Excerpt from Confederate Portraits

In nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read.

In some Of these Confederate portraits there may be thought to be a note Of undue harshness. All I can say is that I have endeavored to display and to insist upon the high and fine qualities manifest in every case. TO pass over or Slight the shadows seemed to me neither just nor wise. As to any partiality in the matter, after careful self-examination, I can discover no motive which could lead me to anything Of the sort, unless it were an un due desire to exalt Lee. Of this I am not conscious, and, if I have not been misled by some such influence, I feel that the net result Of careful study Of Lee's companions in arms is to bring out more than ever the serene elevation Of his greatness. Some of them were, perhaps, more brilliant than he, some greater orators, some profounder think ers, some even as capable soldiers. Not one approaches him in those moral qualities, which, as Mr. Adams has justly pointed out, place him, as they do Washington, far above those who aided him in his terrible struggle.

During my prolonged study of Lee's contemporaries, which compelled me to take note Of their various faults and weaknesses, I have also continued my careful watch for similar weaknesses in Lee himself. The suggestion Of anything of the kind has been rare enough; but in justice to johnston and Longstreet and Beauregard I think it right to print the following very curious passage from a letter Of General G. W. Smith to johnston him self, written in the summer Of 1862, before Lee had thor oughly established his great reputation. Smith was sore, from neglect, deserved or undeserved, and wide search elsewhere reveals no suggestion Of a state Of mind like his in any one else. But it must be confessed that just the defects Of manner indicated here are what one would look for in a temperament like Lee's, if defects were there at all.

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