ciated with a persistency that almost suggests system. He never was from the beginning well treated by the Confederate authorities, and when Mr. Davis superseded him in favour of a mere fighter like Hood, he committed a blunder only less than that he com- mitted when he formed a contemptuous estimate of Sherman's southern Generals, who they are, and schAi they have done. London: Sampson Low and Co.
genius, and sent the fiery Hood across the Tennessee on the bare conjecture that Sherman, fearful of losing Nashville, would re- linquish Georgia to follow him. Johnston is not by any means the equal of Lee, who towers above all his comrades, but he is far superior to the others, and had he been trusted more the war would probably have been still going on.
General Lee is undoubtedly the military hero on the Confede- rate side. He brought to the cause a great name, for his father, Light Horse Harry, was conspicuous in the War of Independence, he himself had earned renown in the Mexican war, and he increased his influence by marrying the daughter of Washington's adopted son. But he went into the war with great reluctance, he never would admit its necessity, he only resigned his commission because he found it impossible to fight against his State ; and if Mr. Davis and his coadjutors accepted the services of Robert Lee, they did so mainly because they knew that Virginia had confidence in him, and that so long as he fought for Virginia that State would remain a firm supporter of the Confederacy. General Lee, it must never be forgotten, was not one of the original conspirators, nor one who could vindicate the justice of the conspiracy. He was more like a victim of circumstances, one who, caught in the toils of the plotters, was constrained to draw his sword because their designs had involved his State, family, and friends in danger. He drew his sword in defence of his State, he never used it out of that State except on the defensive-offensive invasions of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and when he sheathed his sword the Con- federacy lapsed into ruin. From the moment Joseph Johnston fell wounded in 1862, Robert Lee became the pillar of the Con- federacy. Without his genius for war the abilities of Mr. Davis, whatever they may be, would have been exercised in vain ; and we shall be greatly surprised if time does not show that Lee was as much opposed to Davis's design of uncovering Georgia as he was opposed to that policy which resolutely refused to arm the slaves. It is somewhat remarkable that Lee began his military service with a considerable failure in Western Virginia, all the more remarkable because the Mexican campaign had made him familiar with the peculiarities of mountain warfare. At that period, however, Lee was regarded with jealousy by the Davises, Wises, and Floyds, and it was not until M'Clellan was at the gates of Richmond, and Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines, that is, not until the perils of the Confederate Government were very serious, that Lee was fairly trusted. For three years he held back the power of the North from Richmond, and when he had to surrender at last, it was not because his system of war- fare had failed, but because Mr. Davis had made a blunder which ruined the system altogether.
Lee's system was essentially defensive. He lay in wait for a blunder, and when a blunder was made by his enemy he struck without hesitation, and reaped the fruits of his adversary's faults. Thus when the evils of M'Clellan's extreme caution before York- town and Richmond had been aggravated by the foolish system of warfare in disjointed columns adopted by Mr. Stanton and Mr. Lincoln, a system which Jackson, operating in a compact force and with inferior numbers, was able to break in pieces, Lee, by a cautious and rapid concentration of all the available troops in Virginia, was able to fall vigorously upon M'Clellan's flank, and compel him to save his army by retreating to the James River. Lee had great advantages, and he made the most of them. Not the least was the perfect knowledge of the state of Federal affairs which Mr. Davis derived from his spies in Washington. This knowledge, again, enabled Lee to detach Jackson against the in- competent Pope, for he knew that the Washington Cabinet in- tended to draw M'Clellan from the James to the Potomac, and before that could be done Lee, playing with Pope as he pleased, had thrust him back in disorder to the ramparts of Washington, and ere M'Clellan, reinstated in command, could organize a fresh army, Lee was over the Maryland frontier, and Jackson was beleaguering Harper's Ferry. M'Clellan, however, showed thaf he was not to be despised, by the able way in which he crossed the mountains and forced Lee to fight at Antietam. Substantially that encounter was a Federal victory, for it frustrated Lee's offensive designs on Maryland, and ultimately compelled him to take up a camp behind the Rapidan. Now it was that Lee showed his capacity. Undisturbed by the flank march of Burn- side to Falmouth, Lee swiftly moved through the wilderness to the fine defensive position a little south of Fredericksburg, and anticipated his foe. He must have been astounded and delighted when Burnside dashed against Mary's heights and courted dis- aster. But Burnside's army, although cruelly cut up, was not routed, and Hooker, a few months later, showed Lee that he had still work to do. Hooker's plan was good, and very dangerous
