The Southern army had one prominent officer with a high ecclesiastical title, the Rt.  Rev. Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Louisiana, commanding a corps in Bragg’s army.  He was killed in battle at Pine Mountain, Ga., during Sherman’s advance on Atlanta.  Stonewall Jackson was so famed for his rather obtrusive though awfully real piety that men named him the Havelock of the army.  But none who knew the three will call Lee less a Christian than either of the others.  He prayed daily for his enemies in arms, and no word of hate toward the North ever escaped his tongue or his pen.  He had the faith and devotion of a true crusader.  His letters breathe the spirit of a better earth than this.  Collected into a volume, they would make an invaluable book of devotional literature.  No wonder officers and men passionately loved such a commander, glad, at his bidding, to crowd where the fight was thickest and death the surest.

Sir Thomas Malory’s words are not inaptly applied to Lee:  “Ah, Sir Lancelot, thou wert head of all Christian knights; thou wert never matched of earthly knight’s hand; and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare shield; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou wert the meekest man and the gentliest that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in rest.”

Exquisitely appropriate is also Professor Trent’s comparison of Lee “with Belisarius and Turenne and Marlborough and Moltke, on the one hand, and on the other with Callicratidas, and Saint Louis, with the Chevalier Bayard and Sir Philip Sidney.”

A remarkable trait of General Lee’s military character was his tireless and irresistible energy.  While one whom he deemed a foe of his State remained on her soil, he could not rest.  From the moment he took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, all was action in that army.  During the nine weeks after A.P.  Hill struck Mechanicsville that earthquake shock, how did not the war-map change!  Richmond was set free; Washington was threatened.  Lee whipped McClellan before Pope could help, then Pope before McClellan could help.  The first evening at Gettysburg, Longstreet having impressively pointed out the strength of Meade’s position on Cemetery Hill, Lee instantly replied, “If he is there in the morning, I shall attack him.”  The second morning of the Wilderness battle, Grant, obviously expecting to anticipate all movement upon the other side, ordered charge at five o’clock.  Lee charged at half-past four.  Grant was determined to reach Spottsylvania first, but there, too, Lee awaited him, having had some hours to rest.  Prostrate and half-delirious in his tent one day during Grant’s effort to flank him, he kept murmuring:  “We must strike them; we must not let them pass without striking them.”  Longstreet was too slow for him, and so was even the ever-ready A.P.  Hill.  Years later, Lee’s dying words were:  “Tell Hill he must come up.”