University of Virginia Library

When I left home, my dear boys, I promised to write to you
whenever an opportunity occurred, and give you some of my
views and opinions.

I have an opportunity to-morrow to send you this; and as the
characters of great men are valuable guides to growing boys
who are shaping their own, I will take this occasion to tell you
something about the famous Commander of the Army of Northern
Virginia, General Lee.

I will first describe his appearance; for I have always observed
that when we know how a great man looks, we take far
more interest in his sayings and doings, for we have an accurate
idea of the sort of person who is talking or acting. I remember
reading once that Cæsar, the celebrated Roman General, was
a dandy in his youth—a sort of “fine gentleman” about Rome;
and had lost all his hair, which he regretted greatl, and tried to
conceal with the laurel crown he wore. Also, that when he
conquered Gaul he was thin and pale, had frequent fainting
fits, and yet was so resolute and determined that while he was
riding on horseback, over mountains and through rivers, he
would dictate dispatches to as many as seven secretaries at a

time, who were carried in litters at his side. I also remember
reading how the Emperor Napoleon looked, and all about his
old gray overcoat, his cocked hat, his habit of taking snuff from
his waistcoat pocket, and his dark eyes, set in the swarthy face,
and looking at you so keenly as he spoke to you. I was greatly
helped, too, in my idea of General Washington—whom General
Lee, to my thinking, greatly resembles—by finding that he was
tall, muscular, and carried his head erect, repulsing with a simple
look all meddling or impertinence, and impressing upon all
around him, by his grave and noble manner, a conviction of the
lofty elements of his soul. Knowing these facts about Cæsar,
Napoleon, and Washington, I noticed that I had a much better
understanding of their careers, and indeed seemed to see them
when they performed any celebrated action which was related
in their biographies.

General Lee is now so justly famous that, although posterity
will be sure to find out all about him, my grandchildren (if I
have any) will be glad to hear how he appeared to the eyes of
Corporal Shabrach, their grandfather, one of the humble soldiers
of his army.

I have seen the General frequently, and he once spoke to me,
so I can describe him accurately. He has passed middle age, and
his hair is of an iron gray. He wears a beard and moustache,
which are also gray, and give him a highly venerable appearance.
He has been, and still is, an unusually handsome man,
and would attract attention in a crowd from his face alone.
Exposure to sun and wind has made his complexion of a ruddy,
healthy tint, and from beneath his black felt hat a pair of eyes
look at you with a clear, honest intentness, which gives you
thorough confidence both in the ability and truthfulness of their
owner. I have always observed that you can tell the character
of a man by his eyes, and I would be willing to stake my farm
and all I am worth upon the statement that there never was a
person with such eyes as General Lee's who was not an honest
man. As to his stature, it is tall, and his body is well knit.
You would say he was strong and could bear much fatigue,
without being heavy or robust. His bearing is erect, and when

his head bends forward, as it sometimes does, it appears to stoop
under the weight of some great scheme he is concocting. His
dress is very simple, consisting generally of an old gray coat,
dark-blue pantaloons, a riding cape of the same colour; boots
worn outside, and a black hat. Sometimes a large dark overcoat
is worn over all. He seldom carries a sword. He rides fine
horses, and is my model of an old Virginia Cavalier, who would
rather be torn to pieces by shell and canister than give up any
of his rights.

If I was asked to describe General Lee's ordinary appearance
and attitude, either in the saddle, in front of the line-of-battle, or
standing with his field-glass in his hand, reconnoitring the
enemy keenly from beneath the gray eyebrows, I should say, in
words I have met with in some book, that his attitude was one
of supreme invincible repose. Here you see a man whom no
anxieties can flurry, no reverses dismay. I have seen him thus
a dozen times, on important occasions; and that, if nothing else,
convinces me that he is, in the foundations of his character, a very
great man. No man in public affairs now, to my thinking at
least, is so fine a representative and so truthful a type of the great
Virginia race of old times.

