mmmmimmmmtmmm \mmmvmmmimmimiimmmmi(m 
 
Class 1^ "tG T 
 
 Book __^U JiZDiS" 
 
^:^^ - ..Zy/^ ^ ^^e^. 
 
 ai 
 
 .M 
 
 z:-//^- 
 
 '/'(</ ^-x::^--^^ - f "'/i^ /i- ^^.^ *--' 
 
 ,,.. y ^ /^'^^--2^< 
 
 c 
 
 
 y/ 
 
 
.r 
 
 J 
 
ROBERT EDWARD LEE 
 
 ORATION 
 
 PRONOUNCED AT THE 
 
 UNVEILING OF THE RECUMBENT FIGURE 
 
 At Lexington Virginia June 28th 1883 
 
 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL LL. D. 
 
 SAVANNAH GA. 
 

 1 2 
 
 -. ^' ^ ^ 
 
 'T.^' 
 
LEE 
 
A, 
 

 'B^^'' 
 
Mr. President, my Comrades and Countrymen : 
 
 There was no happier or lovelier home than that of 
 Colonel Robert Edward Lee, in the spring of 1861, when 
 for the first time its threshold was darkened with the omens 
 of civil war. 
 
 Crowning the green slopes of the Virginia hills that over- 
 look the Potomac, and embowered in stately trees, stood the 
 venerable mansion of Arlington, facing a prospect of varied 
 and imposing beauty. Its broad porch and wide-spread 
 wings held out open arms, as it were, to welcome the com- 
 ing guest. Its simple Doric columns graced domestic com- 
 fort with a classic air. Its halls and chambers were adorned 
 with the portraits of patriots and heroes, and with illustra- 
 tions and relics of the great Revolution, and of the Father 
 of his Country. And within and without, history and tradi- 
 tion seemed to breathe their legends upon a canvas as soft 
 as a dream of peace. 
 
 The noble river which in its history, as well as in its name, 
 carries us back to the days when the red man trod its banks, 
 sweeps in full and even flow along the forefront of the land- 
 scape, while beyond its waters stretch the splendid avenues 
 and rise the gleaming spires of Washington ; and over all the 
 great white dome of the National Capitol looms up against 
 the eastern sky like a glory in the air. 
 
Southward and westward, toward the blue rim of the Alle- 
 ghanies, roll away the pine and oak-clad hills and the fields 
 of the " Old Dominion," dotted here and there with the 
 homes of a people of simple tastes and upright minds, re- 
 nowned for their devotion to their native land and for their 
 fierce love of liberty — a people who had drunk into their 
 souls with their mothers' milk, that man is of right, and 
 ought to be, free. 
 
 On the one hand there was impressed upon the most 
 casual eye that contemplated the pleasing prospect, the 
 munificence and grandeur of American progress, the arts of 
 industry and commerce, and the symbols of power. On 
 the other hand, nature seemed to woo the heart back to her 
 sacred haunts, with vistas of sparkling waters and verdant 
 pastures, and many a wildwood scene ; and to penetrate its 
 deepest recesses with the halcyon charm that ever lingers 
 about the thought of home. 
 
 The head of the house established here was a man whom 
 nature had richly endowed with graces of person, and high 
 qualities of head and heart. Fame had already bound his 
 brow with her laurel, and fortune had poured into his lap 
 her golden horn. Himself a soldier, and colonel in the 
 army of the United States, the son of that renowned " Light- 
 Horse Harry " Lee who was the devoted friend and com- 
 patriot of Washington in the Revolutionary struggle, and 
 whose memorable eulogy upon his august chief has become 
 his epitaph, — descended indeed from a long line of illustrious 
 progenitors, whose names are written on the brightest scrolls 
 of English and American history, from the conquest of the 
 Norman at Hastings to the triumph of the Continentals at 
 Yorktown — he had already established his own martial fame 
 at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino 
 del Rey, Chapultepec, and Mexico, and had proved how little 
 he depended upon any merit but his own. Such was his 
 early distinction that, when but a captain, the Cuban Junta 
 had offered to make him the leader of their revolutionary 
 movement for the independence of Cuba, a position which, 
 as an American officer, he felt it his duty to decline. And 
 
 (2) 
 
so deep was the impression made of his genius and his valor 
 that General Scott, commander-in-chief of the army in which 
 he served, had declared that he " was the best soldier he ever 
 saw in the field," "the greatest military genius in America," 
 that " if opportunity offered he would show himself the fore- 
 most captain of his times," and that " if a great battle were to 
 be fought for the liberty or slavery of the country, his judg- 
 ment was that the commander should be Robert Lee." 
 
 Wedded to her who had been the playmate of his boyhood, 
 and who was worthy in every relation to be the companion 
 of his bosom, sons and daughters had risen up to call them 
 blessed, and there, decorated with his country's honors and 
 surrounded by " love, obedience, and troops of friends," the 
 host of Arlington seemed to have filled the measure of gen- 
 erous desire with whatever of fame or happiness fortune can 
 add to virtue. And had the pilgrim started in quest of some 
 happier spot than the Vale of Rasselas, well might he have 
 paused by this threshold and doffed his " sandal shoon." 
 
 So situated was Colonel Lee in the spring of 1861, upon 
 the verge of the momentous revolution of which he became 
 so mighty a pillar and so glorious a chieftain. But we can- 
 not estimate the struggle it cost him to take up arms against 
 the Union, nor the sacrifice he made, nor the pure devotion 
 with which he consecrated his sword to his native State, 
 without looking beyond his physical surroundings, and fol- 
 lowing further the suggestions of his history and character 
 for the springs of action which prompted his course. Col- 
 onel Lee was emphatically a Union man, and Virginia, to the 
 crisis of dissolution, was a Union State. He loved the Union 
 with a soldier's ardent loyalty for the government he served, 
 and with a patriot's faith and hope in the institutions of his 
 country. His ancestors had been among the most distin- 
 guished and revered of its founders ; his own life from youth 
 upward had been spent and his blood shed in its service, 
 and two of his sons, following his footsteps, held commis- 
 sions in the army. 
 
 He was born in the same county, and descended from the 
 same strains of English blood from which Washington 
 
 (3) 
 
sprang, and was united in marriage with Mary Custis, the 
 daughter of his adopted son. He had been reared in the 
 school of simple manners and lofty thoughts which belonged 
 to the elder generation ; and with Washington as his exem- 
 plar of manhood and his ideal of wisdom, he reverenced his 
 character and fame and work with a feeling as near akin to 
 worship as any that man can have for aught that is human. 
 
 Unlike the statesmen of the hostile sections, who were con- 
 stantly thrown into the provoking conflicts of political de- 
 bate, he had been withdrawn by his military occupations from 
 scenes calculated to irritate or chill his kindly feelings toward 
 the people of the North; and on the contrary — in camp and 
 field and social circle — he had formed many ties of friendship 
 with its most esteemed soldiers and citizens. With the reti- 
 cence becoming his military office, he had taken no part in 
 the controversies which preceded the fatal rupture between 
 the States, other than the good man's part, to " speak the soft 
 answer that turns away wrath," and to plead for that forbear- 
 ance and patience which alone might bring about a peaceful 
 solution of the questions at issue. 
 
 Years of his professional life he had spent in Northern 
 communities, and, always a close observer of men and things, 
 he well understood the vast resources of that section, and the 
 hardy, industrious, and resolute character of its people ; and 
 he justly weighed their strength as a military power. When 
 men spoke of how easily the South would repel invasion, he 
 said : " You forget that we are all Americans." And when 
 they prophesied a battle and a peace, he predicted that it 
 would take at least four years to fight out the impending 
 conflict. None was more conscious than he that each side 
 undervalued and misunderstood the other. He was, more- 
 over, deeply imbued with the philosophy of history, and the 
 course of its evolutions, and well knew that in an upheaval of 
 government deplorable results would follow which were not 
 thought of in the beginning, or, if thought of, would be dis- 
 avowed, belittled, and depreciated. And eminently conserva- 
 tive in his cast of mind and character, every bias of his 
 judgment, as every tendency of his history, filled him with 
 
 (4) 
 
yearning and aspiration for the peace of his country and the 
 perpetuity of the Union. Is it a wonder, that, as the storm 
 of revolution lowered. Colonel Lee, then with his regiment, 
 the Second Cavalry, in Texas, wrote thus to his son in Jan- 
 uary, 1861 : — 
 
 "The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts 
 of the North as you say. I feel the aggression, and am will- 
 ing to take any proper steps for redress. It is the principle I 
 contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an Ameri- 
 can citizen I take great pride in my country, her prosperity 
 and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights 
 were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for 
 the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an 
 accumulation of all evils we complain of, and I am willing to 
 sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, 
 therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted be- 
 fore there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revo- 
 lution. * * Still, a Union that can only be maintained by 
 swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to 
 take the place of love and kindness, has no charm for me. I 
 shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress 
 of mankind. If the Union is dissolved, and the Government \ 
 is disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the 
 miseries of my people, and, save in defense, will draw my 
 sword on none." 
 
 A few weeks later Colonel Lee was ordered, and came, to 
 Washington, reaching there three days before the inaugura- 
 tion of President Lincoln. At that time South Carolina, 
 Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had 
 already seceded from the Union, and the Provisional Govern- 
 ment of the Confederate States was in operation at Mont- 
 gomery. 
 
