In answer to your second question, I can only say that, in my opinion, the negroes, under proper circumstances, will make efficient soldiers. I think we could at least do as well with them as the enemy, and he attaches great importance to their assistance. Under good officers, and good instructions, I do not see why they should not become soldiers. They possess all the physical qualifications, and their habits of obedience constitute a good foundation for discipline. They furnish a more promising material than many armies of which we read in history, which owed their efficiency to discipline alone. I think those who are employed should be freed. It would be neither just nor wise, in my opinion, to require them to serve as slaves. The best course to pursue, it seems to me, would be to call for such as are willing to come with the consent of their owners. An impressment or draft would not be likely to bring out the best class, and the use of coercion would make the measure distasteful to them and to their owners.

I have no doubt that if Congress would authorize their reception into service, and empower the President to call upon individuals or States for such as they are willing to contribute, with the condition of emancipation to all enrolled, a sufficient number would be forthcoming to enable us to try the experiment. If it proved successful, most of the objections to the measure would disappear, and if individuals still remained unwilling to send their negroes to the army, the force of public opinion in the States would soon bring about such legislation as would remove all obstacles. think the matter should be left, as far as possible, to the people and to the States, which alone can legislate as the necessities of this particular service may require. As to the mode of organizing them, it should be left as free from restraint as possible. Experience will suggest the best course, and it would be inexpedient to trammel the subject with provisions that might, in the end, prevent the adoption of reforms suggested by actual trial.

With great respect,

Your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE, General.

I

What might have been the results of this measure if the conditions of time necessary to realize them had been secured, it would be profitless speculation now to inquire; for the time to test it was

never obtained. The experiment was but poorly initiated by Congress in a very defective bill passed on the heel of the session, and shared the fate of all Confederate things in a few weeks thereafter. While Gen. Lee laid hold of new hopes and new measures, all were overwhelmed by one catastrophe, and the Southern Confederacy fell with a suddenness that the enemy even had not expected, and perished before the time predicted in which a temporary recovery might take place and a last grand struggle of arms terminate the contest.

CHAPTER XII.

Extraordinary cheerfulness of Gen. Lee.-A psychological reflection.-The Army of Northern Virginia at a third stage in its history.-Military preparations for the evacuation of Richmond.-Protests of the Government.-Gen. Lee's last and desperate resolution.-Battle of Five Forks.-Theory and results of the action.Grant's assault in front of Petersburg.-How Gen. Lee received it. His remark to a staff-officer.

IT has often been remarked by those who saw Gen. Lee in Richmond in the last periods of the war, shortly before the final battles of Petersburg, what extraordinary cheerfulness he exhibited, despite of all he knew of the extreme condition of the Confederacy. His manners were observed to be unusually lively and pleasant at this time; his step was elastic; and he presented a picture of healthy, cheerful activity that many despondent persons were at a loss to understand. There is in some measure a psychological explanation of this apparent inconsistency of behaviour. While ordinary men are depressed by the approach of a desperate trial, it appears to be the gift of the great soul to meet it with inspirations of alacrity, and to show a smiling face even in the last agonies of the contest against fate. It is the old heathen picture of man sublimely contending with fate, to the admiration of the gods; the modern idea of the true hero, with elated form and illuminated face, accepting the last test of endurance, and with the smile of a sublime resolution risking the last defiance of fortune. Cheerfulness in such circumstances is an inspiration; the crest of the truly great man rises in circumstances wherein the ordinary countenance falls, and the thought of a desperate trial puts a peculiar smile on his face when that of meaner men it would stamp with anxiety and alarm.

But there were reasons other than this recondite inspiration that so perceptibly kindled Gen. Lee's manners in what proved to be the last days of Richmond. He had conceived a resolution, at that time utterly unknown to the public, and founded on it a rational and lively hope.

The Army of Northern Virginia was at a third stage in its history. The three stages were: First, when it had defended Richmond on a distant line of operations; second, when it held the immediate works of the capital, and was subjected to the operations of siege; third, when unable to break the enemy's investment, no longer capable of offensive operations, and in imminent danger of losing its communications, its policy had come to be the extrication of itself, and an eccentric campaign. The third and last concern Gen. Lee was now meditating; and he determined to save his army while there was exit for it, and the means of retreat were available.

In the early part of February he made preparations for the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond. It was certainly the best thing he could do under the circumstances. There is a stupid persistence in whatever may once take the imagination of the popu lace; and thus many persons in Richmond maintained the hallucination that Lee's lines were to be held en permanence, and Grant to "hammer" away indefinitely, for no other reason than that this situation was the one most familiar to their minds. But it was plain to the intelligent that this situation must soon resolve itself into one or the other of two things-retreat or surrender; that it was impossible that Lee could hold his lines against the large and steady reinforcements sent to Grant. He had already forty miles of earthworks to defend against more than four times his own numbers. There were some things obvious on the survey of the field, which were, of course, not lost to the military eye of Gen. Lee. It was obvious that if Grant continued to receive heavy reinforcements, and Lee none, while his army continued to diminish from desertions and casualties, the time would soon come when retreat or surrender would be the only alternative. It was obvious that if the immense line of Lee's works was broken anywhere, he was lost. It was obvious that he should make an attempt to save his army, and that there was only one hopeful way to do it, the opportunity of which was of doubtful duration.

If he moved at all, he would have to do so on the line of the Southside Railroad towards Danville; and he must move at once. With the hope of cutting off his retreat, and with a full knowledge of his adversary's necessities, Grant was moving heavy columns towards Hatcher's Run, and was awaiting what he supposed to be the certain attempt of the Confederates to retreat. His army was kept

ready day and night, with rations cooked and in haversacks, and with every preparation complete for instant pursuit. If Gen. Lee did not retreat, time might allow the Federal army to fight its way to the Southside road, or opportunity might be obtained to operate on it with a detached column; and once lodged on this great artery of the Confederate army, it could at once cut its vital communications, and bar what was apparently its only chance of

escape.

Influenced by these views, Gen. Lee determined to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg during the winter months, and before spring brought on those active operations which he feared might be fatal to his army. In February he gave orders for the removal of all the stores of the army to Danville. Cotton and tobacco, belonging to the Government, were hauled away from Petersburg; large numbers of the inhabitants left the place; all the surplus artillery was sent to Amelia Court-House, and even the reserve ordnance train of the army was ordered to the same point.

But in the midst of these preparations came such protests from Richmond as Gen. Lee felt bound to regard. President Davis considered the evacuation of the capital as the last thing to be done; he feared its moral effect; he hoped for changes in the military situation elsewhere which might relieve the aspect of affairs about the capital; he clung to the strange idea of a victory over Sherman, whose eccentric march was described by one of the Richmond clergy in the words: "God had put a hook in Sherman's nose, and was leading him to destruction." The unhappy consequence was that Gen. Lee was dissuaded from his first intentions, and finally determined to hold his position, to test his lines of defence, and in the last event of their giving way to trust for the extrication of his army through whatever developments might take place in the experiment.

The close of the Valley campaign, with another sum of misfortune for the South, gave Grant the control of Sheridan's unrivalled cavalry command of about twelve thousand sabres. With this great advantage of cavalry he determined to organize a column to operate towards the Southside road, and to throw the élite of his army against Lee's right. Such an assault, in his enfeebled condition, was more than Gen. Lee could sustain, unless he stripped his works elsewhere. But a brave effort was made to prepare for the