Vol. XXXII 



November— December, 1917 



Nos. 5-0 



TRAINING THE NEW ARMIES OF LIBERTY 



Camp Lee, Virginia's Home for the National Army 

 By Major Granville Fortescue, U. S. A. 



SHOULD the spirit of General Rob- 

 ert E. Lee be watching over the 

 National Army cantonment named 

 in his honor, that spirit must follow the 

 training of the eightieth division with 

 warm pride. Perhaps a certain wist ful- 

 ness would be mingled with that pride, 

 for these loose-jointed Virginians tramp 

 over the ground their fathers made fa- 

 mous in the last battles for the Confed- 

 eracy. The Petersburg crater, where the 

 bones of Northern and Southern soldiers 

 lie buried as they fell, is but a musket- 

 shot distant from the American flag fly- 

 ing today above division headquarters, 

 and grass-green earthworks, built to de- 

 fend the city of Richmond, were leveled 

 to make place for the thousand buildings 

 of Camp Lee. 



City Point, General Grant's advanced 

 base in the operations against Richmond 

 and the Army of Virginia, which culmi- 

 nated in that pathetic episode staged in 

 Appomattox Court-house, lies six miles 

 northeast of the cantonment, while Pe- 

 tersburg, where the ill - fated General 

 A. P. Hill maintained headquarters until 

 he was killed, is three miles to the west. 



BLEEDING WOUNDS OF OUR CIVIL WAR 

 HAPPILY HEALED 



The significance of naming Camp Lee 

 lies deeper than the simple honoring of a 

 splendid Southern soldier and Christian 



gentleman. Behind that honor lies the 

 fact of the American nation strongly 

 united. The bleeding wounds of the frat- 

 ricidal conflict of 1861-1865 are healed, 

 leaving not the faintest cicatrix behind. 

 Here, on the ground where that bloody 

 national struggle reached its climax, Vir- 

 ginians proudly wear the uniform of the 

 United States Army and loyally salute 

 the flag that now symbolizes freedom 

 throughout the Avorld. 



In the struggle- which the nation faces, 

 the South vies with the North in giving 

 its all for the cause. Virginians these 

 men are through honorable, tradition, but 

 today, before the proud State title, they 

 place their claim to being Americans. 



When the benefits that come to the na- 

 tion through the creation of the National 

 Army are ultimately catalogued, the fact 

 that it has welded the country into a 

 homogeneous society, seeking the same 

 national ends and animated by the same 

 national ideals, will overtop all other ad- 

 vantages. The organization of this se- 

 lected army fuses the thousand separate 

 elements making up the United States 

 into one steel-hard mass. Men of the 

 North, South, East, and West meet and 

 mingle and on the anvil of war become 

 citizens worthy of the liberties won by 

 the first American armies. 



Here in Virginia the last vestiges of 

 sectional divergence disappear, and in 