 The Virginia Convention was in session, but slow and de- 
 liberate in its course. The State which had done so much to 
 found the Union was loth to assent to its dissolution, and still 
 guided by the wise counsels of such men as Robert E. Scott, 
 Robert Y. Conrad, Jubal A. Early, John B. Baldwin, Samuel 
 
 (5) 
 
McDowell Moore, and A. H. H. Stuart, she persisted in 
 efforts to avert the calamity of war. Events followed swiftly. 
 The Peace Conference had failed. Overtures for the peace- 
 ful evacuation of Fort Sumter had likewise failed. On the 
 13th of April, under bombardment, the Federal commander, 
 Major Anderson, with its garrison, surrendered. On April 
 15th President Lincoln issued his proclamation for 75,000 
 men to make war against the seceded States, which he styled 
 "Combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordi- 
 nary course of judicial proceedings." This proclamation 
 determined Virginia's course. War had come. Her media- 
 tion had been in vain. She was too noble to be neutral. 
 
 Of the arts of duplicity she knew nothing save to despise. 
 She must now level her guns against the breasts of her 
 Southern brethren, or make her own breast their shield. 
 On April 17th Virginia answered Mr. Lincoln's proclamation 
 with the Ordinance of Secession, and, like Pallas-Athene, 
 "the front fighter" stepped with intrepid brow to where, in 
 conflict, history has ever found her — to the front of war. 
 
 Where now is Robert Lee ? On the border line, between 
 two hostile empires, girding their loins for as stern a fight as 
 ever tested warriors' steel, he beholds each beckoning to him 
 to lead its people to battle. On the one hand, Virginia, now 
 in the forefront of a scarcely organized revolution, summons 
 him to share her lot in the perilous adventure. The young 
 Confederacy is without an army. There is no navy. There 
 is no currency. There are few teeming work-shops and arse- 
 nals. There is little but a meagre and widely-scattered popu- 
 lation, for the most part men of the field, the prairie, the 
 forest, and the mountain, ready to stand the hazard of an 
 audacious endeavor to meet aggressions with whatever weap- 
 ons freemen can lay their hands on, and to carry high the 
 banners of the free, whatever may betide. 
 
 Did he fail ? Ah, did he fail ? His beloved State would 
 be trampled in the mire of the ways; the Confederacy would 
 be blotted from the family of nations; home and country 
 would survive only in memory and in name; his people 
 would be captives, their very slaves their masters; and he, 
 
 (6) 
 
if of himself he thought at all, he, mayhap, might have seen 
 in the dim perspective the shadow of the dungeon or the 
 scaffold. 
 
 On the other hand stands the foremost and most powerful 
 republic of the earth, rich in all that handiwork can fashion or 
 that gold can buy. It is thickly populated. Its regular army 
 and its myriad volunteers rush to do its bidding. Its navy 
 rides the Western seas in undisputed sway. Its treasury 
 teems with the sinews of war, and its arsenals with weapons. 
 And the world is open to lend its cheer and aid and comfort. 
 Its capital lies in sight of his chamber window, and its guns 
 bear on the portals of his home. A messenger comes from 
 its President and from General Scott, commander-in-chief of 
 its army, to tender him supreme command of its forces. Did 
 he accept, and did he succeed, the conqueror's crown awaits 
 him, and, win or lose, he will remain the foremost man of a 
 great established nation, with all honor and glory that riches 
 and office and power and public applause can supply. 
 
 Since the Son of Man stood upon the Mount, and saw "all 
 the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them " stretched 
 before him, and turned away to the agony and bloody sweat 
 of Gethsemane, and to the Cross of Calvary beyond, no fol- 
 lower of the meek and lowly Saviour can have undergone 
 more trying ordeal, or met it with higher spirit of heroic 
 sacrifice. 
 
 There was naught on earth that could swerve Robert E. 
 Lee from the path where, to his clear comprehension, honor 
 and duty lay. To the statesman, Mr. Francis Preston Blair, 
 who brought him the tender of supreme command, he an- 
 swered : — 
 
 "Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned . 
 
 the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice i 
 
 them all to the Union. But how can I draw my sword \ 
 
 against Virginia?" * 
 
 Draw his sword against Virginia? Perish the thought! 
 Over all the voices that called him he heard the still small 
 voice that ever whispers to the soul of the spot that gave it 
 
 (7) 
 
birth, and of her who gave it suck ; and over every ambitious 
 dream there rose the face of the angel that guards the door 
 of home. 
 
 On the 20th of April, as soon as the news of Virginia's se- 
 cession reached him, he resigned his commission in the army 
 of the United States, and thus wrote to his sister who re- 
 mained with her husband on the Union side: — 
 
 "With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of 
 loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able 
 to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, 
 my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my com- 
 mission in the army, and, save in defense of my native State 
 (with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be 
 needed), I hope I may never be called upon to draw my 
 sword." 
 
 Bidding an affectionate adieu to his old friend and com- 
 mander. General Scott, who mourned his loss, but nobly ex- 
 pressed his confidence in his motives, he repaired to Rich- 
 mond. Governor John Letcher immediately appointed him 
 to the command-in-chief of the Virginia forces, and the Con- 
 vention unanimously confirmed the nomination. Memorable 
 and impressive was the scene when he came into the presence 
 of that body on April 23d. Its venerable president, John 
 Janney, with brief, sententious eloquence, addressed him, and 
 concluded saying: — 
 
 "Sir, we have by this unanimous vote expressed our con- 
 victions that you are at this day, among the living citizens of 
 Virginia, * first in war.' We pray to God most fervently that 
 you may so conduct the operations committed to your 
 charge, that it may be said of you that you are 'first in 
 peace,' and when that time comes, you will have earned the 
 still prouder distinction of being 'first in the hearts of yoiw 
 countrymen.' 
 
 "Yesterday your mother, Virginia, placed her sword in 
 your hand upon the implied condition that we know you 
 will keep in letter and in spirit : that you will draw it only 
 
 (8) 
 
in defense, and that you will fall with it in your hand rather 
 than that the object for which it was placed there should fail." 
 
 General Lee thus answered : — 
 " Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : 
 
 " Profoundly impressed with the solemnity of the occa- 
 sion, for which, I must say, I was not prepared, I accept the 
 position assigned me by your partiality. I would have pre- 
 ferred had your choice fallen upon an abler man. Trusting 
 in Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my 
 fellow-citizens, I devote myself to the service of my native 
 State, in whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my 
 sword." 
 
 Thus came Robert E. Lee to the State of his birth and to 
 the people of his blood in their hour of need. Thus, with 
 as chaste a heart as ever plighted its faith until death, for bet- 
 ter or for worse, he came to do, to suffer, and to die for us 
 who, to-day, are gathered in awful reverence, and in sorrow 
 unspeakable, to weep our blessings upon his tomb. 
 
 I pause not here to defend the course of General Lee, as 
 that defense may be drawn from the Constitution of a Repub- 
 lic which was born in the sublime protest of its people against 
 bayonet rule, and founded on the bed-rock principle of free 
 government, that all free governments "must derive their just 
 powers from the consent of the governed," I pause not to 
 trace the history or define the grounds of that theory of con- 
 stitutional construction which maintained the right of seces- 
 sion from the Union as an element of sovereign statehood — 
 a theory which has found ablest and noblest advocacy in 
 every section of the country. The tribunal is not yet formed 
 that would hearken to such defense, nor is this the time or 
 place to utter it. And to my mind there is for Lee and his 
 compatriots a loftier and truer vindication than any that may 
 be deduced from codes, constitutions, and conventional arti- 
 cles of government. A great revolution need never apologize 
 for nor explain itself There it is! — the august and thrilling 
 rise of a whole population ! And the fact that it is there is 
 
 (9) 
 
the best evidence of its right to be there. None but great 
 inspirations underlie great actions. None but great causes 
 can ever produce great events. A transient gust of passion 
 may turn a crowd into a mob — a temporary impulse may 
 swell a mob into a local insurrection; but when a whole 
 people stand to their guns before their hearthstones, and as 
 one man resist what they deem aggression; when for long 
 years they endure poverty and starvation, and dare danger 
 and death to maintain principles which they deem sacred; 
 when they shake a continent with their heroic endeavors and 
 fill the world with the glory of their achievements, history 
 can make for them no higher vindication than to point to 
 their deeds and say — "behold!" 
 
 A people is its own judge. Under God there can be no 
 higher judge for them to seek or court or fear. In the su- 
 preme moments of national life, as in the life of individuals, 
 the actor must resolve and act within himself alone. The 
 Southern States acted for themselves — the Northern States 
 for themselves — Virginia for herself. And when the lines of 
 battle formed, Robert Lee took his place in the line beside 
 his people, his kindred, his children, his home. Let his 
 defense rest on this fact alone. Nature speaks it. Nothing 
 can strengthen it. Nothing can weaken it. The historian 
 may compile; the casuist may dissect; the statesman may 
 expatiate; the advocate may plead; the jurist may expound; 
 but, after all, there can be no stronger or tenderer tie than 
 that which binds the faithful heart to kindred and to home. 
 And on that tie — stretching from the cradle to the grave, 
 spanning the heavens, and riveted through eternity to the 
 throne of God on high, and underneath in the souls of good 
 men and true — on that tie rests, stainless and immortal, the 
 fame of Robert Lee. 
 