to Lee, and had it been executed as well as it,was planned Lee must have retreated to the North Anna. Here Lee had the ad- vantage of knowing his opponent. Had Sherman; or Grant, or even Meade, been in his front at Chancellotsviller Lem-fluid not have dared to divide his army, and send half or-it under Jackson round the Federal flank. Lee counted on an' imVerfect watch
on that side, and he did not count without his ; but had he made a false estimate of his man, had his Hooker turned out to be a Sherman, for instance, Lee woad have had cause to repent of his audacity. But the faculty of knowing the weak point in an adversary's character, and skill to take advantage of it, have always been justly regarded as among the brightest qualities of a great commander. Hooker's defeat left him and his army helpless on the north bank of the Rappa- hannock, and Lee, sweeping rapidly round it by the Shenandoah valley, troubled the repose of Mr. Stanton and made him tremble for the safety of Washington. Lee's second invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania was the most powerful offensive operation he executed during the war. The only defect we can see was that of allowing Stuart to run off with the cavalry and rove about in rear of the Federal army, where it was useless, and in perpetual danger, instead of being the eyes and ears of Lee, and the pro- tecting arm for his outlying parties. There was another defect inherent in the enterprise, —Lee had no intermediate base full of supplies, and consequently, unless he won a victory such as would give him Baltimore or Washington, he must retreat sooner or later for want of ammunition alone. Instead of winning a victory, he had to endure a defeat at Gettysburg, so crushing, that although the consequences were not immediately apparent, it may be now seen that the Confederate army of Virginia never entirely re- covered from the injuries inflicted by stout-hearted Meade. Lee got away from Meade with great skill, but he could not stay in the Shenandoah valley, and ere autumn came he was in one of his strong camps south of the Rapidan. Thenceforth, except when he tried to take advantage of Meade (who had been weakened by the departure of a large body of troops to overawe the rowdies of New York), Lee was doomed to act strictly on the defensive. Grant, who came against him, was not a man over whom Lee had a moral ascendency. Grant, to use an expressive if vulgar phrase, collared his man," and never let go his hold until Lee and all his soldiers laid down their arms. The contest be- tween these two captains will be well worthy the attention of rising military men, when the campaign of 1834-5 has found a competent historian. None but the prejudiced will dispute the great ability displayed by Grant in forcing Lee from his advantage- ous camp on the Rapidan into the defences of Richmond, nor his constancy in holding him fast when he had got him, nor his forti- tude when Hunter's stupidity laid Washington bare, nor his vigour in providing a force capable of chasing Early back to the valley, nor his sagacity in the choice he made of Sheridan to act as warder of that avenue ; and if it was out of the power of the Federal chief to capture the lines of Petersburg and Richmond, it was not out of his power to straiten the enemy, nor to harass and almost neutralize him, while another great captain, also selected by Grant, struck deep into the heart of the Confederacy, and finally, by his admirable marches, enabled Grant to grasp a prize which by conduct and steadfastness he had long merited. Grant's great abilities would have been exerted in vain, had he not held an
undivided command, and in all probability it is to the fact that complete control over the armies of the Confederacy was conferred
too late on Robert Lee, that we must attribute the rapid downfall of the Slave Power. In this Mr. Davis showed a marked inferiority to Mr. Lincoln, and there can be no doubt now that Davis thought first of himself and his own schemes, and that Mr. Lincoln thought of nothing but the cause to which he devoted himself. Both the wealthy planter and the mean white were born in the same district in Kentucky. The leader of the slaveowners is now a prisoner. The mean white has fallen a martyr by the hands of the partizans of slavery, but not before he had lived to see those splendid triumphs which have broken for ever the Slave Power on the con- tinent of Northern America.
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