policy of concentration was adopted as the only one that could enable our inferior forces to contend successfully with the huge levies of the Yankees. We now come to the real commencement of General Lee's career, a career so brilliant as to establish his claim to be reckoned among the greatest captains that have risen in the world. The army of McClellan was around Richmond. It had been, at the commencement of the Peninsula campaign, 168,000 strong. It had suffered severely in battle, and more severely still from disease. Still it numbered, according to the best estimate we have been able to make, at least 130,000 men. General Johnston had gained a great victory at Seven Pines, but the country was deprived of his services at this critical juncture by the severe wound which he had received in that battle. President Davis believed that nobody could so well supply his place as General Lee, and he was accordingly ordered to take the command. He did so on the 1st of June. He saw, at a glance, that the siege of Richmond could not be raised without beating the enemy out of the formidable works in which they had entrenched themselves, and he immediately set about devising the means to accomplish it. How it was done we leave the future historian to describe. It suffices our purpose to chronicle the result. In the course of one week, General Lee, by a series of combinations unsurpassed in the history of war, had succeeded in beating the enemy out of a succession of fortifications of the most formidable character, had driven him from around Richmond, to a place thirty miles below, and had relieved all fears for the safety of the capital. That he did not completely destroy the enemy was no fault of his.
General Lee is the most successful general of the age. His exploits are brilliant almost beyond example. When we say this of a man who commands an immense army, it is supererogatory to say anything of his talents. Nothing but genius of the highest order can conceive the combinations necessary to insure the uninterrupted success of so large a host, over an enemy greatly superior in force. In all departments of science his acquirements are great, and has besides an uncommon stock of general information. His judgment is as quick as his military glance, and it rarely deceives. Withal he is one of the most unpretending men in the world—a thorough gentleman in his manners—very affable to all who approach him—and extremely amiable in private life. He is about five feet ten inches high, was eminently handsome in his youth, is still one of the finest looking men in the army, rides like a knight of the old crusading days, is indefatigable in business, and bears fatigue like a man of iron.
