thousand men—­that of Johnston was not so great, and was detained by Sherman.  Under these circumstances, it was obviously only a question of time when the Army of Northern Virginia would be overwhelmed.  In February, 1865, these facts were perfectly apparent to General Lee:  but one course was left to him—­to retreat from Virginia; and he promptly began that movement in the latter part of the month, ordering his trains to Amelia Court-House, and directing pontoons to be got ready at Roanoke River.  His aim was simple—­to unite his army with that of General Johnston, and retreat into the Gulf States.  In the mountains of Virginia he could carry on the war, he had said, for twenty years; in the fertile regions of the South he might expect to prolong hostilities, or at least make favorable terms of peace—­which would be better than to remain in Virginia until he was completely surrounded, and an unconditional submission would alone be left him.

It will probably remain a subject of regret to military students, that Lee was not permitted to carry out this retreat into the Gulf States.  The movement was arrested after a consultation with the civil authorities at Richmond.  Upon what grounds a course so obviously necessary was opposed, the present writer is unable to declare.  Whatever the considerations, Lee yielded his judgment; the movement suddenly stopped; and the Army of Northern Virginia—­if a skeleton can be called such—­remained to await its fate.

The condition of the army in which “companies” scarce existed, “regiments” were counted by tens, and “divisions” by hundreds only, need not here be elaborately dwelt upon.  It was indeed the phantom of an army, and the gaunt faces were almost ghostly.  Shoeless, in rags, with just sufficient coarse food to sustain life, but never enough to keep at arm’s-length the gnawing fiend Hunger, Lee’s old veterans remained firm, scattered like a thin skirmish-line along forty miles of works; while opposite them lay an enemy in the highest state of efficiency, and numbering nearly five men to their one.  That the soldiers of the army retained their nerve under circumstances so discouraging is surely an honorable fact, and will make their names glorious in history.  They remained unshaken and fought undismayed to the last, although their courage was subjected to trials of the most exhausting character.  Day and night, for month after month, the incessant fire of the Federal forces had continued, and every engine of human destruction had been put in play to wear away their strength.  They fought all through the cheerless days of winter, and, when they lay down in the cold trenches at night, the shell of the Federal mortars rained down upon them, bursting, and mortally wounding them.  All day long the fire of muskets and cannon—­then, from sunset to dawn, the curving fire of the roaring mortars, and the steady, never-ceasing crack of the sharp-shooters along the front.  Snow, or blinding sleet, or freezing rains, might be falling, but the fire went on—­it seemed destined to go on to all eternity.