The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-05-27
TIE GREAT SOUTHERN SOLDIER
Recollections of Robert z. Lee in PUB
lie and Private Life.
E7-,u, fbs Near YORK Sun.

reer and character of the great soldier who
led the Army of Northern Virginia acquires
q fresh interest. Especially timely, there
fore are the "reminiscences which Col. VIII
liam Preston Johnston contributes to BEL
lords Magazine.
Cd. Johnston first saw Lee in 1855, when
his father, Albert Sidney Johnston, had
been appointed colonel OF the Second
cavalry. with Lee as lieutenant colonel
President Pierce, or rather Secretary Jetfer-
son Davis, was anxious that this new organ
igauion should be a crack regiment, and in
the appointments to it made seniority
subordinate to skill and experience. Young
Mr.. Johnston was requested by his father
to call upon Col Lee and pay his respects.
He did so, and at the first glance the
thought flashed through his mind: ut was
thus that Washington lookedp With his
s'rich, brown colorIng, dark hair and eyes,
aduiline features ard shapely limbs" Col
Lee appeared TO Mr.. Johnston one OF the
handsomest men he had ever seen. His
dignifed yet easy posture, the perfect
poise Of his bearing" especially struck the
visitor.
Not until eight years later did Col. Johns
ton, who had then become an aide-de-camp
on Mr.. Davis staff, again see Gen. Lee.
The night after the battle OF Fair Oaks,
where Gen. j. E. Johnston was severely
wounded. Mr.. Davis told him that he had
determined to put Lee in command OF the
army of Northern Virginia, because, unlike
some other generals, he had urged prompt
aggression. After Hooker's defeat at Cham
calIorsvllle, Gen. Lee went to see Mr.. Davis
at Richmond, and Col. Johnston then had
some conversation with him:
congratulated him on the results of the bat
tie, and added: 'You have met terrible loss,
general in the death of Gen. Jackson" He
said, with great feeling: IAN irreparable loss,
colonel; loss like a mans right arm. Why
sir there is nobody who moves like him. L
ordered Gen. - to move at O'Clock in the
morning with a division, and Gen. jackson at z
with his corps, and at O'Clock jackson was
ahead of him."
Gen Lee in addressing me, employed a GER
tain popularity of pronunciation, which often
observed afterward as 'coronel." He spoke
very pure English but had few Virginia
provincialisms IN pronunciation, such as won
nut" for walnut
What always struck Col. Johnston was
the slowness of the southern people, as well
as the northern, TO recognize the audacity
of Lees military conceptions. This he
partly accounts for by the evenness and
self-control of Gen. Lees bearing and habits
of thought, which prevented those who
came in contact with him, and hence all
others, from fully approaching the ener-
getic boldness covered under his composed
demeanor:
This equauinty withheld him from doing aud
interest the biographer or reader. 1t was not the
manner with which he did things, so much as
the result he seemed to accomplish easily and
and almost as matter of course. tn at won him
his renown. He always appeared to me per-
fectly poised, and to meet great and small
issues with the same careful, yet undisturbed,
measure of effort In laying out a walk or
flower bed he was as painstaking as IN mapping
out the plan of campaign.
An instance of his simplicity of manner
and equanimity was observed by Col John
sUon after the battle of Cold Harbor, when
he offered to take back to Richmond any
message desired for Mr.. Davis. Lee, as if
half soliloquizing, answered that he hardly
understood what Gen. Grant had meant by
his attack that morning, since it was too
heavy for feint. and yet he could hardly
have expected to break through the confed-
crate lines at that point:
said General, suppose Gen. Grant will
continue to move by his left ana cross the
Chickahominy?" YES he replied; across
the Chickahominy and across the James think
You can tell the President will make him cross
the Chickahominy as low down as can. By
what road do you return to town. colonel?'
you, / answered. Then please go by the Nine
Mile road and tell Capt. TO move his bat
terry down the Chickahominy and open on the
enemy, which may induce him to cross lower
down." He also indicated specifically the po-
stion of the battery, the roads to be taken to
find it and the new position TO be taken by it.
What struck me in this days intercourse with
Gen. Lee was his entire lack of self-conscious-
ness and the composure with which he met
events so momentous as those of the bloody
day of Cold Harbor. None of us, however
realized the slaughter of the federals until we
saw the New York papers some days later.
When Lee became president of Washing
ton College, after the war, Col. Johnston
was made professor of history and litera-
ture there. In his intercourse with the
faculty Gen. Lee was always courteous,
kind, often disposed to be rather playful,
and he insisted on deferring much TO their
opinions. Then, again. Col. Johnston noted
that Gen. Lee never took an ungraceful
posture. 'No matter how long or fatiguing
a faculty meeting might be, he always pre-
served an attitude III which dignity. deco
rum and grace were united. He was a
very well built man, with rot lded body
and limbs, and seemed, without the slight
est affectation or effort, TO sit or stand or
walk Just as a gentlemen should. He was
never in hurry. and all his gestures were
easy and significant. He gave a minute
attention TO the details of his office. and
liked TO talk about them. l soon perceived
that he did not like to discuss the events
or incidents of the war" He took great
interest at that time in editing the
memoirs of the War in South
Carolina and Georgia." by his father,
Gen. Henry Lee, for which he wrote pre-
lace. Among the many letters he re-
ceived were some very queer ones, upon
which he commented humorously as he
turned them over to Col. Johnston for a
reply. The latter's work he revised with
freedom and with critical skill and deli
cacv of touch which inspired respect for his
literary ability. He was an agreeable COM
panion, not exactly witty nor very humor-
Gus, yet exceedingly fond of gaiety and
vivacity in others, even if, in young people
it went to boisterous outbreak of spirits.
He liked to give light turn to table talk
taking care that anything he said should
not be so caustic as to wound.
Reading his letters one discovers this playful
spirit in many of them, as. for instance, in hi
letter to the spiritualists who asked his opinion
of Won Moltke and the French war. He wrote
in reply most courteous letter in which b,
said that THE Question was one about which
military critics would differ; that his own iudg
ment about such matters was poor at best, anC
that inasmuch as they had the power to con
suit Through their mediums) Cesar Alexander
Napoleon, Wellington, and all of the other grea
captains who have ever lived. he could not thinl
of obtruding his opinion in such company"
remember addressing one correspondent fo
him as Dear Miss In reading my draft he
drew his pen through the word dear" anc
added the name, smilingly, as he said
Colonel, would not take the liberty of beine
50 tender TO the lady. and really do not be-
heve she is dear to me-"
Gen. Lee did not talk politics but he fell