The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-05-02


him:
Headquarters, March ", 1865.
Colonel John S, Mosby, care Major
Boyle, Gordonsville:
collect your command and watch
the country from front of Gordonsville
to Blue Ridge and also valley. Your
command is all now in that section and
the general will rely on you to watch
and protect the country. If any of
your command is in Northern Neck,
call 1t to YOU"
A few months before his death l
met him at a hotel in Richmond, just
as he arrived on his way South for the
benefit of his health. / afterward went
to his room and had a pleasant chat
with him; neither alluded to the war;
our conversation was about the pres
ent, but our thoughts were on the past.
Both were oppressed by a flood of
| memories, His commands would have
been as much a law to me then as
| when he was the chief of a victorius
army. He was three years old,
but time had written it's wrinkles OF
His manly brow; pallor on his face
| Indicated rapid decay. In sorrow 1
| babe him farewell.
| Soon after leaving the room I met
| General Pickett in the corridor of the
| hotel and told him l had just been to
| see General Lee, and that he seemed
| to be in a decline. At the close of the
| war their personal relations were very
unfriendly and they had not met since.
! Pickett said that if / would go. back
with him he would pay his respects to
| General Lee, but did not wish to be
alone with him. So I returned with
| Pickett to the room, but the meeting
was not cordial, the conversation COM
| monplace and formal; on both sides
| there seemed to be a feeling of con-
| straint. The interview lasted only a
| few minutes-their first and last after
the war.
| ! saw General Lee a few months af-
terward. A year before he had seen
| my son, a boy ten years old, who told
Lee. The first question he asked me
was, How is General Lee?" When
l bade him goodbye he said, I hope,
| colonel, we shall have no more war
| 1t is strange that none of the biog-
raphers Of General Lee should correctly
| state the rank ne held in the United
States army when he resigned his COM
| mission, although they professed to
| give record of all his military life
| from the date of his appointment as a
West Point cadet. 1t is the more re-
| markable as two of the biographers
| We're West Pointers and old army Of
| ficers. 1t is the prevailing impression
| that when General Lee resigned he was
lieutenant colonel Of the Second cav
airy, of which Albert Sidney john
ston was colonel. Near the close of the
Buchanan administration, General
/ Twiggs was dismissed from the army
for surrendering United States troops
to Texans; about the same time Lieu
tenant Colonel Lee, who with his regi-
ment at Fort Mason, Tex. was order
ed on duty by General Scott to Wash
ington. He arrived there a few days
before the Inauguration Of Lincoln.
Scott was old and infirm; the present
law for retiring officers at a certain age
had not been passed. Lee had always
been in close personal and official re-
| lations with Scott; in Mexico he had
been on Scott's staff-his ablest and
confidential adviser Scott wanted him
in Washington as counsellor in the
storm he saw coming. Arlington, his
home, was on the opposite bank of the
Potomac He was known to be strong
Union man. On January 2S, 1861, he
had written Secession is nothing but
revolution. The trainers of our con-
stitution never exhausted so much Ia
Dor, wisdom and forbearance in it's for
nation, and surrounded 1t with SO
many guards and securities, If it was
intended to be broken by every MEM
hpr pf tba Cnpfe6eraoy at will -
Mr. Lincoln, in March, 1861, appoint
ed Sumner, who was colonel of the
First Cavalry, to be brigadier general
to fill the vacancy caused by the dis
missal of Twiggs; and Lieutenant
Colonel Robert E. Lee. of the Second
Cavalry to the First Cavalry, vice
Sumner, promoted. He held this COM
mission over month, and then resign
ed it. In his memoir of his uncle Fit2
Lee published the letter of resignation
of two lines in a foot-note, but, judging
from the silence of the text, the infer
ence is to he had not read it, and old
not know that General Lee ever ac-
copied an appointment from Lincoln
The truth is Mr.. Lincoln. after that
also promoted Second Lieutenant Fitz-
hugh Lee to be first lieutenant. The
letter of resignation, of course, does
not disclose the fact that Abraham
Lincoln appointed him.
While this is an interesting fact in
history there is nothing in it discredit-
ably to General Lee. AS long as he
could conscientiously hold a commits
sion in the United States army, it was
just as proper for him to accept pro-
motion as to retain what he had. MOI
| do / agree with Fitz Lee that wher
war was declared, and Lincoln Offered
to Colonel Lee the command of the
army in the field, he did so ito secure
him by a tempting offer" General
| Scott knew that no such offer would
be even temptation to General Lee tc
swerve from performing what he re-
garded as duty. There had been nc
change in his opinions as to the folly
of secession since he wrote the letter
have quoted, in January; but there hac
been a great change in political condi-
tions since the firing on Sumter.
The long conflict over slavery had, al
last, eliminated and risen to the pro-
portions of great territorial war. The
act of congress and Mr.. Lincoln's proc
lamation prohibiting all intercourse
between people living on opposite
banks of the Potomac recognized the
fact that Virginia was no longer in the
l s,,, ;o4s0 Df tIn rJyoia lN11f or