 And now that war was flagrant, history delights to testify 
 how grandly General Lee bore his part. Transferred from 
 the State service to that of the Confederacy, with the rank 
 of General, we behold him first in the field in the rugged 
 mountains of Northwest Virginia, restoring the morale lost 
 by the early reverses to our arms in that department — hold- 
 
 (lO) 
 
ing invading columns in check with great disparity of force 
 to meet them — bearing the censures of the impatient without 
 a murmur, and careless of fame with duty done. Later, in 
 the fall of 1 86 1, we find him exercising his skill as an 
 engineer in planning defenses along the threatened coast of 
 South Carolina; and in March, 1862, he is again in Virginia, 
 charged by President Davis "with the conduct of military 
 operations in the armies of the Confederacy" — in brief, and 
 in some sort, under the President, commander-in-chief. 
 
 But now a year of war had rolled by; no brilliant accom- 
 plishment had yet satisfied the public expectation with which 
 he had been welcomed as a Southern leader; and as the fame 
 of revolutionary captains can only be fed with victories, it is 
 unquestionable that, at this stage of his career, the reputation 
 of Lee, as a general, had sensibly declined. 
 
 Meanwhile the Army of Northern Virginia had made a 
 name in history under its famous commander, Joseph E. 
 Johnston, and I cannot speak that name without bowing the 
 homage of my heart to the illustrious soldier and noble gen- 
 tleman who bears it. Under his sagacious and brilliant 
 leadership his forces had been suddenly withdrawn from 
 Patterson's front, near Winchester, and united with those of 
 General Beauregard, at Manassas; and there, led by these 
 two Generals, the joint command had, on July 21st, 1861, 
 routed the Army of the Potomac in the first pitched battle 
 of the war; had given earnest of what the volunteers of the 
 South could do in action, and had crowned the new-born 
 Confederacy with the glory of splendid military achievement. 
 Still later in the progress of events, Johnston had exhibited 
 again his strategic skill in holding McClellan at bay on the 
 lines of Yorktown, with a force so small that it seemed hardi- 
 hood to oppose him with it — had eluded his toils by a re- 
 treat up the Peninsula, so cleanly conducted that little was 
 lost beyond the space vacated — had turned and fiercely smit- 
 ten his advancing columns near the old colonial capital of 
 Williamsburg on May 5th, 1862, and had planted his army 
 firmly around Richmond. Pending the siege of Yorktown, 
 a thing had happened that probably had no parallel in his- 
 
 (II) 
 
tory. The great body of General Johnston's army had reor- 
 ganized itself under the laws of the Confederacy, while lying 
 under the fire of the enemy's guns, the privates of each com- 
 pany electing by ballot the officers that were to command 
 them. A singular exercise of suffrage was this, but there 
 was "a free ballot and a fair count," and an exhibition 
 worthy of 
 
 * * * * "that fierce democratic 
 
 Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece, 
 
 To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne," 
 
 — an exhibition which would have delighted the heart of 
 Thomas Jefferson, and which certainly put to blush the auto- 
 cratic theory that armies should be mere compact masses of 
 brute force. Still later, on May 31st, Johnston had sallied 
 forth and stormed and taken the outer entrenchments and 
 camps of McClellan's army at Seven Pines, capturing ten 
 pieces of artillery, six thousand muskets, and other spoils of 
 war, and destroying the prestige of the second " On to Rich- 
 mond " movement. 
 
 But ere the day was done victory had been checked, and 
 glory had exacted costly tribute, for Johnston himself had 
 fallen terribly wounded. The hero, covered with ten wounds 
 received in Florida and Mexico, had been prostrated by 
 another; and when June ist dawned on the confronting 
 armies, the Army of Northern Virginia was without the 
 leader who held its thorough confidence, but now lay 
 stricken well-nigh unto death. The casualty which thus 
 deprived the army of its honored commander, and closed 
 to him the opportunity which, in large measure, his own 
 great skill had created, opened the opportunity of Lee. 
 Fortunate the State and great the people from whom 
 sprang two such sons — fortunate the army that always had 
 a leader worthy of it — happy he who can transmit his place 
 to one so well qualified to fill it — and happy likewise he 
 who has had such predecessor to prepare the way for victory. 
 
 On the 3d of June, 1862, General Lee was assigned to 
 command in person the Army of Northern Virginia; and 
 
 (12) 
 
from that day to April 9th, 1865, nearly three years, he was 
 at its head. And on the page of history now laid open are 
 crowded schemes of war and feats of arms as brilliant as ever 
 thrilled the soul of heroism and genius with admiration — a 
 page of history that feasted glory till pity cried, " no more." 
 Swift was Lee to plan, and swift to execute. Making a feint 
 of reinforcing Jackson in the Valley, startling the Federal 
 authorities with apprehensions of attack on the Potomac 
 lines, and practically eliminating McDowell, who with his 
 corps remained near Fredericksburg, he suddenly descends 
 with Jackson on the right and rear of McClellan, and, ere 
 thirty days have passed since he assumed command, Rich- 
 mond has been saved, and the fields around her made im- 
 mortal ; and the broken ranks of McClellan are crouching 
 for protection under the heavy guns of the iron-clads at 
 Harrison's Landing. Sixty days more, and the siege of 
 Richmond has been raised — the Confederate columns are 
 marching northward; Jackson, in the advance, has, on Au- 
 gust 9th, caught up again with his old friend Banks at 
 Slaughter's Mountain and punished him terribly, and, as 
 the day closes August 30th, Manassas has the second time 
 been the scene of a general engagement, with like results 
 as the first. John Pope, who thitherto according to his 
 pompous boast had " seen only the backs of his enemies," 
 has had his curiosity entirely satisfied with a brief glimpse of 
 their faces ; and the proud Army of the Potomac is flying in 
 hot haste to find shelter in the entrenchments of Washington. 
 In early September the Confederates are in Maryland. In 
 extreme exigency, McClellan is recalled to command the 
 Army of the Potomac, but while Lee holds him in check at 
 Boonsboro and South Mountain a series of complicated ma- 
 noeuvres have invested General Miles, the Federal officer in 
 command at Harper's Ferry, and on September 15 th Stone- 
 wall Jackson has there received surrender of his entire army 
 of eleven thousand men, seventy-three cannon, thirteen thou- 
 sand small arms, two hundred wagons, and many stores. 
 But there is no time to rest, for McClellan presses Lee at 
 Sharpsburg, and there, September 17th, battle is delivered. 
 
 (13) 
 
Upon its eve Jackson has arrived fresh from Harper's Ferry. 
 McClellan's repeated assaults on Lee were everywhere re- 
 pulsed. He remained on the field September i8th, and then 
 recrossed the Potomac into Virginia. 
 
 The winter of 1862 comes, and Burnside, succeeding Mc- 
 Clellan, assails Lee at Fredericksburg on December 13th, 
 and is repulsed with terrible slaughter. 
 
 With the dawn of spring in 1863, a replenished army with 
 a fresh commander, " Fighting Joe Hooker," renews the 
 onset by way of Chancellorsville, and finds Lee with two 
 divisions of Longstreet's corps absent in Southeast Virginia. 
 But slender as are his numbers, Lee is ever aggressive; 
 and while Hooker with " the finest army on the planet," as 
 he styled it, is confronting Lee near Chancellorsville, and 
 Early is holding Sedgwick at bay at Fredericksburg, Jack- 
 son, who, under Lee's directions, has stealthily marched 
 around him, comes thundering in his rear, and, alas for 
 " Fighting Joe," he can only illustrate his pugnacious soubri- 
 quet by the consoling reflection that 
 
 ' ' He who fights and runs away 
 May live to fight another day, ' ' 
 
 for Chancellorsville shines high on the list of Confederate 
 victories, and indeed was one of the grandest victories that 
 ever blazoned the annals of war. 
 
 But alas, too, for the victor — on May 2d, in the culminat- 
 ing act of the drama, Jackson himself had fallen, and never 
 more is the " foot cavalry " to see again along the smoking 
 lines that calm, stern face ; never to hear again that crisp 
 fierce order, *' Give them the bayonet ! " Avhich so often her- 
 alded the triumphant charge ; never is the Southern land to 
 be thrilled again with his familiar bulletin — "God blessed 
 our arms with victory." At the age of thirty-nine — at a 
 time of life when the powers of manhood are ordinarily 
 scarce full-orbed, he has touched the zenith and filled the 
 world with his fame, and he who went forth two years 
 before from this quiet town, scarce known beyond it, comes 
 back upon the soldier's bier, renowned, revered, and mourned 
 
 (14) 
 
in every clime where the heart quickens in sympathy for 
 surpassing valor united with transcendent genius and honor 
 without a stain. There he sleeps, in yon green grave, and 
 as in life he fought, so in death he rests, with Lee. 
 
 But not long can the soldier pause to weep. We fire our 
 salute over the ashes of our heroic dead ; and again the 
 bugles sound " boots and saddles," and the long roll is beat- 
 ing. Less than a month has passed, and again the Army 
 of Northern Virginia is in motion, and while Hooker is 
 groping around to ascertain the whereabouts of his adver- 
 sary, the next scene unfolds : General Early has planned and 
 executed a flank march around Winchester, worthy of Stone- 
 wall Jackson — the men of his division are mounting the 
 parapets on June 14th, and capturing Milroy's guns. Gen- 
 eral Edward Johnston's division is pursuing Milroy's fugi- 
 tives down the Valley pike. General Rodes has captured 
 Martinsburg with one hundred prisoners and five cannon — 
 Ewell's corps is master of the Valley — and by June 24th 
 the Army of Northern Virginia is in Pennsylvania, while for 
 the third time the Army of the Potomac is glad if it can 
 interpose to prevent the fall of Washington — and a sixth 
 commander has come to its head — General George G. 
 Meade. 
 
