JOHNSTON, JOSEPH ECCLESTON. Born near Farmville, Virginia, February 3, 1807; graduated at West Point, 1829; served in Mexican war, 1846-47; entered Confederate service as brigadier-general, 1861; took part in battle of Bull Run, opposed McClellan in Peninsular campaign, fought battles of Resaca and Dallas against Sherman, and surrendered to Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina, April 26, 1865; member of Congress, 1876-78; United States Commissioner of Railways, 1885-89; died at Washington, D.C., March 21, 1891.
LONGSTREET, JAMES. Born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, January 8, 1821; graduated at West Point, 1842; served in Mexican war, 1846-47; entered Confederate service as brigadier-general, 1861; promoted major-general, 1861; was present at second battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Knoxville and the Wilderness; United States minister to Turkey, 1880-81; United States Commissioner of Pacific Railroads, 1897; died January 2, 1904.
STUART, JAMES EWELL BROWN. Born in Patrick County, Virginia, February 6, 1833; graduated at West Point, 1854; entered Confederate service, 1861, and became leading cavalry officer in Army of Northern Virginia; at Bull Run, Peninsula, Manassas Junction, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville; mortally wounded at battle of Yellow Tavern, and died at Richmond, May 12, 1864.
WHEELER, JOSEPH. Born in Augusta, Georgia, September 10, 1836; graduated at West Point, 1859; entered Confederate army as colonel; at Shiloh, Green River, Perryville; brigadier-general, 1862; major-general, 1863; at Murfreesboro, commanded cavalry at Chickamauga, fought Sherman almost daily on the march to the sea; included in Johnston's surrender, April 26, 1865; member of Congress, from Alabama, 1881-99; appointed major-general of volunteers, U.S.A., May 4, 1898; in command of cavalry at Las Guasimas and before Santiago; in Philippine Islands, 1899-1900; died at Brooklyn, New York, January 25, 1906.
MILES, NELSON APPLETON. Born at Westminster, Massachusetts, August 8, 1839; entered Union army as volunteer, 1861, attaining rank of major-general of volunteers; enlisted in regular army at close of war, rising grade by grade to major-general, and commander-in-chief, 1895-1903; conducted campaigns against Geronimo and Natchez, 1886; in command of United States troops at Chicago strike, 1884; lieutenant-general, June 6, 1900; retired, August 8, 1903.
CHAPTER VIII
GREAT SAILORS
We have said that America has produced no soldier of commanding genius, but her sailors outrank the world. Even Great Britain, mighty seafaring nation as she has been, cannot, in the last hundred and fifty years, show any brighter galaxy of stars. Just why it would be difficult to say. Perhaps America inherited from England the traditions of that race of heroes who made the age of Elizabeth, so memorable on the ocean, and who started their country on her career as mistress of the seas—Raleigh, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, Gilbert, and Howard of Effingham.
Surely in direct descent from these daring adventurers was that earliest of America's naval commanders, John Paul Jones, well called the "Founder of the American Navy." He it was who first carried the Stars and Stripes into foreign waters, and who made Europe to see that a new nation had arisen, in the west. He it was who first scouted the tradition of England's invincibility on the sea, and carried the war into her very ports. He it was who proved that American valor yielded no whit to British valor—who, when Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, asked if he had struck his colors, shouted back that he had not yet begun to fight, although his ship had been shot to pieces and was sinking; but who thereupon did begin, and to such good purpose that he captured his adversary and got his crew aboard her as his own ship sank. Truly a remarkable man and one worth looking at closely.