During my prolonged study of Lee's contemporaries, which compelled me to take note of their various faults and weaknesses, I have also continued my careful watch for similar weaknesses in Lee himself. The suggestion of anything of the kind has been rare enough; but in justice to Johnston and Longstreet and Beauregard I think it right to print the following very curious passage from a letter of General G. W. Smith to Johnston himself, written in the summer of 1862, before Lee had thoroughly established his great reputation. Smith was sore, from neglect, deserved or undeserved, and wide search elsewhere reveals no suggestion of a state of mind like his in any one else. But it must be confessed that just the defects of manner indicated here are what one would look for in a temperament like Lee's, if defects were there at all.
"I came off on a three weeks' leave. Just before it expired I requested Beckham to write to Chilton, for Lee's information, saying that I would not return because not well enough, but was improving. I received yesterday a note from Lee, in answer to Beckham's note to Chilton, first a layer of sugar, three lines, then two lines telling me to forward a certificate, and three more lines of sugar. I shall keep him informed from time to time of the condition of my health. Gaillard is with me, so I feel quite assured of correct information and judgment in the case, and do not propose supplying General Lee with any more surgeon's certificates beyond that upon which the
