Upon this point, General Breckinridge, too, bears his testimony:  “During the last year of that unfortunate struggle,” he says, “it was my good fortune to spend a great deal of time with him.  I was almost constantly by his side, and it was during the two months immediately preceding the fall of Richmond that I came to know and fully understand the true nobility of his character.  In all those long vigils, he was considerate and kind, gentle, firm, and self-poised.  I can give no better idea of the impression it made upon me, than to say it inspired me with an ardent love of the man and a profound veneration of his character.  It was so massive and noble, so grand in its proportions, that all men must admire its heroism and gallantry, yet so gentle and tender that a woman might adopt and claim it as her own.”

We beg the reader to observe that in these two tributes to the worth of the great soldier, his distinguished associates dwell with peculiar emphasis upon the charms of private intercourse with him, and bear their testimony to the fact that to know him better was to love and admire him more and more.  The fact is easily explained.  There was in this human being’s character naught that was insincere, assumed, or pretentious.  It was a great and massive soul—­as gentle, too, and tender, as a woman’s or a child’s—­that lay beneath the reserved exterior, and made the soldier more beloved as its qualities were better known.  Other men reveal their weaknesses on nearer acquaintance—­Lee only revealed his greatness; and he was more and more loved and admired.

The justice of these comments will be recognized by all who had personal intercourse with the illustrious soldier; and, in this autumn and winter of 1863, his army, lying around him along the Rapidan, began to form that more intimate acquaintance which uniformly resulted in profound admiration for the man.  In the great campaigns of the two past years the gray soldier had shared their hardships, and never relaxed his fatherly care for all their wants; he had led them in battle, exposing his own person with entire indifference; had never exposed them when it was possible to avoid it; and on every occasion had demanded, often with disagreeable persistence from the civil authorities, that the wants of his veterans should be supplied if all else was neglected.  These facts were now known to the troops, and made Lee immensely popular.  From the highest officers to the humblest private soldiers he was universally respected and beloved.  The whole army seemed to feel that, in the plainly-clad soldier, sleeping, like themselves, under canvas, in the woods of Orange, they had a guiding and protecting head, ever studious of their well-being, jealous of their hard-earned fame, and ready, both as friend and commander, to represent them and claim their due.