Excerpt from "The End of an Era:" On General Robert E. Lee

Date Published: November 3, 2024

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Headings and sub-headings are the addition of this author for publication on this website. They are intended to aid in the flow and understanding of what was originally written by John S. Wise in his book, "End of an Era," on this topic of General Robert E. Lee.

​Any mistakes in this area are this author's and this author's alone.

Peter E. Greulich, November 2024

Tribute to General Robert E. Lee from “The End of an Era” by John S. Wise

• General Robert E. Lee’s Early Career Was Not Without Its Struggles
• The Physical Carriage of Robert E. Lee Was of a Commanding Yet Sensitive Individual
• General Robert E. Lee Treated Others Humanely and Lead By Wandering Around
• General Robert E. Lee Assumed No “Pretense of Superiority” with the Individuals He Lead
• General Robert E. Lee Commanded the Respect and Admiration of Those Around Him
• A Final Tribute to General Robert E. Lee

General Robert E. Lee’s Career Was Not Without Its Struggles

It is impossible to speak of General Lee without seeming to deal in hyperbole—exaggeration or overstatement.

He had assumed command of the Virginia army under peculiar circumstances. It had been organized at Manassas in ‘61 under Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston. In the winter of ’61 and ’62, it had been transferred to the peninsula between the York and the James, still under the command of General Johnston. Under him it retreated towards Richmond, and he remained in command until he was wounded in the battle of Seven Pines.

General Johnston had inspired the army with great confidence in his ability, and undoubtedly possessed the quality of securing the deep and abiding faith and affection of his troops. During the period described, General Lee had not gained ground in public esteem. In ’61, he had been assigned to the command and direction of those impossible campaigns in West Virginia from which he had emerged with a loss of prestige.

​They failed, as any campaign must have done in such country. Whether or not due allowance was made for conditions in judging of Lee’s ability, need not be discussed. Suffice it to say, that after the termination of the West Virginia campaign, General Lee was sent to Charleston, where he was engaged in strengthening the fortifications until May, 1862, and that in June, accident—fate, called him to the command of the army about Richmond.​

John S. Wise pictured at approximately the age when he was around General Robert E. Lee.

It is no disparagement of General Lee to say that there were many who, at the time, regarded the wounding of General Johnston as a profound misfortune. But it was not long before Lee established himself in the affection and confidence of that army, and took a place never occupied by anyone else.

Before the last gun fired at Malvern Hill, at the close of the seven days’ fighting, the army had become known as Lee’s army.

It never had another name, and as such it will go down to history.

The Physical Carriage of Robert E. Lee Was of a Commanding Yet Sensitive Individual​

I have seen many pictures of General Lee, but never one that conveyed a correct impression of his appearance.

Above the ordinary size, his proportions were perfect. His form had fullness, without any appearance of superfluous flesh, and was as erect as that of a cadet, without the slightest apparent constraint. His features are too well known to need description, but no representation of General Lee which I have ever seen properly conveys the light and softness of his eye, the tenderness and intellectuality of his mouth, or the indescribable refinement of his face.

One picture gives him a meatiness about the nose; another, hard or coarse lines about the mouth; another, heaviness about the chin. None of them give the effect of his hair and beard. I have seen all the great men of our times, except Mr. Lincoln, and have no hesitation in saying that Robert E. Lee was incomparably the greatest looking man I ever saw.

I say the greatest-looking; by this I do not mean to provoke discussion whether he was, in fact, the greatest man of his age. One thing is, however, certain. Every man in that army believed that Robert E. Lee was the greatest man alive, and their faith in him alone kept that army together during the last six months of its existence.

General Robert E. Lee Treated Others Humanely and Lead By Wandering Around​

There was nothing of the pomp or panoply of war about the headquarters, or the military government, or the bearing, of General Lee.

The place selected as his headquarters was unpretentious. The officers of his staff had none of the insolence of martinets. Oddly enough, the three most prominent members of his staff—Colonel Venable, Colonel Marshall, and Colonel Walter Taylor—were not even West Pointers.

