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Show ;i m Apotheosizing General Lee THERE seems just now in certain quarters a determination to apotheosize General Rob- l ert E. Lee. A Mr. Page of Virginia has Bi just put out a book evidently for this purpose. PH He charges all General Lee's mistakes to his M officers; the failure at Gettysburg to General jK Longstreet; the triumph at Chancellorsville to fl General Lee. Now, the history of both those H battles is pretty well known. H At Gettysburg, General Lee crowded his H'l forces forward as fast as he could. General H Reynolds met the advance and held it steady H until he fell, then General Howard, with little loss H of position, held the field against the constantly H increasing forces of Confederates until at sun- H down General Hancock arrived and fixed the H positions of the Federals. General Longstreet Hfjj advised against the charge of Pickett .expressing K the belief that with the Federal artillery fronting Hjj and flanking the charging column it would al- H( most certainly fail, and the event established the Hi! soundness of his views. H' At Chancellorsville, General Lee was badly H worsted in the forenoon; General Stonewall H Jackson's corps was put to route. H Speaking of General Hooker after supposing M several things, Mr. Page says: "He was com- H pletely deceived by Lee's front and was issuing orders to pursue the fleeing enemy at the very HHj moment Jackson was about to strike him and mtm pulverize him," and continuing he declares that: M "The true reason is that he had been so hope- jH, lessly outgeneraled and outfought by his opponent H that he had been thrown into a maze in which H his brain had almost ceased to act." Hj Now, all accounts agree that the battle Hjl opened most auspiciously for Hooker. If General H! Lee had any plans they were all dissolved; he was Hi slowly retreating. Stonewall Jackson had been 1 so beaten that he had fallen back several miles H' and the men fronting him were so confident that fl ho was done for that they had stacked their arms HG and were lounging on the grass playing cards, and H believed the day's work ended. Hj A private Confederate told General Fitzhugh Lee their condition; he climbed a neighboring hill and saw for himself (he has left the "record of it), hurried dispatchers to General Jackson who came at double quick and swept the field. General Pleasanton told the writer of this that never was a battle more perfectly planned than that wh'ch General Hooker planned at Chancellorsvi ; that never did a battle progress more certainly toward victory than did Hooker's battle of Chancellorsville up to 3 p. m. several hours after it opened when for some reason, General Hooker was overcome while yet the battle was going on all night. At 3 p. m. a cannon can-non ball cut off a column supporting a porch under which Hooker was standing. That may have shocked him. Mr. Page says that had not Stonewall Jackson been killed, the army of the Potomac would have been destroyed on that day. He might with more reason say that had not that private told Fitzhugh Lee what he had seen, General Lee would, after Chancellorsville, have done what he did after Gettysburg. General Lee was a magnificent soldier and general, but he never won a point after Stonewall Stone-wall died, and never for a day stopped Grant's plan to pursue and crush him. |