The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1904-01-27
GEN. r. 4. LEE.
One of the Greatest Men Of A. y
Country or Age.
WHAT OTHER MEN SAY OF HIM
The Great Generals Of Germany
Ranked Him Above AL the
Commanders Of the
Civil War.

Civil War.
Tuesday, January 19, was the birth
day of Gen. Robert E. Lee, one OF the
greatest men the world ever produc-
ed. In this connection the following
from the Augusta Chronicle will be
read with interest:
The father Of General Robert E.
Lee, the famous Light Horse
Harry" " Of the old revolution, was a
scholarly man, valiant of course, and.
like most men Of his day, fond of high
eating and drinking. when not engag-
ed in war. He died on Cumberland
island. in this state. He had quick
temper and generous qualities. His
history of the Southern campaign of
General Greene is the best OF its kind
and it gave. as is not always the case
in military annals, due praise and
credit to the courage of the enemy.
He did not spare. when they deserved
it. the faults and weakness of his own
sodiery. OF his son Robert he said:
He was a good boy. He was always
good" And this was true to the end.
He had all his fathers manly virtues
and none Of his faults or irregular
habits.
We have all heard of Earl Wolseley'S
tribute to Lee as the greatest soldier
and man he had ever met in his event
full life. An English scholar said:
THE most stainless of earthly COM
nlanders, and except in fortune the
greatest. "
General Miles is no favorite in the
South because of his connection with
the imprisonment of President Davis
yet he declared that, in Germany, the
great generals there ranked Lee above
all commanders, on either side, during
the interstate war. And was 1t not
Charles Francis Adams who said that
the time will come when "the bronze
etfigy of Robert E. Lee, mounted on
his charger and with the insignia OF
his Confederate rank will from its
pedestal in the nations capitol gaze
across the Potomac at his old home at
Arlington, even as that of Cromwell
dominates the yard of Westminster,
upon which his skull once looked
down."
But General Lee was a different
man from Cromwell and an inexpres-
sibly better one, in all that exalts hu-
man nature. In lucid interval
Theodore Roosevelt wrote:
The world has never seen better
soldiers than those who followed Lee,
and their leader will undoubtedly
rank as. without any exception, the
greatest of all great captains that the
English-speaking people have brought
forth
General Beauregard, in Romans
biography of that distinguished gen
eral, rather imputes that President
Davis planned the Pennsylvania cam
paign. and that General Lee did not
approve it; but there is authentic evil
dence that Lee himself conceived it,
that it was an imperative moment.
and he believed his army inrincible.
DIR. CASTOR once told us that the army
Lee led into Pennsylvania had not its
equal in the tide of times, that it was
the best that ever stepped upon this
planet. -
And yet it failed, because Stuart, it
is said. did not keep Lee Informed OF
the whereabouts of Meade and be-
cause Early failed to take the COM
manding heights after the first days
victory, but allowed the enemy to
concentrate and occupy them. That
is what Lee, in our opinion, meant
when ne said:
IF l had had Stor ewail Jackson at
Gettysburg would have won that
battle, and a complete victory there
would have given US Washington and
Baltimore, if not Philadelphia, and
established the inde pendence Of the
Confederacy" General Lee died
belle ;ing this.
But Lee fought some Of his grandest
battles after the Gettysburg reverse.
1t was the plan of Jackson, and it was
also that of Beauregard, to make a
quick and not waiting contest; to
let the Seaboard so; tO large extent.
and concentrate two great armies East
and West for a mighty onest before
the enemy could perfect his navy.
organize superior forces, and bring
nearly 500, 900 Hessians from Europe.
We were not beaten fairly, but
worn out. Even as it was, had man
like Lee, after General Johnston's
death, commanded in the West, with
Forrest as his ''Stonewall' Jackson,
there might have been different
story. AS Dr.. J. William Jones sums
up, We old Confederates may we'll be
proud, and we may look the world
in the face and confidently affirm the
cause for which these men fought,
and in the faith Of which they died,
cannot be wrong
If the cause was right, and we be-
lieye it, it is imperishable. If right,
it will wake the word to liberty
again. If VIM. Jennings Bryan's
arraignment of the present situation
at the North is true, and there is no
remedy politically, then the constitu-.
ton. true Republican freedom, local
self-government and the genuine
rights of man were overthrown with
the physical vanquishment of the
South. If, as even old Senator Hoar
now virtually says, the republic is
drifting to despotism, by imperial
paths and commercial dishonor, then
there can be no restoration except by
return of the people: to the basic
principles of the Confeieracy and to
the lofty ideal, the moral grandeur
and glorious example of Robert E.
Lee.
One time. the eloquent L. G. G.
Lamar wrote, in concluding a letter
an9lyyjnr or n3rallelino Washington