Persons who had business with his headquarters were treated like human beings—courtesy, considerateness, and even deference were shown to the humblest. He had no gilded retinue [entourage], but a devoted band of simple scouts and couriers, who, in their quietness and simplicity, modeled themselves after him.

General Lee rode out to consult with his subordinates as often as he sent for them to come to him. The sight of him upon the roadside, or in the trenches, was as common as that of any subordinate in the army. When he approached or disappeared, it was with no blare of trumpets or a clank of equipment.

Mounted upon his historic war-horse “Traveler,” he ambled quietly about, keeping his eye upon everything pertaining to the care and defense of his army. “Traveler” was no pedigreed, wide-nostril, gazelle-eyed, thoroughbred. He was a close-coupled, round-barreled, healthy, comfortable, gentleman’s saddlehorse. Gray, with black points, he was sound in eye, wind and limb, without strain, sprain, spavin, or secretion of any sort; ready to go, and able to stay; and yet without a single fancy trick, or the pretentious bearing of the typical charger.

He was a horse bought by General Lee during his West Virginia campaign.

General Robert E. Lee Assumed No “Pretense of Superiority” with the Individuals He Lead​

When General Lee rode up to our headquarters, or elsewhere, he came as unostentatiously as if he had been the head of a plantation, riding over his fields to inquire and give directions about ploughing or seeding. He appeared to have no mighty secrets concealed from his subordinates.

He assumed no airs of superior authority. He repelled no kindly inquiries, and was capable of jocular remarks. He did not hold himself aloof in solitary grandeur. His bearing was that of a friend who had a common interest in a common venture with the person addressed, and it was as if he assumed that his subordinate was as deeply concerned as himself in its success.

Whatever greatness was accorded to him was not of his own seeking.

He was less of an actor than any man I ever saw, but the impression which that man made by his presence, and by his leadership, upon all who came in contact with him, can be described by no other term than that of grandeur.

When I have stood at evening, and watched the great clouds banked in the west, and tinged by evening sunlight; when, on the Western plains, I have looked at the peaks of the Rocky Mountains outlined against the sky; when, in mid-ocean, I have seen the limitless waters encircling us, unbounded save by the infinite horizon—the grandeur, the vastness of these have invariably suggested thoughts of General Robert E. Lee.

Certain it is that the Confederacy contained no other man like him.

General Robert E. Lee Commanded the Respect and Admiration of Those Around Him​

​When its brief career was ended, in General Lee was centered—as in no other man, the trust, the love, almost the worship, of those who remained steadfast to the end.

When he said that the career of the Confederacy was ended; that the hope of an independent government must be abandoned; that all had been done which mortals could accomplish against the power of overwhelming numbers and resources; and that the duty of the future was to abandon the dream of a confederacy and to render a new and cheerful allegiance to a reunited government—his utterances were accepted as true as Holy Writ.

No other human being upon earth, no other earthly power, could have produced such acquiescence or compelled such prompt acceptance of that final and irreversible judgment.

A Final Tribute to General Robert E. Lee​

Of General Lee’s military greatness, absolute or relative, I shall not speak; of his moral greatness I need not write. The former, in view of the conditions with which he was hampered, must leave a great deal to speculation and conjecture; the latter, though, is acknowledged by all the world.

The man who would so stamp his impress upon his nation, rendering all others insignificant beside him, and yet die without an enemy; the soldier who could make love for his person a substitute for pay and clothing and food, and could, by the constraint of that love, hold together a naked, starving band, and transform it into a fighting army; the heart which, after the failure of its great endeavor, could break in silence, and die without the utterance of one word of bitterness—such a man, such a soldier, such a heart, must have been great indeed—great beyond the power of eulogy.
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Not in five hundred years does the opportunity come to any boy, I care not who he may be, to witness scenes like these, or live in daily contact with men whose names will endure as long as man loves military glory.

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