, one realizes that
this suicide of a whole people, of a noble fighting people, would have
maimed incalculably the America of the future. But though the heroism of
this proposal of his men to die on their shields had its stern charm
for so brave a man as Lee, he refused to consider it. He would not admit
that he and his people had a right thus to extinguish their power to
help mold the future, no matter whether it be the future they desired or
not. The result of battle must be accepted. The Southern spirit must
not perish, luxuriating blindly in despair, but must find a new form of
expression, must become part of the new world that was to be, must look
to a new birth under new conditions. In this spirit he issued to his
army his last address:

"After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and
fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to
overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the survivors of so
many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that
I have consented to the result from no distrust of them; but feeling
that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate
for the loss that would have attended the continuation of the contest,
I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services
have endeared them to their countrymen.... I bid you an affectionate
farewell."

How inevitably one calls to mind, in view of the indomitable valor of
Lee's final decision, those great lines from Tennyson:

"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

There is no adequate history of the Confederacy. It is rumored that a
distinguished scholar has a great work approaching completion. It is
also rumored that another scholar, well equipped to do so, will soon
bring out a monumental life of Davis. But the fact remains that as yet
we lack a comprehensive review of the Confederate episode set in proper
perspective. Standard works such as the "History of the United States
from the Compromise of 1850", by J. F. Rhodes (7 vols., 1893-1908), even
when otherwise as near a classic as is the work of Mr. Rhodes, treat the
Confederacy so externally as to have in this respect little value. The
one se