 Then follows the boldest and grandest assault of modern 
 war — the charge upon the Federal centre entrenched on the 
 heights of Gettysburg — a charge that well-nigh ended the 
 war with "a clap of thunder," and was so characterized by 
 brave design and dauntless execution that friend and foe 
 alike burst into irrepressible praise of the great commander 
 who directed and of the valorous men who made it. It failed. 
 But Lee, unshaken, rallies the broken line, and the next 
 morning stands in steady array, flaunting his banners defi- 
 antly, and challenging renewal of the strife. " It is all my 
 fault," he says. Not so thought his men. We saw him 
 standing by the roadside with his bridle-rein over his arm, 
 on the second day afterwards, as the army was withdrawing. 
 Pickett's division filed past him; every general of brigade 
 had fallen, and every field-officer of its regiments ; a few tat- 
 
 (15) 
 
tered battle-flags and a few hundreds of men were all that 
 was left of the magnificent body, five thousand strong, who 
 had made the famous charge. He stood with uncovered 
 head, as if he reviewed a conquering host, and with the 
 conqueror's look upon him. With proud step the men 
 marched by, and as they raised their hats and cheered him 
 there was the tenderness of devoted love mingled with the 
 fire of battle in their eyes. 
 
 Returning to Virginia in martial trim and undismayed, and 
 followed by Meade with that slow and gingerly step which is 
 self-explaining, we next behold our General displaying that 
 rare self-poise and confidence which bespeaks ever a great 
 quality — firmness of mind in war. In September, while he 
 confronts Meade along the Rapidan, he detaches the entire 
 corps of Longstreet, and ere Meade is aware of this weaken- 
 ing of his opponent's forces, Longstreet is nine hundred miles 
 away, striking a terrible blow at Chickamauga. 
 
 The year 1863 passes by without other significant event in 
 the story of the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade indeed, 
 once, in November, deployed his lines along Mine Run in 
 seeming overtures of battle, but quickly concluding that "dis- 
 cretion was the better part of valor," he marched back across 
 the Rappahannock, content with his observations. 
 
 But as the May blossoms in 1864, we hear once more the 
 wonted strains of spring, " tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are 
 marching," and Grant (who had succeeded Meade), crossing 
 the Rappahannock with 141,000 men, plunges boldly into the 
 Wilderness on May 4th, leading the sixth crusade for the re- 
 duction of Richmond. But scarce had he disclosed his line 
 of march, than Lee, with 50,000 of his braves, springs upon 
 him and hurls him back, staggering and gory, through the 
 tangled chaparral of the Wilderness, and from the fields of 
 Spotsylvania; and though the redoubtable Grant writes to 
 the Government on May 12th, "I propose to fight it out on 
 this line if it takes all summer," when we look over the field 
 of Cold Harbor on June 3d, we see there, stretched in swaths 
 and piled in reeking mounds, 13,000 of his men — the killed 
 and wounded of his last assault " in the overland campaign," 
 
 (16) 
 
and when Grant ordered his hnes to attack again the flinty- 
 front of Lee, they stood immobile — in silent protest against 
 the vain attempt, and in silent eulogy of their sturdy foe. 
 One summer month had been summer time enough for Grant 
 along that impervious line ; and there at Cold Harbor practi- 
 cally closed the sixth expedition aimed directly at the Con- 
 federate capital — McDowell, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, 
 Hooker, and now Grant — all being disastrously repulsed by 
 the Army of Northern Virginia, and all but the first receiving 
 their repulse by the army led by Lee. But Grant in some 
 sort veiled his reverses by immediately abandoning attack on 
 the north side of the James, which he crossed in the middle 
 of June — attempting to capture Petersburg on the south side 
 by a coup de main. But in this, after four days' successive 
 assaults, which ended in vain carnage, he failed again ; and 
 almost simultaneously Hunter's invasion through the Valley 
 was intercepted and successfully repelled at Lynchburg by 
 the swift and bold movements of Lee's greatest lieutenant — 
 the ever-to-be-counted-on Jubal A. Early, who had been dis- 
 patched to meet him with a force not half his equal in num- 
 bers. And when midsummer came. Grant was glad to shelter 
 his drooping banners behind entrenchments ; Hunter was fly- 
 ing to the mountains of West Virginia, and detachments were 
 hurrying from the Army of the Potomac to save Washington, 
 which was trembling at the sound of Early's guns. In that ' 
 wonderful campaign of Lee from the Wilderness to Peters- 
 burg, Grant had lost no less than 70,000 men in reaching a 
 point which he might have gained by river approaches with- 
 out the loss of one. Every man in the Army of Northern 
 Virginia had more than stricken down a foeman; and final 
 demonstration had been given to the fact that in field fight [ 
 Lee could not be matched in generalship, and that the Army 
 of Northern Virginia was invincible. This fact the hard 
 sense of Grant recognized ; and though no commander who 
 felt himself and his men to be the equals of their adversaries 
 in manoeuvre and combat would ever come down to such 
 conclusion, it is creditable to Grant's plain, matter-of-fact way 
 of looking at things, that he looked at them just as they were. 
 
 (17) 
 
And so he resorted to sap and mine and pick and spade to 
 do the work which strategy and valor had so often essayed in 
 vain. For nine months the armies lay before the muzzles of 
 each other's guns, — bumping, as it were, against each other 
 — Grant deliberately counting that he who had the most 
 heads could butt the longest. Thus Lee stood with less than 
 40,000 men covering a line of thirty miles, while Grant, with 
 more than three times that number, over and over again at 
 Reams' Station, at the Crater, at Hatcher's Run, and other 
 points, battered the armor from which every blow recoiled. 
 So Lee stood with a half-fed and half-clothed soldiery, com- 
 posed largely of stripling youth and failing age, beating back 
 his three-fold foe, freshly recruited for every fresh assault, and 
 generously provided with the richest stores and most ap- 
 proved arms and munitions of war. 
 
 Time forbids that I prolong the story ; and this imperfect 
 sketch is but a dim outline of that grand historic picture in 
 which Robert Lee will ever stand as the foremost figure, 
 challenging and enchaining the reverence and admiration of 
 mankind; the faint suggestion of that magnificent career 
 which has made for him a place on the heights of history 
 as high as warrior's sword has ever carved. 
 
 Vain was the mighty struggle led by the peerless Lee. 
 Genius planned, valor executed, patriotism stripped itself of 
 every treasure, and heroism fought and bled and died, and all 
 in vain ! When the drear winter of 1864 came at last, there 
 came also premonitions of the end. " The very seed-corn of 
 the Confederacy had been ground up," as President Davis 
 said. The people sat at naked tables and slept in sheetless 
 beds, for their apparel had been used to bind up wounds. 
 The weeds grew in fenceless fields, for the plow-horse was 
 pulling the cannon. The church-yard and the mansion fences 
 were stripped of their leaden ornaments, that the musket and 
 the rifle might not lack for bullets. The church bells, now 
 melted into cannon, pealed forth the dire notes of war. The 
 land was drained of its substance, and the Army of Northern 
 Virginia was nearly exhausted for want of food and raiment. 
 All through the bleak winter days and nights its decimated 
 
 (18) 
 
and shivering ranks still faced the dense battalions of Grant, 
 in misery and in want not less than that which stained the 
 snows of Valley Forge ; and the army seemed to live only on 
 its innate, indomitable will, as oftentimes we see some noble 
 mind survive when the physical powers of nature have been 
 exhausted. Like a rock of old ocean, it had received and 
 broken and hurled back into the deep in bloody foam those 
 swiftly succeeding waves of four years of incessant battle; but 
 now the rock itself was wearing away, and still the waves 
 came on. 
 
 A new enemy was approaching the sturdy devoted band. 
 In September, 1864, Atlanta fell, and through Georgia to the 
 sea, with fire and sword, swept the victorious columns of 
 Sherman. In January, 1865, the head of the column had 
 been turned northward ; and in February, Columbia and 
 Charleston shared the fate that had already befallen Savan- 
 nah. Yes, a new enemy was approaching the Army of 
 Northern Virginia, and this time in the rear. The homes 
 of the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia from the 
 Southern States were now in ashes. Wives, mothers, and 
 sisters were wanderers under the wintry skies, flying from 
 the invaders who smote and spared not in their relentless 
 march. Is it wonder that hearts that had never quailed 
 before bayonet or blade beat now with tremulous and irre- 
 pressible emotion ? Is it wonder that, in the watches of the 
 night, the sentinel in the' trenches, tortured to excruciation 
 with the thought that those dearest of earth to him were 
 without an arm to save, felt his soul sink in anguish and 
 his hope perish ? So it was, that with hunger and naked- 
 ness as its companions, and foes in front and foes in rear, 
 the Army of Northern Virginia seemed bound to the rock 
 of fate. 
 
 On April ist, the left wing of Grant's massive lines swept 
 around the right and rear of Lee. Gallantly did Pickett and 
 his men meet and resist them at Five Forks; but that com- 
 manding strategic point was taken, and the fall of Petersburg 
 and of Richmond alike became inevitable. On the next day, 
 April 2d, they were evacuated. Grant was now on a shorter 
 
 (19) 
 
line projected towards Danville than Lee, and the latter com- 
 menced at once that memorable retreat towards Lynchburg, 
 which ended at Appomattox. 
 
