attack by a swift counter-stroke delivered by men unacquainted
with defeat. Both his hands were heavily swathed in bandages and
far too painful to admit of his even touching the bridle rein, but
he had had himself lifted into the saddle and for fully fourteen
hours he remained mounted on "Traveller," his famous war horse,
watching every movement with the inspiring calmness of a commander
born to rule the storm.

The situation was perilous and no one realized its dangers more
keenly than he, but not a trace of anxiety appeared upon his face.
Only twice was he betrayed into an expression of his feelings, once
when he asked General Hood where the splendid division was which
he had commanded in the morning and received the reply: "They are
lying in the field where you sent them," and again when he directed
the Rockbridge battery to go into action for a second time after
three of its four guns had been disabled. The captain of this
battery had halted to make a report of its condition and receive
instructions, and Lee, gazing at the group of begrimed and tattered
privates behind the officer, ordered them to renew their desperate
work before he recognized that among them stood his youngest son,
Robert.

Very few men in the Confederate commander's position would have
suffered a son to serve in the ranks. A word from him would, of
course, have made the boy an officer. But that was not Lee's way.
To advance an inexperienced lad over the heads of older men was,
to his mind, unjust and he would not do it even for his own flesh
and blood. Nor had his son himself expected it, for he had eagerly
accepted his father's permission to enter the ranks and had cheerfully
performed his full duty, never presuming on his relationship to