The result, at least, of the year’s fighting, had been extremely encouraging to the South, and after the battle of Fredericksburg no attempts were made to prosecute hostilities during the remainder of the year.  The scheme of crossing above Fredericksburg proved a fiasco, beginning and ending in a day.  Thereafter all movements ceased, and the two armies awaited the return of spring for further operations.

XIII.

LEE IN DECEMBER, 1862.

Before passing to the great campaigns of the spring and summer of 1863, we propose to say a few words of General Lee, in his private and personal character, and to attempt to indicate the position which he occupied at this time in the eyes of the army and the country.  Unknown, save by reputation, when he assumed command of the forces in June, 1862, he had now, by the winter of the same year, become one of the best-known personages in the South.  Neither the troops nor the people had perhaps penetrated the full character of Lee; and they seem to have attributed to him more reserve and less warmth and impulse than he possessed; but it was impossible for a human being, occupying so prominent a station before the general eye, to hide, in any material degree, his main great characteristics, and these had conciliated for Lee an exalted and wellnigh universal public regard.  He was felt by all to be an individual of great dignity, sincerity, and earnestness, in the performance of duty.  Destitute plainly of that vulgar ambition which seeks personal aggrandizement rather than the general good, and dedicated as plainly, heart and soul, to the cause for which he fought, he had won, even from those who had denounced him for the supposed hesitation in his course in April, 1861, and had afterward criticised his military operations, the repute of a truly great man, as well as of a commander of the first ability.  It was felt by all classes that the dignity of the Southern cause was adequately represented in the person and character of the commander of her most important army.  While others, as brave and patriotic, no doubt, but of different temperament, had permitted themselves to become violent and embittered in their private and public utterances in reference to the North, Lee had remained calm, moderate, and dignified, under every provocation.  His reports were without rhodomontade or exaggeration, and his tone uniformly modest, composed, and uninflated.  After his most decisive successes, his pulse had remained calm; he had written of those successes with the air of one who sees no especial merit in any thing which he has performed; and, so marked was this tone of moderation and dignity, that, in reading his official reports to-day, it seems wellnigh impossible that they could have been written in the hot atmosphere of a war which aroused the bitterest passions of the human soul.