 Over that march of desperate valor disputing fate, as over 
 the face of a hero in the throes of dissolution, I throw the 
 blood-reeking battle-flag, rent with wounds, as a veil. And 
 I hail the heroic army and its heroic chief, as, on the 9th of 
 April morn, they stand embattled in calm and stern repose, 
 ready to die with their harness on — warriors every inch, 
 without fear, without stain. Around the little hamlet of 
 Appomattox Court-House is gathered the remnant of the 
 Army of Northern Virginia — less than 8,000 men with arms 
 in their hands — less than 27,000 all told, counting camp 
 followers and stragglers ; and around them in massive con- 
 centric lines the army of Grant, flushed with success and 
 expectation — more than 80,000 strong upon the field, and 
 with each hour bringing up reinforcements. " The envi- 
 roned army, with a valor all Spartan, stands ready to die, 
 not indeed in response to civic laws denying surrender, but 
 obedient to the lofty impulse of honor." Can they cut 
 through ? Does the dream of a saved Confederacy yet 
 beckon them on beyond the wall of steel and fire that gir- 
 dles them ? Can they find fighting ground in the Caro- 
 linas with Joseph E. Johnston, who, amongst the first to 
 meet the foe, proves amongst the last to leave him? Can 
 these dauntless foemen yet cleave a path to the inner coun- 
 try, and renew the unequal strife ? 
 
 Not till that hope is tested will they yield ! 
 
 As the day dawns, a remnant of the cavalry under Fitz 
 Lee is forming, and Gordon's infantry, scarce two thousand 
 strong, are touching elbows for the last charge. Once more 
 the thrilling rebel cheer rings through the Virginia woods, 
 and with all their wonted fierceness they fall upon Sheridan's 
 men. Ah ! yes, victory still clings to the tattered battle-flags. 
 Yes, the troopers of our gallant Fitz are as dauntless as when 
 they followed the plume of Stuart, " the flower of cavaliers." 
 Yes, the matchless infantry of " tattered uniforms and bright 
 muskets " under Gordon, the brave, move with as swift, in- 
 
 (20) 
 
trepid tread as when of old Stonewall led the way. Sol- 
 diers of Manassas, of Richmond, Sharpsburg, Fredericks- 
 burg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, of the Wilderness, of 
 Spotsylvania, of Cold Harbor, of Petersburg — scarred and 
 sinewy veterans of fifty fields, your glories are still about 
 you, your manhood is triumphant still. Yes, the blue lines 
 break before them; two cannon and many prisoners are 
 taken, and for two miles they sweep the field towards 
 Lynchburg — victors still ! 
 
 But no, too late ! too late ! Beyond the flying sabres and 
 rifles of Sheridan rise the bayonets and frown the batteries of 
 the Army of the James, under Ord — a solid phalanx stands 
 right athwart the path of Fitz Lee's and Gordon's men. Too 
 late! the die is cast! The doom is sealed! There is no 
 escape. The eagle is quarried in his eyrie ; the wounded 
 lion is hunted to his lair ! 
 
 And so the guns of the last charge died away in the morn- 
 ing air ; and echo, like the sob of a mighty sea, rolled up the 
 valley of the James, and all was still. The last fight of the 
 Army of Northern Virginia had been fought. The end had 
 come. The smoke vanished. The startled birds renewed 
 their songs over the stricken field; the battle smell was 
 drowned in the fragrance of the flowering spring. And 
 the ragged soldier of the South — God bless him! — stood 
 there facing the dread reality, more terrible than death — 
 stood there to grapple with and face down despair, for he 
 had done his all, and all was lost, save honor ! 
 
 General Lee, dressed in his best uniform, rides to the front 
 to meet General Grant. For several days demands for sur- 
 render had been rejected, now surrender was inevitable. And 
 the two commanding ofificers met at the McLean house to 
 concert its terms. The first and abiding thought of Lee was 
 the honor of his men, for he had determined to "cut his 
 way out at all hazards, if such terms were not granted as he 
 thought his army was entitled to demand." " General," said 
 Lee, addressing Grant, and opening the conversation, " I 
 deem it due to proper candor and frankness to say, at the 
 beginning of this interview, that I am not willing even to 
 
 (21) 
 
discuss any terms of surrender inconsistent with the honor 
 of my army, which I am determined to maintain to the 
 last." Grant gave fitting and magnanimous response, and 
 the honorable terms demanded were agreed to. " The offi- 
 cers to retain their side arms, private horses, and baggage," 
 and "each officer and man to be allowed to return to his 
 home," and, mark it, " not to be disturbed by United States 
 authority as long as they observe their parole, and the laws in 
 force where they reside!' 
 
 Thus at last was the liberty of the soldier purchased with 
 his blood. 
 
 And so the Army of Northern Virginia, never broken in 
 battle, passed from action into history ; so it perished by the 
 flashing of the guns, while victory hung charmed to its flag, 
 and threw upon its tomb the immortelles of honor. 
 
 "The old order changeth, yielding place to new. 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways. ' ' 
 
 " Meji, we have fotight through the war together. I have 
 done my best for you ; my heart is too fidl to say 7nore" was 
 Lee's utterance to the ragged, battle-begrimed boys in gray, 
 who, when the dread news of surrender spread among them, 
 gathered around him to shake his hand and testify their un- 
 dying confidence and love. In his published address he said 
 to them: " You will carry with you the satisfaction that pro- 
 ceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, 
 and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you 
 his blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of 
 your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful 
 remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of 
 myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell." 
 
 As Robert Lee rode from Appomattox toward Richmond, 
 he carried with him the heart of every man that fought under 
 him — linked to him with hooks of steel forever. When he 
 reached the fallen capital of the dead Confederacy, and rode 
 through its ashes and paling fires to his home, a body of Fed- 
 eral soldiers there, catching a glimpse of his noble counte- 
 
 (22) 
 
nance, lifted their hats and cheered, and as the great actor in 
 the bloody drama stepped behind the scenes, and the curtain 
 fell upon the tragic stage of the secession war, the last sounds 
 that greeted his ear were the generous salutations of respect 
 from those against whom he had wielded his knightly sword.^ 
 
 Had the paroled soldier of Appomattox carried to retire- 
 ment the vexed spirit and hollow heart of a ruined gamester, 
 nothing had remained to him but to drain the dregs of a dis- 
 appointed career. But there went with him that " conscious- 
 ness of duty faithfully performed " which consoles every re- 
 buff of fortune, sweetens every sorrow, and tempers every ca- 
 lamity — and now it was that he proved indeed what he once 
 expressed in language, that " Human fortitude should be 
 equal to human adversity." Once on the Appomattox lines 
 agony had tortured from his lips the words : " How easily I 
 could get rid of this and be at rest! I have only to ride 
 along the lines, and all will be over." But he quickly added : 
 " It is our duty to live, for what will become of the women 
 and children of the South if we are not here to support and 
 protect them ? " And as the thought of his country was thus 
 uppermost and controlling in the awful hour of surrender, so 
 it remained to the closing of his life. Ere the struggle ended 
 he had disclosed to a confidential friend. General Pendleton, 
 that " He never believed we could, against the gigantic com- 
 bination for our subjugation, make good our independence, 
 unless foreign powers, directly or indirectly, assisted us." 
 But, said he, "We had sacred principles to maintain and 
 rights to defend, for which we were in duty bound to do our 
 best, even if we perished in the endeavor." And now that 
 this belief was verified, he declared : " I did only what my 
 duty demanded. I could have taken no other course without 
 dishonor. And if all were to be done over again, I should 
 act in precisely the same manner." And when those about 
 him mourned the great disaster, he said : " Yes, that is all 
 very sad, and might be a cause of self-reproach, but that we 
 are conscious that we have humbly tried to do our duty. We 
 may, therefore, with calm satisfaction, trust in God, and leave 
 results to him." 
 
 (23) 
 
Lee thoroughly understood and thoroughly accepted the 
 situation. He realized fully that the war had settled, settled 
 forever, the peculiar issues which had embroiled it ; but he 
 knew also that only time could dissipate its rankling passions 
 and restore freedom ; and hence it was he taught that " Si- 
 lence and patience on the part of the South was the true 
 course" — silence, because it was vain to speak when preju- 
 dice ran too high for our late enemies to listen — patience, 
 because it was the duty of the hour to labor for recuperation 
 and wait for reconciliation. And murmuring no vain sigh 
 over the " might have been," which now could not be, con- 
 scious that our destinies were irrevocably bound up with 
 those of the perpetual Union, he lifted high over the fallen 
 standards of war the banner of the Prince of Peace, embla- 
 zoned with " On earth peace, good will toward men." 
 
 The President and Congress of the United States made 
 conditions of pardon and absolution. They were harsh and 
 exacting. The mass of the people affected by them, of neces- 
 sity Jiad to accept them. Therefore he would share their 
 humiliation. Accordingly he asked amnesty. But his letter 
 was never answered. He was indicted for treason. He ap- 
 peared ready to answer the charge. But the Government 
 now revolted from an act of treachery so base, for his parole 
 at Appomattox protected him. Thus was he reviled and har- 
 assed, yet never a word of bitterness escaped him ; but, on 
 the contrary, only counsels of forbearance, patience, and dili- 
 gent attention to works of restoration. Many sought new 
 homes in foreign lands, but not so he. "All good citizens," 
 he said, " must unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects 
 of war, and to restore the blessings of peace. They must not 
 abandon their country, but go to work and build up its pros- 
 perity." "The young men especially must stay at home, 
 bearing themselves in such a manner as to gain the esteem of 
 every one, at the same time that they maintain their own re- 
 spect." " It should be the object of all to avoid controversy, 
 to allay passion, and give scope to every kindly feeling." " It 
 is wisest not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the 
 example of those nations who have endeavored to obliterate 
 
 (24) 
 
the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feel- 
 ings it engendered." 
 
