Characters
General Lee
Major W. H. Fitzhugh Lee, his son
Hon. B. H. Hill
General Starke
An Orderly
HILL—I have come to ask your advice. Do you think it would be wise to move the Southern capital farther South?
LEE—That is a political question and you politicians must answer it. I am only a soldier.
HILL—That is the proudest name today.
LEE—Yes, there never were such men in an army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led.
HILL—They could have no commander equal to General Lee.
LEE—No, we made a great mistake Mr. Hill in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake.
HILL—What mistake is that General?
LEE—Why sir, in the beginning we appointed all our worst generals to command the armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers. As you know, I have planned some campaigns and quite a number of battles. I have given the work all the care and thought I could, and sometimes when my plans were completed, so far as I could see they seemed perfect. But when I have fought them through I have discovered defects, and occasionally wondered I did not see some of the defects in advance. When it was all over I found by reading a newspaper that these best editor-generals saw all the defects plainly from the start. Unfortunately, they did not communicate this knowledge to me until it was too late.