A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee | Page 9

endowments. This fact was clearly indicated on many occasions in the
Confederate struggle--his eye for positions never failed him. It is
certain that, had Lee never commanded troops in the field, he would
have left behind him the reputation of an excellent engineer.
In 1855 he was called for the first time to command men, for his duties
hitherto had been those of military engineer, astronomer, or
staff-officer. The act of Congress directing that two new cavalry
regiments should be raised excited an ardent desire in the officers of the
army to receive appointments in them, and Lee was transferred from
his place of engineer to the post of lieutenant-colonel in the Second
Cavalry, one of the regiments in question. The extraordinary number of
names of officers in this regiment who afterward became famous is
worthy of notice. The colonel was Albert Sydney Johnston; the
lieutenant-colonel, R.E. Lee; the senior major, William J. Hardee; the
junior major, George H. Thomas; the senior captain, Earl Yan Dorn;
the next ranking captain, Kirby Smith; the lieutenants, Hood, Fields,
Cosby, Major, Fitzhugh Lee, Johnson, Palmer, and Stoneman, all of
whom became general officers afterward on the Southern side, with the
exception of Thomas, and the three last named, who became prominent
generals in the Federal army. It is rare that such a constellation of
famous names is found in the list of officers of a single regiment. The
explanation is, nevertheless simple. Positions in the new regiments

were eagerly coveted by the best soldiers of the army, and, in
appointing the officers, those of conspicuous ability only were selected.
The Second Regiment of cavalry thus became the _corps d'élite_ of the
United States Army; and, after Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee
was the ranking officer.
Lee proceeded with his regiment to Texas, remaining there for several
years on frontier duty, and does not reappear again until 1859.
Such was the early career in the army of the soldier soon to become
famous on a greater theatre--that of a thoroughly-trained, hard-working,
and conscientious officer. With the single exception of his brief record
in the Mexican War, his life had been passed in official duties,
unconnected with active military operations. He was undoubtedly what
is called a "rising man," but he had had no opportunity to display the
greatest faculties of the soldier. The time was coming now when he was
to be tested, and the measure of his faculties taken in one of the greatest
wars which darken the pages of history.
A single incident of public importance marks the life of Lee between
1855 and 1861. This was what is known to the world as the "John
Brown raid"--an incident of the year 1859, and preluding the
approaching storm. This occurrence is too well known to require a
minute account in these pages, and we shall accordingly pass over it
briefly, indicating simply the part borne in the affair by Lee. He was in
Washington at the time--the fall of 1859--on a visit to his family, then
residing at Arlington, near the city, when intelligence came that a party
of desperadoes had attacked and captured Harper's Ferry, with the
avowed intent of arming and inciting to insurrection the slaves of the
neighborhood and entire State. Lee was immediately, thereupon,
directed by President Buchanan to proceed to the point of danger and
arrest the rioters. He did so promptly; found upon his arrival that
Brown and his confederates had shut themselves up in an engine-house
of the town, with a number of their prisoners. Brown was summoned to
surrender, to be delivered over to the authorities for civil trial--he
refused; and Lee then proceeded to assault, with a force of marines, the
stronghold to which Brown had retreated. The doors were driven in,
Brown firing upon the assailants and killing or wounding two; but he
and his men were cut down and captured; they were turned over to the
Virginia authorities, and Lee, having performed the duty assigned him

returned to Washington, and soon afterward to Texas.
He remained there, commanding the department, until the early spring
of 1861. He was then recalled to Washington at the moment when the
conflict between the North and the South was about to commence.

VI.
LEE AND SCOTT.
Lee found the country burning as with fever, and the air hot with
contending passions. The animosity, long smouldering between the two
sections, was about to burst into the flame of civil war; all men were
taking sides; the war of discussion on the floor of Congress was about
to yield to the clash of bayonets and the roar of cannon on the
battle-field.
Any enumeration of the causes which led to this unhappy state of
affairs would be worse than useless in a volume like the present. Even