The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-05-30

If we take the commander merely ON his adj
mlnistrative side, what treasures of energy.
forecast and watchfulness do we not see him
expending in the prosaic work of providing the
means or subsistence for his army.
de is always confronted on vast scale with
man elemental and primitive want-his daily
bread The matter is so vital that he can never
commit it entirely to the staff. The control of
the whole subject must be ever in his own
grasp.
Then, he must not only have an intimate
knowledge Of the geography and resources of
the theater OF war as maps and books give
IheIn ouI an instinct for topography and an
unerring faculty for finding the way by night or
uay through forest and field, usually to be
met with only in men who pass their whole lives
In the open air. To this, add a complete ac-
qualntance with all parts of army work and
organization, very genius for detail, an ar
tlilerlsts eye for distance, and an engineers
Judgment and inventiveness. with wide and
critical comprehension of all the great campaigns
OF history. But he must know human nature.
he must be wise in his Judgment and selection
or hls own agents, and especially must he be
skilled to read his adversary's mind and char
acter. Upon this varied and profound knowl.
edge will depend the success of those large
plans embracing the whole theater of war which
soldiers call strategy.
Now, combine all these elements conceive of
them as expended into genius and you may
form some idea of the merely intellectual equip
ment OF a great commander. But he might
nave all this and be fit only to be q chief of
staff. The bust ness of war is with men. The
business or general is to lead men in that
most wonderful of human organizations, an
army, on that dread arena, the field of battle.
QUALITIES OF HEART AND SOUL.
And now come into play the qualities of
heart and soul. Consecrated to this, his high
office, general ought to be morally the best,
| the most just. the most generous, the most
| patriotic man among his countrymen. He must
| not only be their greatest leader--he must know
how to make every man in his army believe
him to be their greatest leader. And mere be-
lief is not enough. There must be in him power
| ma de.
votion. OF all careers, a military life makes the
heaviest demand on the self-effacement and
self-sacrifice of thoses who are TO follow and
OBEY. Love and enthusiasm for leader are
/ the only forces powerful enough to raise men
| to this heroic pitch. Without them an army is
| a mob, or, at most, spiritless machine. With
them It becomes capable of the submest exhi-
billions of valor and devotion. But. essential as
! is this magnetic power in the leader to draw all
hearts, to quiet zealousness, to compel obedi-
ence, and to fuse the thoughts and passions of
| thousands of individual men into single mass
| OF martial ardor, all these gifts may be present
| and the true commander absent. Politicians have
had these gifts soldiers have had these gifts,
and utterly failed in the command of armies.
| To all these rich endowments there must be
| added an imperturbable moral courage equal to
any burden or buffet OF fortune and physical
| intrepidlty in its highest and grandest forms
not only the valor which carries division COM
mander under orders with overmastering rush
70 some desperate assault, like Cleburne's at
Franklin, or makes him stand lmmovahle as
stone wall, as Bee saw Jackson at Manassas,
but an aggressive and unresting ardor to fall on
the enemy, like that which burned in Nelson
when he wrote: II will fight them the moment
can reach their fleet, be they at anchor or
| under sail. will not lose one moment in fight
| ing the French fleet. mean to follow them if
| they go to the Black Sea. Not moment shall
| be lost in pursuing the enemy | will
| not lose moment in bringing them to action. ="
With this fierce passion for fight the general
| must unite the self-control which will fuse
| battle or calmly await attack, and, not least,
, the fortitude which can endure defeat For
weeks and months he must be ready at any
moment of the day or night to draw on these
| vast resources without ever showing weakness
under the protracted strain.
| And over and above all there must preside
| some godl1ke power, which, in the crisis of
| strategy or the storm of battle, not only pre-
| serves to the commander all these high facul-
| ties, but actually iutenSiies and expands them
| In those irrevooable moments, when the de-
cision OF an instant may determine the destiny
| of states, mere talent must spring into genius,
| and mind and outward eye send flashes of in
| tuition through the smoke of battle and the
dark curtain on which the enemy's movements
are to be read only in fitful shadows. In that
| hour Of doom, a nations fate, a peoples ran
| som, may be staked on one mans greatness of
| soul.
| 1t is the recognition in Lee Of the principal
| elements of this high ideal-courage, will
| energy, insight, authority-the organized mind
with its eagle glance and the temperament for
| ness, joy in battle, all exalted by heroic pur-
| pose and kindled with a glow of an
| unconquerable soul; it is besides
bins bination in him of moral strength with moral nora
beauty, of all that is great in heroic action with
| all that is good in common life, that will make
| of this pile of stone sacred shrine, dear
| throughout the coming ages. not to soldiers
| only, but to all helpers and friends of man.
| kind"
| BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW.
The orator then went into an elaborate BIZ
| ographical review of the life and character of
| Gen. Lee He sprang from race of men who
| had just shown IN world famous struggle all
of the virtues and few OF the faults of class
| selected to rule because fitteSt to rule. His
| father had won brilliant fame as cavalry
leader, and the signal honor of the warm friend
| ship of Washington.
The death of Light Horse Harry" Lee when
| Robert Lee was only Il years old made the boy
| the protector Of his mother a school of virtue
| not untitled to develop character that nature
had formed for honor.
1t partly, no doubt, the example Of his
| fathers brilliant service, but manly the SOL
dier's blood which flowed in his veins, that i'm
| PEELED him to seek place in the military
academy at West Point He was presented to
President Jackson and we may well believe the
| story that the old soldier was quickly won by
| the gallant youth, and willingly secured him to
| the army. His marriage to the great-grand-
| daughter of Washington's wife formed another
| tie which connected him by daily associations
| of family and place with Washington's fame
| and character, and it may well be believed that
| Lee made Washington his model of public
| duty. Lees personal appearance and moral
| characteristics in his early manhood and his
services in Mexico, especially at the battle of
Contreras, were sketched lightly. History
said the orator, twill record. as Scott himself
nobly admitted, that Lee was Scott's right arm
in Mexico"
After leading up to the period when it became
necessary for Gen. Lee to make his choice of
which side he should fight on in the coming
conflict, Col Anderson said:
No more painful struggle ever tore the heart
of patriot. He had served the whole country
in a gallant army. which commanded all his
great resources of the north and west. He knew
northern men in their homes; he knew the
bravery Of the northern soldiers who filled our
regular regiments in Mexico. He was above the
prejudices and taints of the day which belittled
northern virtue and courage. He knew that,
with slig It external differences, there a
substantial identity of the American race in all
the states north and south. He was equally
above the weak and passionate view of slavery
as good in itself, into which the fanatical and
unconstitutional agitation of the Abolition party
had driven many strong minds in the south
He regarded slavery as evil, which the
south had inherited and must be left to miti-
gate; and, if possible, extirpate by wise and
gradual measures. He, if any man of that
time, was capable of weighing with calmnesS
the duty of the hour. With him. the only ques-
tion then, as at every moment of his spotless
life, was to find out which way duty pointed.
Against the urgent solicitations of Gen. Scott,
in defiance of the temptngs of ambition--for
the evidence is complete that the command of
the United States army was offered to HMM