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and simplicity, modeled themselves after him. General Lee as often rode out to consult with his subordinates as he sent for them to come to him. The sight of him upon the roadside, or in the trenches, was as common as that of any subordinate in the army. When he approached or disappeared, it was with no blare of trumpets or clank of equipments. Mounted upon his historic war-horse Traveler," he ambled quietly about, keeping his eye upon everything pertaining to the care and defense of his army. "Traveler" was no pedigreed, wide-nostriled,

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gazelle-eyed thoroughbred. He was a close-coupled,

round-barreled, healthy, comfortable, gentleman's saddlehorse. Gray, with black points, he was sound in eye, wind, and limb, without strain, sprain, spavin, or secretion of any sort; ready to go, and able to stay; and yet without a single fancy trick, or the pretentious bearing of the typical charger. He was a horse bought by General Lee during his West Virginia campaign.

When General Lee rode up to our headquarters, or elsewhere, he came as unostentatiously as if he had been the head of a plantation, riding over his fields to inquire and give directions about ploughing or seeding. He appeared to have no mighty secrets concealed from his subordinates. He assumed no airs of superior authority. He repelled no kindly inquiries, and was capable of jocular remarks. He did not hold himself aloof in solitary grandeur. His bearing was that of a friend having a common interest in a common venture with the person addressed, and as if he assumed that his subordinate was as deeply concerned as himself in its success. Whatever greatness

was accorded to him was not of his own seeking. He was less of an actor than any man I ever saw. But the impression which that man made by his presence, and by his leadership, upon all who came in contact with him, can be

described by no other term than that of grandeur. When I have stood at evening, and watched the great clouds banked in the west, and tinged by evening sunlight; when, on the Western plains, I have looked at the peaks of the Rocky Mountains outlined against the sky; when, in mid-ocean, I have seen the limitless waters encircling us, unbounded save by the infinite horizon, the grandeur, the vastness of these have invariably suggested thoughts of General Robert E. Lee. Certain it is that the Confederacy contained no other man like him. When its brief career was ended, in him was centred, as in no other man, the trust, the love, almost the worship, of those who remained steadfast to the end. When he said that the career of the Confederacy was ended; that the hope of an independent government must be abandoned; that all had been done which mortals could accomplish against the power of overwhelming numbers and resources; and that the duty of the future was to abandon the dream of a confederacy, and to render a new and cheerful allegiance to a reunited government, his utterances were accepted as true as Holy Writ. No other human being upon earth, no other earthly power, could have produced such acquiescence, or could have compelled such prompt acceptance of that final and irreversible judgment.

Of General Lee's military greatness, absolute or relative, I shall not speak; of his moral greatness I need not. The former, in view of the conditions with which he was hampered, must leave a great deal to speculation and conjecture; the latter is acknowledged by all the world. The man who could so stamp his impress upon his nation, rendering all others insignificant beside him, and yet die without an enemy; the soldier who could make love for his person a substitute for pay and clothing and food, and could, by the constraint of that love, hold together a naked,

starving band, and transform it into a fighting army; the heart which, after the failure of its great endeavor, could break in silence, and die without the utterance of one word of bitterness, such a man, such a soldier, such

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Not in five hundred years does the opportunity come to any boy, I care not who he may be, to witness scenes like these, or live in daily contact with men whose names will endure as long as man loves military glory.

CHAPTER XXII

THE BATTLE OF THE CRATER

MUCH of the month of July we passed in the trenches. Father was in command of Petersburg, and Colonel J. Thomas Goode commanded the brigade, but we visited it almost daily. It was assigned to Bushrod Johnson's division, and our position was next to the South Carolinians under Elliott. Our left was about a hundred yards south of a bastion known as Elliott's salient.

Life in the trenches was indescribably monotonous and uncomfortable. In time of sunshine, the reflected heat from the new red-clay embankments was intense, and unrelieved by shade or breeze; and in wet weather one was ankle-deep in tough, clinging mud. The incessant shelling and picket-firing made extreme caution necessary in moving about; and each day, almost each hour, added to the list of casualties. The opposing lines were not over two hundred yards apart, and the distance between the rifle-pits was about one hundred yards. Both sides had attained accurate marksmanship, which they practiced with merciless activity in picking off men. One may fancy the state of mind of soldiers thus confined, who knew that even the act of going to a spring for water involved risk of life or limb.

The men resorted to many expedients to secure some degree of comfort and protection. They learned to burrow like conies. Into the sides of the trenches and traverses they went with bayonet and tin cups to secure shade

or protection from rain. Soon, such was their proficiency that, at sultry midday or during a rainfall, one might look up or down the trenches without seeing anybody but the sentinel. At sound of the drum, the heads of the soldiers would pop up and out of the earth, as if they had been prairie-dogs or gophers. Still, many lives were lost by the indifference to danger which is begotten by living constantly in its presence.

To appreciate fully the truth that men are but children of a larger growth, one must have commanded soldiers. Without constant guidance and government and punishment, they become careless about clothes, food, ammunition, cleanliness, and even personal safety. They will at once eat or throw away the rations furnished for several days, never considering the morrow. They will cast aside or give away their clothing because to-day is warm, never calculating that to-morrow they may be suffering for the lack of it. They will open their cartridge-boxes and dump their cartridges on the roadside to lighten their load, although a few hours later their lives may depend upon having a full supply. When they draw their pay, their first object is to find some way to get rid of it as quickly as possible. An officer, to be really efficient, must add to the qualities of courage and firmness those of nurse, monitor, and purveyor for grown-up children, in whom the bumps of improvidence and destructiveness are abnormally developed.

Thus, in spite of warnings and threat of punishment for failure to approach and depart from the lines by the protected covered ways, it was impossible to make the men observe these reasonable precautions. For a long time they had been shot at, night and day. A man, because he had not been hit, would soon come to regard himself as invulnerable. The fact that his comrades had

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