As to his character, everybody has had an opportunity of
forming an opinion upon the subject—at least of his military
character. Some persons, I know—Captain Quattlebum for
instance, who is a man of no great brains himself, however, confidentially
speaking—say that Lee is not a great general, and
compares him to Napoleon, who, they say, won greater victories,
and followed them up to better results. Such comparisons, to
my thinking, are foolish. I am no great scholar, but I have read
enough about Napoleon's times to know that they were very
different from General Lee's. He, I mean Napoleon, was at the
head of a French army, completely disciplined, and bent on
“glory.” They wanted their general to fight on every occasion,
and win more “glory.” If he didn't go on winning “glory” he
was not the man for them. The consequence was that Napoleon,
who was quite as fond of “glory” as his men, fought battles
whenever he could get at the enemy, and as his armies were

thoroughly disciplined, with splendid equipments, and plenty
of provisions and ammunition, he was able to follow up his successes,
as he did at Marengo and Austerlitz, and get the full
benefit of them. Lee is in a very different situation from Napoleon.
This is an army of volunteers, who did not come into the
field to gain “glory,” but to keep the Yankees from coming
further South. They have no disposition to rebel and get rid
of General Lee if he does not feed them on a dish of “glory”
every few weeks. They are not as well organized as they ought
to be, and are badly equipped, provisioned, and ammunitioned.
With such an army it is unreasonable to expect General Lee to
fight as often and as desperately as Napoleon did, or to follow
up his victories. He takes the view, I suppose, that he is Commander-in-Chief
of the Confederate States in the field; that
“glory” is a secondary matter; that worrying out the enemy is
the best tactics for us, with our smaller number and superior
material; and that no risks ought to be run with our army,
which, once destroyed by an unlucky step, could not be replaced.
Altogether, for the reasons stated above, I think General Lee is a
better soldier for the place he occupies than Napoleon would be.

I can look back to many occasions where I think a different
course from that which he pursued would have been better, but
I do not, on that account, mean to say that he was wrong. I
think he was right. My dear boys, there is no man so wise as
he who explains what ought to have been done, after the event.
It is like the progress of science. A child, in the year 1864,
knows ten thousand things that the wisest philosopher of 1764
knew nothing about. So a boy may be able to understand that
this or that would have been better, from what he now knows,
when our wisest generals, from want of information at the time,
could not. It is a solemn thing to be in command of an army
which cannot be renewed, if once destroyed; especially when
that army is the only breakwater against the torrent attempting
to sweep us away.

I have, on all occasions, expressed these opinions of General
Lee, and I intend to go on expressing them, with many others
like them, and if anybody thinks I do so from interested

motives they are welcome to their opinion. It is not likely that
the Commander-in-Chief will ever know whether Fifth Corporal
Shabrach likes or dislikes him—whether he admires him, or the
contrary. I am glad of that. I consider myself just as good as
General Lee as long as I am honest and a good soldier, doing
my duty to the country in the upright, brave, and independent
attitude of a free Virginian; and let me tell you that the General
would be the first to acknowledge it. My dear boys, there
is nobody so simple and unassuming as a gentleman, and I tell
you again that General Lee is not only a gentleman, but a great
man, and Corporal Shabrach takes off his hat and salutes him,
whether noticed by the General or not. It is his duty to salute
him, and he performs that duty without expecting to be promoted
to Fourth Corporal for it.

I will therefore say of General Lee that, to my thinking, his
character bears the most striking and surprising resemblance to
that of General Washington. When I say this, you will know
my opinion of him, for I have always taught my boys to revere
the name of the Father of his Country. In saying this about
General Lee, I do not mean any empty compliment. It is very
easy to talk about a “second Washington” without meaning
much, but I mean what I say. I read Marshall's Life of the
General some years since, and I remember taking notice of the
fact that Washington appeared to be the tallest and strongest of
all the great men around him. I did not see that he excelled
each one of them in every particular. On the contrary, there was
Patrick Henry; he could make a better speech. There was
Jefferson; he could write a better “State paper.” And there
was Alexander Hamilton, who was a much better hand at figures,
and the hocus-pocus of currency and “finance.” (I wish we had
him now, if we could make him a States' Rights man.) But
Washington, to my thinking, was a much greater man than
Henry, or Jefferson, or Hamilton. He was wiser. In the balance
and harmony of his faculties he excelled them all, and
when it came to his moral nature they were nowhere at all!
In reading his life, I remember thinking that he was the fairest
man I ever heard of. His very soul seemed to revolt against