 "True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly 
 contrary at one period to that which it does at another, and 
 the motive that impels them, the desire to do right, is pre- 
 cisely the same. The circumstances which govern their 
 actions change, and their conduct must conform to the 
 new order of things. History is full of illustrations of this. 
 Washington himself is an example of this. At one time 
 he fought against the French under Braddock ; at another 
 time he fought with the French at Yorktown, under the 
 orders of the Continental Congress of America, against 
 him. He has not been branded by the world vv^ith reproach 
 for this, but his course has been applauded." These are 
 some of the wise and temperate counsels with which he 
 pointed out the duties of the hour. 
 
 Nor was he lacking in faithful remembrance of the Presi- 
 dent of the Confederacy, who, for months and months after 
 surrender, lay sick and in prison, and who seemed to be 
 singled out to undergo vicarious punishment for the deeds 
 of the people. "Mr. Davis," truly said General Lee, "did 
 nothing more than all the citizens of the Southern States, 
 and should not be held accountable for acts performed by 
 them, in the exercise of what had been considered by them 
 unquestionable right." None are more conscious of this fact 
 than those against whom Jefferson Davis directed the Con- 
 federate arms; and that he yet, nearly twenty years after 
 strife has ceased, should be disfranchised in a land that 
 vaunts its freedom, for so doing, is a grievance, and a grief 
 to every honorable Southern man. He himself is honored 
 by this significant mark of hostile memory. He can not 
 suffer by the ignoble act. Only they who do it are deeply 
 shamed. And that it is done, only shows the weakness of 
 representatives who have not read the very title-page in the 
 book of human nature, and who, vainly conceiving that an 
 insult to one man can be fruitful of any public good, only 
 illustrate the saying of Madame de Stael, " that the strongest / 
 of all antipathies is that of second-rate minds for a first-rate { 
 
 (25) ^ 
 
one," and that other maxim of Edmund Burke, that " great 
 empires and Httle minds go ill together." When Mark An- 
 tony, the great triumvir of Rome, who conquered Egypt, was 
 himself overthrown by Octavius Csesar, he gloried dying that 
 he " had conquered as a Roman, and was by a Roman nobly 
 conquered." If the spirit of those brave soldiers of the 
 Union, who, while the fields of battle were yet moist with 
 blood, saluted Lee, had guided the conduct of the civilians 
 to whom their valor gave the reins of State, it would have 
 been for us Confederates who achieved great victories, and 
 were in turn cast down, to have gloried likewise, that we 
 in our time had conquered as Americans and were by 
 Americans nobly conquered. But when we recall that our 
 honored and faithful President is disfranchised simply be- 
 cause he was our chief, and bravely, ably served our cause, 
 the iron enters our soul and represses the generous emotions 
 that well up in them. And we can only lament that shallow 
 politicians have proven unworthy of the American name, 
 and are not imbued with the great free spirit of a great free 
 people. We have not a thought or fancy or desire to undo 
 the perpetuity of the Union. For any man to pretend to 
 think otherwise is proclamation of his falsehood, or his folly. 
 But we intend to be free citizens of the Union, accepting 
 no badge of inferiority or dishonor. And by the tomb of 
 our dead hero, who was true to his chief, as to every trust, 
 we protest to mankind against this unjust thing — an offense 
 to our liberties and to our manhood, which are not less 
 sacred than the grave. 
 
 And we waft to him, our late Chief Magistrate, in his 
 Southern home, our greetings and our blessings ; and as 
 the years grow thick upon him, we pray that he may find 
 in the unabated confidence and affection of his people some 
 solace for all that he has borne for them ; and in the strength 
 that Cometh from on high, a staff that man cannot take from 
 him. 
 
 While General Lee thus sustained and cheered his coun- 
 trymen, the problem soon began to press, what should he do 
 with himself? And had he been in any sense a self-seeker, 
 
 (26) 
 
the solution had been easy, for many were the overtures and 
 proffers made to him in every form of interested solicitation 
 and disinterested generosity. Would he seek recreation from 
 the trials which for years had strained every energy of mind 
 and body and every emotion of his heart — the palaces of Eu- 
 ropean nobility, the homes of the Old World and the New, 
 alike opened their doors to him as a welcome and honored 
 guest. Would he prolong his militaiy career — more than 
 one potentate would have been proud to receive into his ser- 
 vice his famous sword. Would he retrieve his fortunes and 
 surround his declining years with luxury and wealth — he 
 had but to yield the sanction of his name to any one of the 
 many enterprises that commercial princes commended to his 
 favor, with every assurance of munificent reward. And in- 
 deed, were he willing to accept, unlimited means were placed 
 at his disposal by those who would have been proud to 
 render him any service. 
 
 But it had been the principle of Lee's life to accept no gra- 
 tuitous offer. He had declined the gift of a home tendered 
 to him by the citizens of Richmond during the war, when 
 Arlington had been confiscated, and the refuge of his family, 
 the " White House," had been burned, expressing the hope 
 that those who offered the gift would devote the means re- 
 quired "to the relief of the families of our soldiers in the 
 field, who are more deserving of assistance and more in want 
 of it than myself." And now, when an English nobleman 
 presented him as a retreat a splendid countiy-seat in Eng- 
 land, with a handsome annuity to correspond, he answered: 
 "I am deeply grateful, but I cannot consent to desert my 
 native State in the hour of her adversity. I must abide 
 her fortunes and share her fate." And declining also the 
 many positions with lucrative salaries which were urged upon 
 his acceptance, it was his intention to locate in one of the 
 Southside counties of Virginia, " upon a small farm where he 
 might earn his daily bread " in cultivating the soil, and at 
 the same time to write a history of his campaigns; "not," 
 as he said, "to vindicate myself, and promote my own repu- 
 tation, but to show the world what our poor boys, with their 
 
 (27) 
 
small numbers and scant resources, had succeeded in accom- 
 plishing." 
 
 But circumstances, then to him unknown, were bringing an 
 event to pass which turned over a new and unexpected leaf in 
 his history — an event which made a little scion of knowledge 
 which had been nurtured amid the storms of the Colonial 
 Revolution, a great and noble University, and which now has 
 associated in the glorious work of education, as in glorious 
 deeds of arms, the twin names of Washington and Lee. 
 
 It was nearly a century after the settlement at Jamestown 
 that Governor Spotswood of Virginia, at the head of a troop 
 of horse, first explored the hitherto unknown land beyond 
 the mountains, and upon his return from the expedition the 
 Governor presented to each of his bold companions a golden 
 horseshoe, inscribed with the legend, " Sic jurat transcendere 
 monies" as a memorial of the event, a circumstance which 
 caused them to be named in history " The Knights of the 
 Golden Horseshoe." In August, 1716, these adventurous 
 spirits first looked down from the heights of the Blue Ridge 
 upon the beautiful valley of Virginia — a virgin land indeed, 
 tenanted only by the roving red men. Glorious must have 
 been the thrill of joy that quickened their hearts, as the 
 tempting vision lay spread before them, as their eyes ranged 
 over the fields and forests of this new land of promise in its 
 summer sheen — a land watered with many rivers, and espe- 
 cially with that beautiful and abounding river " the Shenan- 
 doah," which the Indians named " The Daughter of the 
 Stars." 
 
 But prophetic as may have been the glance that saw in the 
 fruitful valley the future home of a great and thriving people, 
 slow were the footsteps that followed the pioneers and occu- 
 pied the hunting-grounds of the receding Indians. For in 
 those days immigration was not quickened by steam and 
 electricity, and early tradition had pictured the transmontane 
 country as a barren and gloomy waste, infested with serpents 
 and wild beasts and brutal savages. 
 
 But erewhile the reports of Spotswood and his men went 
 far and wide, and the star of empire beamed over the Alle- 
 
 (28) 
 
ghanies. And along in 1730 and 1740 we find the spray of 
 the incoming tide breaking over the mountains — the sturdy 
 Scotch-Irish for the most part, with some Germans and Eng- 
 hshmen, pouring into the valley from Pennsylvania and East- 
 ern Virginia, and from the fatherlands over the water. Not 
 speculative adventurers were they, with the ambition of land- 
 lords, but bringing with them rifle and Bible, wife and child, 
 and simple household goods ; home-seekers and home-build- 
 ers, who had heard of the goodly land, and who had come to 
 stay, and who built the meeting-house and the school-house 
 side by side when they came. Rough men were they, ready 
 to hew their way to free and pleasant homes, but in no wise 
 coarse men, for they were filled with high purpose, and reli- 
 gion and knowledge they knew should be handmaids of each 
 other. And, showing their instinctive refinement, where the 
 corn waved its tassels and the wheat bowed to the wind by 
 their rude log huts in the wilderness, there also the vine 
 clambered and the rose and lily bloomed. 
 
 In 1749, near Greenville, in Augusta county — and Augusta 
 county was then an empire stretching from the Blue Ridge 
 mountains to the Mississippi river — in 1749, Robert Alexan- 
 der, a Scotch-Irish immigrant, who was a Master of Arts of 
 Trinity College, Dublin, established there "The Augusta 
 Academy" — the first classical school in the Valley of Vir- 
 ginia. Under his successor, Rev. John Brown, the academy 
 was first moved to "Old Providence," and again to "New 
 Providence Church," and just before the Revolution, for a 
 third time, to Mount Pleasant, near Fairfield, in the now 
 county of Rockbridge. 
 
