endeavored already to show. From the first, he seems to have
regarded his situation, unless his army were largely reenforced, as
almost desperate; those reenforcements did not come; and yet, as he
saw his numbers day by day decreasing, and General Grant's increasing
a still larger ratio, he retained his courage, confronting the
misfortunes closing in upon him with unmoved composure, and at no time
seemed to lose his "heart of hope."

Of this phenomenon the explanation has been sought in the
constitutional courage of the individual, and that instinctive
rebound against fate which takes place in great organizations. This
explanation, doubtless, is not without a certain amount of truth; but
an attentive consideration of the principles which guided this eminent
soldier throughout his career, will show that his equanimity, at a
moment so trying, was due to another and more controlling sentiment.
This sentiment was his devotion to Duty--"the sublimest word in our
language." Throughout his entire life he had sought to discover and
perform his duty, without regard to consequences. That had been with
him the great question in April, 1861, when the war broke out: he had
decided in his own mind what he ought to do, and had not hesitated.

From that time forward he continued to do what Duty commanded without
a murmur. In the obscure campaign of Western Virginia--in the unnoted
work of fortifying the Southern coast--in the great campaigns which he
had subsequently fought--and everywhere, his consciousness of having
performed his duty to the best of his knowledge and ability sustained
him. It sustained him, above all, at Gettysburg, where he had done his
best, giving him strength to take upon himself the responsibility of
that disaster; and, now, in these last dark days at Petersburg, it
must have been the sense of having done his whole duty, and expended
upon the cause every energy of his being, which enabled him to meet
the approaching catastrophe with a calmness which seemed to those
around him almost sublime.

If this be not the explanation of the composure of General Lee,
throughout the last great struggle with the Federal Army, the writer
of these pages is at a loss to account for it. The phenomenon was
plain to all eyes, and crowned the soldier with a glory greater than
that which he had derived from his most decisive military successes.
Great and unmoved in the dark hour as in the bright, he seemed to have
determined to pe