The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-11-18
Mistell W.
From tile London (English) Standard.
ROBERT E. LEE.

The announcement that General r. f..
Lee has been struck down by paralysis and
is not expected to recover will be received,
even at this crisis, with universal interest,
and will everywhere excite sympathy and
regret which testify to the deep impress
sion made on the world at large by his
character and achievements. Few are the
generals who have earned, since history
began, greater military reputation; still
fewer are the men of similar eminence, civ
il or military, whose personal qualities
would bear comparison with his. The bit
terest enemies of his country hardly dared
to whisper a word against the character of
her most distinguished general, while neu-
trails regarded him with an admiration for
his deeds and respect for his lofty and
unselfsh nature which almost grew into
veneration, and his own countrymen learn
ed to look up to him with as much conf
dence and esteem as they ever felt for
Washington, and with an affection which
the cold demeanor and austere temper of
Washington could never inspire. The
death of such u man, even at q moment so
exciting as the present, when all thoughts
are absorbed by nearer and present con-
f1ict, would be felt as misfortune by ali
who still retain any recollection of the in
terest with which they watched the Vir-
ginia campaigns, and by thousands who
have almost forgotten the names of Freder
icksburg and Charlottesville, the Wilder
ness and Spottsylvania. By the South it
would be recognized as u national calami-
ty-as the loss of a man not only ineXpres-
sibly dear to an unfortunate people by his
intimate association with their fallen hopes
and their proudest recollections, but still
able to render services such as no other
man could perform, and to give counsel
whose value is enhanced ten-fold by the
suorce from which itcomes. We hope, even
yet, that life so honorable and so useful,
so pure and noble in itself, so valuable to
country that has much need of men like
him, may be spared and prolonged for fur
ther enjoyment and domestic peace and
comfort, for further service to his country
we cannot bear to think that career so
singularly admirable and so singularly
unfortunate, should close so soon and so
sadly. BY the tens of thousands who
will feel as we do when they read the
news that now lies before us may be meas
ured the impression made upon the world
by the life and the deeds of the great chief
of the army ofVirginia
Whatever difference of opionion may ex-
ist as to the merits of the generals against
whom he had to contented, and especially
of the antagonist by whom he was at last
overcome, no one pretending to understand
in the least either the general opinions of
military science or the particular condition
of the American war, doubts that General
Lee gave higher proofs of military genius
and soldership than any of his opponents.
He was outnumbcred from first to last; and
all his victories were gained against great
ly superior forces, and with troops deficient
in every necessary of war except courage
and discipline. Never, perhaps, was so
much achieved against odds so terrible
The Southern soldiers-"th incompara-
BILE Southern infantry" to which a late
Northern writer renders due tribute of re-
spect--were no doubt as splendid troops
as general could desire; but the different
fortune of the war in the East and in the
West proves that the Virginian army owed
something of its excellence to its chief -
Always outnumbered, always opposed to a
foe abundantly supplied with food, trans
port ammunition, clothing, all that was
wanting to his own men, he was always
able to make courage and skill supply the
deficiency of strength and of supplies and
from the day when he assumed the COM
mand after the battle of Seven Pines, where
General Joseph Johnston was disabled, to
the morning of the final surrender at APP
] pomattox Court House, he was almost in
variably victorious in the field. At Get
tysburg only he was defeated in pitched
battle; on the offensive at the Chickaho.
miny, at Centreville, and at Chancellors-
willie, on the defensive at Antietam, Fred
ericksburg, the Wilderness, and Spottsyl.
vania, he was still successful. But no sue.
cess could avail him anything from the mo-
ment that General Grant brought to bear
upon the Virginia army the incxhaustible
population of the North, and, employing