 In 1776, as the Revolutionary fires were kindling, there 
 came to its head as principal, William Graham, of worthy 
 memory, who had been a classmate and special friend of 
 Harry Lee at Princeton College ; and at the first meeting 
 of the trustees after the battle of Lexington, while Harry 
 Lee was donning his sword for battle, they baptized it as 
 " Liberty Hall Academy." Another removal followed, in 
 1777, to near the old Timber Ridge Church; but finally, in 
 1785, the academy rested from its wanderings near Lexing- 
 
 (29) 
 
ton, the little town which too had caught the flame of revo- 
 lution, and was the first to take the name of that early battle- 
 ground of the great rebellion, where 
 
 "The embattled farmers stood, 
 And fired the shot heard round the world." 
 
 Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war, the Legis- 
 lature of Virginia, in token of esteem and admiration for the 
 virtues and services of General George Washington, donated 
 him one hundred shares of stock in the old James River 
 Company. General Washington, in a characteristic manner, 
 declined to accept the donation save only on the condition 
 that he be permitted to appropriate it to some public purpose 
 "in the upper part of the State," such as "the education of 
 the children of the poor, particularly the children of such 
 as have fallen in defense of the country." The condition 
 granted. President Washington in 1796 — for he had then 
 become president of the new republic — dedicated the one 
 hundred shares of stock " to the use of liberty Hall Acad- 
 emy in Rockbridge county." Mayhap the friendship be- 
 tween William Graham, its principal, and his old classmate 
 at Princeton, " Light-Horse Harry " Lee, the friend of Wash- 
 ington, had something to do in guiding the benefaction ; but 
 be this as it may, it was given and accepted, and in honor of 
 the benefactor the academy was clothed with his immortal 
 name. 
 
 In acknowledging the thanks expressed to him by the 
 Board of Trustees, President Washington said : " To promote 
 literature in this rising empire and to encourage the arts has 
 ever been amongst the warmest wishes of my heart; and if 
 the donation which the generosity of the Legislature of the 
 Commonwealth has enabled me to bestow upon Liberty Hall 
 — now by your politeness called Washington Academy — is 
 likely to prove a means to accomplish these ends, it will con- 
 tribute to the gratification of my desires." 
 
 Soon after this, the Legislature, which had already incorpo- 
 rated the institution on a comprehensive basis, gave it the 
 name of " The College of Washington in Virginia." In the 
 
 (30) 
 
spirit of their beloved commander, the "Society of the Cin- 
 cinnati," composed of survivors of the Revolutionary war, on 
 dissolving in 1803, donated their funds, amounting to nearly 
 ^$25,000, to the institution which had received his patronage 
 and bore his name; and, thus endowed, the "College of 
 Washington " went forward in a career which, for nearly 
 threescore years and ten, was a period of uninterrupted use- 
 fulness, prosperity, and honor. 
 
 All ranks of honorable enterprise and ambition " in this 
 rising empire" felt the impress of the noble spirits who came 
 forth from its halls, trained and equipped for life's arduous 
 tasks with keenest weapons and brightest armor. What 
 glowing names are these that shine on the rolls of the alumni 
 of this honored Alma Mater ! Church and state, field and 
 forum, bar and bench, hospital and counting-room, lecture- 
 room and pulpit — what famous champions and teachers of 
 the right, what trusty workers and leaders in literature and 
 law, and arts, and arms, have they not found in her sons ! 
 Seven Governors of States — amongst them Crittenden, of 
 Kentucky, and McDowell, Letcher, and Kemper, of Vir- 
 ginia; eleven United States Senators — amongst them Par- 
 ker, of Virginia, Breckinridge, of Kentucky, H. S. Foote, of 
 Mississippi, and William C. Preston, of South Carolina ; more 
 than a score of Congressmen, twoscore and more of judges 
 — amongst them Trimble, of the United States Supreme 
 Court; Coalter, Allen, Anderson, and Burks, of the Court 
 of Appeals of Virginia ; twelve or more college presidents, 
 and amongst them Moses Hoge and Archibald Alexander, 
 of Hampden-Sidney, James Priestly, of Cumberland College, 
 Tennessee, and G. A. Baxter and Henry Ruffner (who pre- 
 sided here), and Socrates Maupin, of the University of Vir- 
 ginia. These are but a few of those who here garnered the 
 learning that shed so gracious a light in the after-time on 
 them, their country, and their Alma Mater. And could I 
 pause to speak of those who became valiant leaders of men 
 in battle I could name many a noble soldier whose eye greets 
 mine to-day ; and, alas ! I should recall the form of many a 
 hero who passed from these halls in the flush of youthful 
 
 (31) 
 
manhood, and has long slept with the " unreturning brave;" 
 for in 1 86 1, when the calls to arms resounded, "The Liberty- 
 Hall Volunteers" — the students of Washington College — 
 were among the first (and in a body) to respond ; and when 
 the quiet professor of your twin Institute was baptized in 
 history as " Stonewall Jackson," their blood o'erflowed the 
 christening urn and reddened Manassas' field; and from 
 Manassas to Appomattox, under Joseph E. Johnston, and 
 Thomas J. Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, the boys and the 
 men of Washington College proved that they were worthy 
 of their leaders, worthy of their State and Country, and 
 worthy of all good fame. 
 
 Unsparing war spared not the shrine where, breathed into 
 the arts of peace, yet lived the spirit and was perpetuated the 
 name of the Father of his Country. When in 1864, David 
 Hunter led an invading army against the State from whose 
 blood he sprung, he came not as comes the noble champion, 
 eager to strike the strong, and who realizes that he meets an 
 equal and a generous foe. Lee had penetrated the year be- 
 fore to the heart of Pennsylvania, and the Southern infantry 
 had bivouacked on the banks of the Susquehanna. When he 
 crossed the Pennsylvania line, he had announced in general 
 orders from the headquarters of the Army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia, that he did not come to " take vengeance " ; that " we 
 make war only upon armed men," and he therefore " ear- 
 nestly exhorted the troops to abstain with most scrupulous 
 care from unnecessary or wanton injury of private property," 
 and "enjoined upon all officers to arrest and bring to sum- 
 mary punishment all who should in any way offend against 
 the orders on the subject." He had been obeyed by his lieu- 
 tenants and his men. No charred ruins, no devastated fields, 
 no plundered homes, marked the line of his march. On one 
 occasion, to set a good example, he was seen to dismount 
 from his horse and put up a farmer's fence. In the city of 
 York, General Early had in general orders prohibited the 
 burning of buildings containing stores of war, lest fire might 
 be communicated to neighboring homes ; and General Gor- 
 don, in his public address, had declared : " If a torch is ap- 
 
 (32) 
 
plied to a single dwelling, or an insult offered to a female of 
 your town by a soldier of this command, point me out the 
 man, and you shall have his life." The battle of Gettysburg 
 had raged around Gettysburg College, but when it ended 
 the college stood scathless, save by the accidents of war. 
 But when David Hunter invaded Virginia, he came to make 
 war on the weak and helpless, and he was as ruthless to ruin 
 as he was swift to evade battle and to retreat. He blistered 
 the land which he should have loved and honored, and a 
 broad, black path marked his trail. From the summit of 
 those mountains, where Spotswood first spied the valley, 
 could be counted at one time the flames ascending from a 
 hundred and eighteen burning houses. The Virginia Mili- 
 tary Institute was burned, and the very statue of Washington 
 which adorned it was carried off as a trophy. Washington 
 College was dismantled, its scientific apparatus destroyed, 
 its library sacked, its every apartment pillaged. The hand of 
 war indeed fell heavily here, and when the Southern cause 
 went down at Appomattox, Washington College remained 
 scarce more than a ruinous and desolate relic of better days. 
 Four professors, a handful of students, and the bare build- 
 ings were all that was left of it. 
 
 In August, 1865, the trustees of Washington College met. 
 The situation they contemplated was deplorable and depress- 
 ing. Their invested funds were unproductive. Their treasury 
 was empty. The State was prostrate and bankrupt. In the 
 sky of the future there was scarcely a ray of light. But they 
 were resolved to face difficulties, and to do the best they 
 could. One of the trustees. Colonel Bolivar Christian, of 
 Staunton, suggested that General Lee be invited to accept the 
 presidency of the institution. There was but little anticipa- 
 tion that he would incline to their wishes. The position 
 could not be very remunerative — it involved tedious and 
 perplexing tasks, and it did not seem commensurate with the 
 abilities, nor altogether fitting to the tastes of a great com- 
 mander who had so long dealt with the vast and active con- 
 cerns of military life ; but the suggestion was unanimously 
 adopted, and Hon. John W, Brockenbrough, rector of the 
 
 (33) 
 
board, was appointed to apprise General Lee of the fact. At 
 first General Lee hesitated. He modestly distrusted his own 
 competency to fulfil the trust, and he feared that the hos- 
 tility of the Government towards him might direct adverse 
 influences against the institution which it was proposed to 
 commit to his care. These considerations being successfully 
 combated by those who knew how high his qualifications 
 were, and how great were his attractions. General Lee ac- 
 cepted the position tendered him, and on the 20th of Oc- 
 tober, 1865, he appeared before the Rev. W. S. White — the 
 oldest Christian minister of Lexington — took the oath of 
 office, and assumed the duties of president of Washington 
 College. On the eve of acceptance, two propositions were 
 made to General Lee : one to become president of a large 
 corporation, with a salary of ;^ 10,000 per annum; another to 
 take the like office in another corporation, with a salary of 
 ;^50,ooo. But he had made up his mind to come here, and 
 this is what he said to a friend who brought him the last 
 munificent offer : — 
 
 " I have a self-imposed task which I must accomplish. I 
 have led the young men of the South in battle ; I have seen 
 many of them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life 
 now to training young men to do their duty in life." 
 
