sunshine; but the thunderbolt had struck him; his brave blood went to swell that great torrent poured out by the gallantest souls of the South.

This hasty sketch-beginning with jests, and ending in something like tears-has aimed, in part, to record that presentiment which the young soldier seemed to have of his approaching fate. Wholly incredulous as the writer is of such warnings, it is impossible for him to banish from his mind the fancy that something conveyed to the young soldier a premonition of the coming event. But he did his duty all the same, dying in harness like a good soldier of the South.

* The lapse of twenty pages after 564 is accounted for by omitting to number the illustrations in their order. See list of illustrations

V.

LEE'S LAST BATTLES.

I.

GENERAL LEE's retreat from Petersburg will rank among the most remarkable events of history. As every circumstance connected with it will prove interesting hereafter, when the full history of this period comes to be written, I propose to record some particulars which came under my observation; and especially to describe the bearing of the illustrious Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate forces while passing through this tremendous ordeal.

An adequate record of this brief and fiery drama-played from the first to the last scene in a few April days-would involve the question of General Lee's soldiership. This question I have neither time nor space to discuss; but I am much mistaken if a simple statement will not set at rest for ever those imputations which have been cast, since the surrender, upon Lee's military judgment, by ignorant or stupid persons. throughout the country. The facts ought to be placed on record. If General Lee continued, of his own choice, to occupy a position at Petersburg from which, as events soon showed, he could not extricate his army, it will go far to rob him of that renown which he had previously won; and if General Grant out-manoeuvred and caught his great adversary by simple superiority of soldiership, he is the greater general of the two. The truth of the whole matter is that Lee was not surprised; that he foresaw clearly what was coming; and acted from

first to last under orders against which his military judgment revolted.

Orders were given by General Lee for the evacuation of Petersburg, and, consequently, of the State of Virginia, at least six weeks before General Grant broke through the Confederate lines. The military necessity for this movement was perfectly plain to all well-informed and intelligent persons, in the army and out of it. It was only the ignorant or the hopelessly stupid who cherished the hallucination that Lee could continue to hold his works around Petersburg against Grant's enormous force. Nevertheless there were a plenty who did think so, and who looked upon things there as a sort of permanent arrangement." Lee, in the estimation of these persons, was the spoiled child of good fortune, greater than fate, and the Army of Northern Virginia could not be whipped. The Southern lines were to be held en permanence, and Grant was to "keep pegging away" until the crack of doom. Such was the fond delusion of all the "outside" class; those who were accurately informed, and took the "inside" view, knew better; and especially did General Lee know that unless he was speedily reinforced, he could not continue to hold his lines against the large and steady reinforcements sent to General Grant. "More men; give me more men!" was the burden of his despatches to the government. He had nearly fifty miles of earthworks to defend against three or four times his own numbers; and a child might have understood that if Grant continued to receive heavy reinforcements, and Lee none, while his army continued to diminish from casualties, the time would soon come when retreat or surrender would be the only alternatives. The reinforcements did not come, however. The Army of Northern Virginia went on dwindling, and Grant continued to increase his strength, until at the end of winter the result of the coming campaign no longer admitted of a doubt. The crisis had evidently come, and it was perfectly plain that Lee must evacuate Virginia. All his prominent Generals shared his views. One of them said: "If Grant once breaks through our lines, we might as well go