254 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
As a soldier, Lee was bold to excess. Working with the swift agency of ** Stonewall" Jackson, he struck blow after blow, each more aggressive and more au- dacious than the preceding one, till he came to feel that the shifting and uncertain Union leadership was no match for him anywhere. With Jackson's aid he won the splendid victory of Chancellorsville. Then, although Jackson was gone, Lee thought he could invade the North, destroy Hooker and his demoralized army, and perhaps dictate terms of peace in Washington, or even in Philadelphia or New York. With triumph in his heart and in the hearts of his soldiers, he crossed the Potomac, and marched north to the vicinity of the little town of Gettysburg.
Meanwhile the Union army had again changed com- manders, and Hooker had given place to General George G. Meade. Meade was a plain man, a quiet man ; see- ing him in private life, you would never have taken him for a soldier. He dealt little in the fuss and show of war, little in words, wrote no magniloquent dispatches. The last thing he talked of was himself, and therefore, after the great struggle was over, others got much credit that should have been his.
But he was a thinker ; he believed that battles de- pended more on brains than on sabres ; he thought out his strategy to the end, yet was quick also to meet an emergency that disarranged his thinking. Above all, he should be forever honored for the circumstances under
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