complaint on the part of officers, men, or citizens, or enemies, that
he had been guilty of any act, illegal, oppressive, unjust, or inhuman
in its character. This is the highest tribute possible to the wisdom
and virtue of General Lee; for, as a general rule, law was degraded;
officers, whether justly or unjustly, were constantly the subject
of complaint and discord, and jealousy prevailed in camp and in the
Senate-chamber. There was a fraction of our people represented by an
unavailing minority in Congress, who either felt, or professed to
feel, a jealousy whose theory was just, but whose application, at such
a time, was unsound. They wished to give as little power as possible
because they dreaded a military despotism, and thus desired to send
our armies forth with half a shield and broken swords to protect the
government from its enemies, lest, if the bucklers were entire and the
swords perfect, they might be tempted, in the heyday of victory, to
smite their employers. But this want of confidence never manifested
itself toward General Lee, whose conduct satisfied the most suspicious
that his ambition was not of glory but of the performance of duty. The
army always felt this: the fact that he sacrificed no masses of human
beings in desperate charges that he might gather laurels from the
spot enriched by their gore. A year or more before he was appointed
commander-in-chief of all the Confederate forces, a bill passed
Congress creating that office. It failed to become a law, the
President having withheld his approval. Lee made no complaints; his
friends solicited no votes to counteract the veto. When a bill for the
same purpose was passed at a subsequent period, it was whispered about
that he could not accept the position. To a committee of Virginians
who had called on him to ascertain the truth, his reply was, that he
felt bound to accept any post the duties of which his country believed
him competent to perform. After the battle of Gettysburg he tendered
his resignation to President Davis, because he was apprehensive his
failure, the responsibility for which he did not pretend to throw on
his troops or officers, would produce distrust of his abilities and
destroy his usefulness. I am informed the President, in a beautiful
and touching letter, declined to listen to such a proposition. During
the whole period of the war he steadily declined all presents, and
when, on one occasion, a gentleman sent him several dozen of w