ROBERT E. LEE



crowd about him. Straight nose, too. Still, to
see him talking and smoking in the lower entry
of Willard's, in that crowd, in such times-the
generalissimo of our armies, on whom the destiny
of the empire seemed to hang! . . . He gets over
the ground queerly. He does not march, nor
quite walk; but pitches along as if the next step
would bring him on his nose. But his face looks
firm and hard, and his eve is clear and resolute,
and he is certainly natural, and clear of all ap-
pearance of self-consciousness. How war, how all
great crises, bring us to the one-man power! " 
  It should be said, and the fact has been much
overlooked, that while to Grant's dogged reso-
lution to wear out his opponent, no matter what
the cost to his own side, was due in the end the
exhaustion of the South; yet the tactical detail
with which the military operations were con-
ducted was to a considerable extent attributable
to Meade. The commander at Gettysburg has
never gotten the credit generally that he deserves.
Because he could not destroy Lee at or after
Gettysburg, and failed to attain a decided suc-
cess in the autumn campaign following, he lost
the prestige that he should have had for an ac-
 A&dams's "Dana," vol. II, p. 272. Rhodes's "History of the
United States," vol. IV, pp. 438, 439.
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