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every sense of the word in whom I had full confidence. Many of them some of them friends whom I loved.
"A life, as long as Methuselah's would not let me see another such army as that we had from Harper's Ferry via Manassas and York- town, to the Chickahominy and Richmond. However, the tone and temper of this army has certainly improved greatly since the begin- ning of 1864, and I would now freely meet odds of three to two.
- * The only drawback is the want of artillery horses, and
the wretched condition of those we have. We have scarcely a team capable of a day's march, or a day's service in battle.
" I see from your letter, that you have heard of my attempt to get you into this army as Lieutenant-General. When I made the re- commendation, it was with a strong hope of success, for I had heard here that one of the President's A. D. C's had expressed the opin- ion that you would be promoted. The reason given for putting aside the recommendation, was an odd one to me. It was that you were too valuable in your present place. If you were with me, I should feel confident."
What line of eulogy, however expressed, could come with greater power than from the master of strategy and the patriot hero, whom his troops loved with undying devotion, and who gave the last bloody lesson to the invader on North Carolina soil in the struggle at Ben- tonsville ? To ask for Whiting as his second in command, and to declare: " If you were with me, I should feel confident! " That is a sentence which should be the immortal epitaph of the hero whose life we attempt to review to-day.
In his valuable address, delivered at the request of Cape Fear Camp, United Confederate Veterans, by Colonel William Lamb, is this description of Fort Fisher, which was still unfinished when the attack occurred. He says:
" The plans were my own, and as the work progressed, were ap- proved by French, Raines, Longstreet, Beauregard and Whiting. It was styled by Federal engineers, 'the Malakoflf of the South.' It was built solely with the view of resisting the fire of a fleet, and it >t<>d uninjured, except as to armanent, two of the fiercest bombard- ments the world has ever witnessed.
' The two faces to the works were 2,580 yards long, or about one and a half miles. The land face mounted twenty of the heaviest oast guns, and was 682 yards long; the sea-face with twenty- tour equally heavy guns. The land face commenced about 100 feet