injustice to the meanest creature that crawled; and he appeared
to be too proud to use the power he wielded to crush those who
had made him their enemy by their own wrong-doing. Although
he was a man of violent temper, he had it under perfect
control, and he seems to have gone through life with the view
of having carved on his tombstone: “Here lies a man who
never did intentional injustice to a human creature.” Now anybody
that knows General Lee knows that this is just like him.
For my part, I am just as sure as I can be of anything, that if
one of his Major-Generals tried to oppress the humble Fifth Corporal
Shabrach, he would put the Major-General under arrest,
and make him answer for his despotism. If you will look at
the way General Washington fought, also, you will find a great
resemblance to General Lee's tactics. The enemy had then, as
now, to be worried out—to be evaded by falling back when the
ammunition or rations gave out—to be harassed by partisans,
and defeated at one point to balance their success at another.
The account current was cast up at the end of each year, the
balance struck, and preparations made to open a new account for
the next year, and the next!

That's the way we are fighting this war, and that is General
Lee's plan, I think, as it was Washington's.

All this army has pretty much the same opinion of General
Lee that I have, and is glad that it is commanded by one whom
it both respects and loves. There is no doubt about the General's
popularity with the army, and its confidence in him. The
men call him “Uncle Robert,” and are proud of his notice. I
told you that he once spoke to your father, who is nothing but
Fifth Corporal, and you will be proud when I tell you that little
Willie's letter, the first he ever wrote me, was the cause. I was
sitting on a stump by the roadside reading it with a delight that
showed itself, I suppose, in my countenance, when, hearing
horses' hoofs near me, I raised my head and saw General Lee, in
his old riding-cape, with several members of his staff. I rose
quickly to my feet and made the military salute—two fingers to
the hat—when what was my surprise to see the General stop
with all his staff. His hand went to his hat in return for my

salute, and looking at me with his clear eyes, he said in a grave,
friendly voice:

“I suppose that is a letter from your wife, is it not, my
friend?”

It was a proud moment for Corporal Shabrach, I assure you,
my children, to be called “my friend” by old Uncle Robert.
But somehow, he didn't make me feel as if he was condescending.
It was just as if he had said: “Shabrach, my friend, we are both
good patriots, fighting for our country, and because I am Commander-in-Chief
that is no reason why I should not respect an
honest Fifth Corporal, and take an interest in him and his domestic
matters.” His voice seemed to say all that, and thinking he
was in no hurry that morning, I replied:

“No, General; I have no wife now, although I have had two
in my time, the last one having been a great trial to me, owing
to her temper, which was a hard thing to stand.”

The General smiled at this, and said with a sort of grave
humour that made his eyes twinkle:

“Well, my friend, you appear to be too well advanced in life
to have a sweetheart, although” (I saw him look at the chevrons
on my sleeve) “all the Corporals I ever knew have been gallant.”

“It is not from a sweetheart, General,” I replied; “after Mrs.
Shabrach the Second died, I determined to remain unmarried.
My little boy, Willie, wrote it; he is only six years old, but is
anxious to grow up and be one of General Lee's soldiers.”

“That is a brave boy,” returned the General; “but I hope
the war will not last so long. You must give him my love, and
tell him to fight for his country if he is ever called upon. Good
day, my friend.”

And saluting me, the General rode on. He often stops to
speak to the soldiers in that way; and I mention this little incident,
my children, to show you how kindly he is in his temper,
and how much he loves a quiet joke, with all his grave air, and
the anxieties that must rest on him as Commander-in-Chief of
the army.

I have always despised people that looked up with a mean
worship to great men, but I see nothing wrong or unmanly

in regarding with a sort of veneration—a mixture of affection
and respect—this noble old cavalier, who seems to have stepped
out of the past into the present, to show us what sort of men
Virginia can still produce. As for myself, I never look at him
without thinking: “It is good for you to be alive to let the
youths of 1863 see what their fathers and grandfathers were in
the great old days.” The sight of the erect form, the iron-gray
hair and beard, the honest eyes, and the stately figure, takes me
back to the days when Washington, and Randolph, and Pendleton,
used to figure on the stage, and which my father told me all
about in my youth. Long may the old hero live to lead us, and
let no base hand ever dare to sully the glories of our well
beloved General—the “noblest Roman of them all,” the pink of
chivalry and honour. May health and happiness attend him!