, 1889-12-19
wOLsELEY ON LEE AND LINCOLN.
How Great, How Modest How
Grnnd1y Patriotic.
Review,

lviscount wolselcy In the North American
Review,
General Wolseley concludes this
month his long and interesting
series of articles, under the head n
can English View of the ClA
War" After discussing the closing ,
campaign, in which he gives Gem
eral Joseph Il. Johnston creditlfOr
mysterious retreat, but deplores the
effect of the best retreat of an
army, he closes with these reflec-
tions:
"The persual of these papers has
revived my remembrance of this
great struggle and of the impress
sions it left on me ut the time. The
routine of military duty had
stationed me in the neighborlng
Dominion of Canada while this
mighty fight was going on. 1t is
not easy to describe the breathless
interest and excitement with which
from month to month, almost from
day to day, we English soldiers read
and studied every report that
could be obtained of the war as it
proceeded. No doubt many of our
impressions of the facts, as we re-
ceived them at the moment, re-
quired to be corrected by subsequent
investigation. 1t takes long time
before the facts can be thoroughly
threshed out from the mass of evil
dence bearing upon the complicated
tQ of h
over a mighty continent. Never
theless, In one respect at all events,
the broad impressions then formed
are confirmed by the conclusions
since arrived at, both from the more
elaborate histories and from this
most valuable series of papers. I
refer to the opinion that, amid the
crowds of able men, of gallant sol
diers, and of clever statesmen,
whom the epoch of the American
civil war produced, the two men,
Abraham Lincoln and Robert Lee,
stand out q head and shoulders
above all others. Neither of them
was free from human error. Elk.
perience and the teaching of history
warn us that perfection Is myth.
But how great were both of these
two great men in their several
spheres! How modest, how wise,
how self-restrained, how generous,
how large In their views, and how
grandly patriotic, as each undeIs
stood patriotism!
Gan eminent Greek master taughtl
that mortals are to be judged happH
or otherwise according to the ending.
of their lives. Judging by this test,
is it Abraham Lincoln or Robert
Lee that we should regard as the
favorite of the gods? It was Mr..
Lincoln's fate to be struck down by
the assassin at the moment when
the cause for which he had lived and
struggled had absolutely triumphed
"a circustance which has forever
identified his death with the life of
his country. Was this a nobler
death than Lees? He, the foremost
man in the confederacy, the general,
the idol of the South, retired from
his high command to private,
humble position. He refused re-
peated offers of wealth and comfort
In order to devote his remaining
years to serve his ruined state in the
way I'm which he believed he could
be most useful to it--namely, the
education of her sons and the train
ing of her citizens, by his great eX-
ample, to have faith in Virginia's
future. One hardly knows which
ending the Greek master of old I
would have admired the more. ,
"One other remark before closing
this series of articles. If one were
compelled to choose between con-
dOling with American friends on
the misfortune they underwent in
that war, or of congratulating them
upon the enobling effect which that
war had upon their people, one
would unhesitatingly congratulate
them upon the fact that such STIR
ring and enobling incidents rs those
which fill the volumes / have re-
viewed did occur in American his
tory, u quarter of century ago."