which the enemy suffered a
bloody repulse; and the best commentary on the decisive character of
this last struggle of the year, was the fault found with General Lee
for not destroying his adversary.

In less than six months Lee had thus fought four great pitched
battles--all victories to his arms, with the exception of Sharpsburg,
which was neither a victory nor a defeat. The result was thus highly
encouraging to the South; and, had the Army of Northern Virginia had
its ranks filled up, as the ranks of the Northern armies were, the
events of the year 1862 would have laid the foundation of assured
success. An inquiry into the causes of failure in this particular is
not necessary to the subject of the volume before the reader. It is
only necessary to state the fact that the Army of Northern Virginia,
defending what all conceded to be the territory on which the decisive
struggle must take place, was never sufficiently numerous to follow up
the victories achieved by it. At the battles of the Chickahominy the
army numbered at most about seventy-five thousand; at the second
Manassas, about fifty thousand; at Sharpsburg, less than forty
thousand; and at Fredericksburg, about fifty thousand. In the
following year, it will be seen that these latter numbers were at
first but little exceeded, and, as the months passed on, that they
dwindled more and more, until, in April, 1865, the whole force in line
of battle at Petersburg was scarcely more than thirty thousand men.

Such had been the number of the troops under command of Lee in 1862.
The reader has been informed of the number of the Federal force
opposed to him. This was one hundred and fifty thousand on the
Chickahominy, of whom one hundred and fifteen thousand were effective;
about one hundred thousand, it would seem, under General Pope, at the
second battle of Manassas; eighty-seven thousand actually engaged at
the battle of Sharpsburg; and at Fredericksburg from one hundred and
ten to one hundred and twenty thousand.

These numbers are stated on the authority of Federal officers or
historians, and Lee's force on the authority of his own reports, or of
gentlemen of high character, in a situation to speak with accuracy.
Of the truth of the statements the writer of these pages can have no
doubt; and, if the fighting powers of the Northern and Southern troops
be estimated as equal, the fair conclusion must be arrived at that Lee
surpassed his adversaries in generalship.