It is not known that General Wolseley ever, in any capacity, engaged in any battle that can be named in comparison with the battles of the Wilderness, with Spottsylvania, with Cold Harbor, or the battle of Five Forks; and it is certain that it was never his fortune to put one hundred thousand men, or even fifty thousand men, into the wage of battle and thus assume the responsibility of the contest. It was never the necessity of the situation that General Lee should assume the offensive, and in the two instances where he did assume the offensive his campaigns were failures; and can any one doubt that if General Grant had been in command either at Antietam or Gettysburg, the war would than have come to an end of the left bank of the Potomac River by the capture of Lee's army? If this be so, then Lee's undertaking was a hazard for which there could have been no justifying reason, and his escape from destruction was due to the inadequacy of the men in command of the Northern armies. Following this remark I ought to say that General Meade was a brave and patriotic officer, but he lacked the qualities which enable a man to act promptly and wisely in great exigencies. While General Lee was acting on the defensive did he engage in and successfully execute any strategic movement that can be compared with Grant's campaign of May, 1863, through Mississippi and to the rear of Vicksburg? Or can General Wolseley cite an instance of individual genius and power more conspicuous than the relief of our besieged army at Chattanooga, the capture of six thousand prisoners, forty pieces of artillery, seven thousand stands of small arms and large quantities of other material of war? During the period of reconstruction Alexander H. Stephens was examined by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives as to the condition and purposes of the South. When the examination was over I asked him when he came to the conclusion that the South was to be defeated. He said: "In the year 1862." I then said: "In that year you had your successes. What were the grounds of your conclusions?" In reply he said: "It was then that I first realized that the North was putting its whole force into the contest, and I knew that in such a contest we were to be destroyed." If I were to imagine a reason, or to suggest an excuse for General Lee's two unsuccessful aggressive campaigns, I should assume that, simultaneously with Mr. Stephens, he had reached the conclusion that time was on the side of the North, and that the Fabian policy must fail in the end. In an aggressive movement there was one chance of success. A victory and capture of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington might lead to an arrangement by which the Confederacy would be recognized, or a restoration of the Union secured upon a basis acceptable to the South. A desperate undertaking, no doubt, but it is difficult to suggest a more adequate reason for the conduct of General Lee.