BACK TO VIRGINIA
General Lee re-crossed the Potomac ten days after the battle of Gettysburg, and crossed the Blue Ridge into Culpeper County soon afterwards.
I rejoined the command about the last of July in Orange or Culpeper County.
There was no more fighting that summer between the main armies of Northern Virginia and the army of the Potomac, as the Yankees called their "grand army," greater by far in numbers and resources than the army of Northern Virginia, but deficient in leaders when compared with Lee and Jackson, and not equal in the courage and dash that enabled the much smaller army of Southerners to beat them on nearly every battlefield.
Lee and Jackson had a way of throwing a large body of men upon certain portions of the Yankee lines during a battle, generally striking them in the flank. Both as strategists and tacticians they were unsurpassed. They could combine armies and concentrate forces in action with the greatest skill, which are the true tests of military genius.
Lee's army was much exhausted and depleted by the spring and summer campaigns—the great battles around Chancellorsville—which began on the 1st of May and ended on the 5th, on the night of which day the Yankees, badly beaten, stole back over the Rappahannock River, glad to escape; the three days' fighting at Gettysburg, in the first two of which the Confederates were successful, but failed on the third day because Pickett's men were not properly supported.
The armies lay on either side of the Rapidan, on the south side of which General Lee had taken position, while the Yankees confronted him on the north side, the two armies stretching up and down the river for many miles. Later General Lee retired south of the Rappahannock.
The army of Northern Virginia, while its ranks were much depleted by the many bloody battles of the year (and many were footsore and weary from the long marches, ragged and dirty as they were), yet the men were not dispirited nor had they lost faith in their great leader, upon whom all looked as the greatest captain of the age. I know full well the sentiment among the men was, that the failure at Gettysburg was due, not to General Lee's want of skill and ability as a leader, but to the tardiness of Longstreet, and his failure to support Pickett's charge. The men knew well where the fault lay, and were not slow to express themselves.
GENERAL LEE AND THE ARMY OF NORTHERN
VIRGINIA
In August or September, after the men had rested and the army had been recruited by the return to duty of many sick and wounded, there were general reviews. The whole army, of every branch—infantry, artillery, and cavalry—was drawn up in columns of regiments, brigades, and divisions, in large open fields, General Lee and his staff riding along the lines of each command, and then all marched by the reviewing station, showing by the steady and firm step and soldierly bearing that they were not disheartened, but ready to go whenever their trusted and beloved commander might point the way. While other commanders were often criticized, never a word of censure of General Lee escaped the lips of his men; he was "Mars Bob" and "Uncle Bob" with them, and whatever he did was right, in their estimation.
I have just spoken of General Lee as the greatest captain of the age, and so he was; I am equally sure that the army of Northern Virginia was never excelled in the annals of the world.
Without this army Lee and Jackson could never have made the name and fame they did. These generals had confidence in their men, and the men had confidence in their generals; there was not only mutual confidence, but mutual love and esteem.
History records no incidents like those in which, on two occasions, Lee's men, when he had placed himself in front to lead desperate charges, cried out, "General Lee, to the rear"; and private soldiers actually seized his bridle reins and led his horse through the lines to the rear saying, "General Lee, we will attend to this; you go to the rear." I did not see this, but it is too well authenticated to admit of question. I am sure there were men in Company C, and the other companies of the Eleventh Regiment, who would have done and said the same thing under like circumstances.
At the Bridge of Lodi, Napoleon, after his men had made two unsuccessful attempts to cross the bridge and capture a battery, seized the colors and led a successful charge. Lee's men compelled him to go to the rear and then made successful charges. Some one, in writing of this incident in Napoleon's career, remarked that "any corporal in the French army should have been capable of carrying the flag over that bridge." Lee had thousands of privates capable of leading his horse to the rear and commanding him to go to the rear. General Lee fully recognized the prowess of his men, and always gave them due credit in general orders.
I believe the time will come when some great historian will be raised up to tell the true story of the Southern Confederacy, of her heroic armies and matchless leaders; some Gibbons, Burke or Macaulay; and another Virgil or Homer in a great epic poem will sing of arms and of men, the like of which the world has never known. An Englishman has truly said, "It was an army in which every virtue of an army, and the genius of consummate generalship, had been displayed."
If Lee and Jackson had lived in the mythological ages of the world they would have been called the sons of gods, if not very gods, and the men they led classed with the heroes who fought under the walls of Troy.
When this history is written the world will be astonished at the disparity in numbers, equipments, and resources of the contending armies.
"True greatness will always bear the test of time. The greatness of really great men will grow as the ages roll by." The fame of Lee and Jackson, and the army that helped to make them great, will go down the eons of time, ever increasing, and when time shall be no more, the echo will be heard resounding through the corridors of eternity.