From that time forward he continued to do what Duty commanded without a murmur.  In the obscure campaign of Western Virginia—­in the unnoted work of fortifying the Southern coast—­in the great campaigns which he had subsequently fought—­and everywhere, his consciousness of having performed his duty to the best of his knowledge and ability sustained him.  It sustained him, above all, at Gettysburg, where he had done his best, giving him strength to take upon himself the responsibility of that disaster; and, now, in these last dark days at Petersburg, it must have been the sense of having done his whole duty, and expended upon the cause every energy of his being, which enabled him to meet the approaching catastrophe with a calmness which seemed to those around him almost sublime.

If this be not the explanation of the composure of General Lee, throughout the last great struggle with the Federal Army, the writer of these pages is at a loss to account for it.  The phenomenon was plain to all eyes, and crowned the soldier with a glory greater than that which he had derived from his most decisive military successes.  Great and unmoved in the dark hour as in the bright, he seemed to have determined to perform his duty to the last, and to shape his conduct, under whatever pressure of disaster, upon the two maxims, “Do your duty,” and “Human virtue should be equal to human calamity.”

There is little reason to doubt that General Lee saw this “calamity” coming, for the effort to reenforce his small army with fresh levies seemed hopeless.  The reasons for this unfortunate state of things must be sought elsewhere.  The unfortunate fact will be stated, without comment, that, while the Federal army was regularly and largely reenforced, so that its numbers at no time fell below one hundred and fifty thousand men.  Lee’s entire force at Petersburg at no time reached sixty thousand, and in the spring of 1865, when he still continued to hold his long line of defences, numbered scarcely half of sixty thousand.  This was the primary cause of the failure of the struggle.  General Grant’s immense hammer continued to beat upon his adversary, wearing away his strength day by day.  No new troops arrived to take the places of those who had fallen; and General Lee saw, drawing closer and closer, the inevitable hour when, driven from his works, or with the Federal army upon his communications, he must cut his way southward or surrender.

A last circumstance in reference to General Lee’s position at this time should be stated; the fact that, from the autumn of 1864 to the end in the spring of 1865, he was felt by the country and the army to be the sole hope of the Confederacy.  To him alone now all men looked as the deus ex machina to extricate them from the dangers surrounding them.  This sentiment needed no expression in words.  It was seen in the faces and the very tones of voice of all.  Old men visited him, and begged him with