 This was the high resolve that brought him here, and if 
 Robert E. Lee seemed the great, heroic captain when he 
 stood before the Virginia Convention with superb courage 
 and dauntless mien, and " devoted his sword to his native 
 State," he seemed informed with a spirit that gathered its 
 strength and loveliness from Heaven, when he stood here 
 and consecrated his remaining years to training up to life's 
 duties the sons, brothers, and comrades of those who had 
 followed him in battle. Young men of the South ! To him 
 who thus stood by us, we owe a debt immeasurable, and as 
 long as our race is upon the earth, let our children and our 
 children's children hold that debt sacred. 
 
 General Lee was eminently qualified for the task assumed. 
 His own education had been liberal and thorough. In his 
 youth he had been grounded by his tutors in a knowledge of 
 
 (34) 
 
ancient histoiy, and of the dead languages, the Latin and the 
 Greek, and the tastes thus early stimulated had been pre- 
 served and cultivated in after years. As a cadet at West 
 Point he graduated second in a distinguished class, excel- 
 lence of conduct and excellence of attainment going hand 
 in hand. Appointed an officer of engineers when he en- 
 tered the army, and often charged with most important 
 works, the duties devolved upon him required assiduous 
 study and research. Still later, after he returned with great 
 distinction from Mexico, he became the Superintendent and 
 Commandant of the Military Academy at West Point, and, 
 occupying that position for three years, he acquired experi- 
 ence and developed capacities which singularly fitted him 
 for the sphere which he now entered — the training of youth. 
 It is indicative of his comprehensive views of education, that 
 during his superintendency at West Point, the course of study 
 was extended to five years and greatly enlarged in its scope. 
 And when he entered upon his duties here, it was soon evi- 
 dent that he possessed every qualification to direct with signal 
 success the affairs of the institution, and to mould the char- 
 acters and minds of those confided to his care. 
 
 It was understood from the time of his inauguration that 
 he would not himself act as teacher of any class; but would 
 have in charge the business and financial concerns of the 
 College — its educational curriculum, and the discipline of 
 its students; and from first to last, he devoted himself to 
 these tasks with unceasing assiduity and success. 
 
 Everything here felt, with his presence, a renovating and 
 progressive impulse. Nothing escaped his attention, from 
 the smallest detail of business to the gravest question of 
 educational policy; and in whatever concerned the well- 
 being of the College, its faculty and its students, his dis- 
 cerning judgment and his sympathetic heart worked out the 
 right result. Under his supervision the buildings were re- 
 paired, the accommodations enlarged, the chemical and phil- 
 osophical apparatus replaced, the library replenished and re- 
 formed. He it was who selected the site of yon chapel 
 which now guards his mortal remains — his was the hand 
 
 (35) 
 
that drafted the plan, and his the eye that saw its parts 
 conjoined together. No figure-head was he, but a worker 
 and doer, bringing things to pass as they should be. 
 
 Prior to his administration, there were but five Chairs of 
 Instruction, several departments being combined under one 
 professional head : 
 
 1. Mental and Moral Science, and Political Economy. 
 
 2. Latin Language and Literature. 
 
 3. Greek Language and Literature. 
 
 4. Mathematics and Physical Science. 
 
 5. Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. 
 
 Speedily after his accession, three new chairs were added, 
 and professors elected to fill them ; the Chair of Natural Phil- 
 osophy, embracing, in addition to Physics, Acoustics, Optics, 
 etc., the various subjects of Natural and Applied Mechanics; 
 the Chair of Applied Mathematics, embracing Astronomy, 
 Civil and Military Engineering ; and the Chair of Modern 
 Languages, to which was added English Philosophy. In the 
 second year of his incumbency the Chair of History and Eng- 
 lish Literature was established, and soon afterwards the de- 
 partment of "Law and Equity," under that eminent jurist, 
 Judge John W. Brockenbrough. 
 
 Several other chairs were included in the president's pro- 
 gramme, one of the " English Language," one of " Applied 
 Chemistry," and also a "School of Medicine," a "School of 
 Journalism," and a "School of Commerce " — the latter being 
 designed to give special instruction and systematic training in 
 whatever pertained to business in the most enlarged sense of 
 the term. Amongst other changes introduced by General 
 Lee was the substitution of the elective system instead of a 
 fixed curriculum ; and the system of discipline which he 
 adopted, in no wise partaking of the military type, to which 
 it might have been supposed his disposition would incline — 
 was that which has so long prospered at the University of 
 Virginia ; a system which ignored espionage and compulsion, 
 and put every student upon a manly sense of honor; — a sys- 
 tem which, especially with young men not too immature to 
 appreciate it, and which, with all men who have the capacity 
 
 (36) 
 
of being gentlemen, is the best calculated to develop the vir- 
 tuous and independent elements of character. Here for five 
 years the General devoted himself to the cause of education, 
 and here under him that cause nobly flourished. Here he 
 demonstrated that comprehensive grasp of every subject con- 
 nected with his sphere ; and the keen apprehension of the de- 
 mands of this progressive age, and of a land entering as it 
 were upon a new birth. His associates in the faculty loved 
 him as an elder brother ; the students revered and loved him 
 as a father ; and all who saw or knew his work, with common 
 voice proclaimed the conviction expressed by one of the most 
 distinguished of his associates, that he was " the best College 
 President that this country has ever produced." 
 
 His work has been established, and though the great chief 
 has " fallen by the way," one who bears his name, and who is 
 worthy of it, has taken up the lines that fell from his hands ; 
 and under him, with God's blessing, the good cause goes on 
 prospering and to prosper. 
 
 And so happily it has come to pass that the little school of 
 the pioneers, planted in the wilderness, is to-day a great uni- 
 versity ; that the ambition of William Graham, the college- 
 mate of Harry Lee, has been realized beyond its sweetest 
 dream; that the college which the Father of his Country 
 lifted up by his generosity from a struggling academy to 
 educate the children of those who had fallen in its defense, 
 and which was blighted to the verge of destruction, has been 
 restored and magnified by the hand of him who alone of all 
 men, living or dead, now equally shares with his illustrious 
 prototype the eulogy pronounced by his own sire, Light- 
 Horse Harry Lee : ''First in Peace, first in War, and first in 
 the hearts of his Countrymen." 
 
 Thus feebly and imperfectly have I attempted to trace the 
 military achievements and services of him to whose memory 
 this day is dedicated. Lee the General stands abreast with 
 the greatest captains of all time, and Lee the Patriot has uni- 
 versal homage. It is now of Lee the Man that I would speak. 
 In personal appearance, General Lee was a man whom once 
 to see was ever to remember. His figure was tall, erect, well 
 
 (37) 
 
proportioned, lithe, and graceful. A fine head, with broad, 
 uplifted brow, and features boldly, but yet delicately chiseled, 
 bore the high aspect of one born to command. The firm yet 
 mobile lips, and the thick-set jaw, were expressive of daring 
 and resolution ; and the dark scintillant eye flashed with the 
 light of a brilliant intellect and a fearless spirit. His whole 
 countenance, indeed, bespoke alike a powerful mind and in- 
 domitable will, yet beamed with charity, gentleness, and be- 
 nevolence. In his manners, quiet reserve, unaffected courtesy, 
 and native dignity, made manifest the character of one who 
 can only be described by the name of gentleman. And, 
 taken all in all, his presence possessed that grave and simple 
 majesty which commanded instant reverence and repressed 
 familiarity; and yet so charmed by a certain modesty and 
 gracious deference, that reverence and confidence were ever 
 ready to kindle into affection. It was impossible to look 
 upon him, and not to recognize at a glance that in him nature 
 gave assurance of a man created great and good. 
 
 Mounted in the field and at the head of his troops, a 
 glimpse of Lee was an inspiration. His figure was as dis- 
 tinctive as that of Napoleon. Ah ! soldiers ! who can forget 
 it? The black slouched hat; the cavalry boots; the dark 
 cape ; the plain gray coat without an ornament but the three 
 stars on the collar ; the calm, victorious face ; the splendid, 
 manly figure on the gray war-horse, that steps as if proudly 
 conscious of his rider ; he looked every inch the true knight 
 — the grand, invincible champion of a great principle. 
 
 The intellectual abilities of General Lee were of the highest 
 order, and his attainments, scientific and literary, were re- 
 markable for one who had devoted so many years of his 
 life to the exacting duties and details of the camp and the 
 field. He read much, digested what he read, and amplified 
 his readings with reflective power. But so modest and 
 unpretentious was he — so chastened and retiring was his 
 ambition, and his overshadowing military exploits had so 
 fixed the admiring gaze of men, that when he came here 
 few knew how rare were the accomplishments, and how 
 versatile and adaptive was the genius of the gentleman 
 
 (38) 
 
who seemed by nature framed to lead the ranks and grace 
 the habiliments of war. The training, habits, and occupa- 
 tions of the soldier seldom guide his footsteps to classic 
 haunts, and when the great captain is unhorsed and his trap- 
 pings disappear, how often do we find that the soldier was 
 a soldier only, and nothing more. But when Lee the soldier 
 stepped forth in civic dress, it was soon evident to all, as it 
 had been previously to those who knew him best, that here 
 was one full panoplied to dignify and adorn any civic sta- 
 tion ; one who disclosed himself in wide converse and cor- 
 respondence embracing all manner of delicate and difficult 
 situations, to possess that quality which is the consummate 
 flower of wisdom — unerring judgment combined with exquisite 
 taste. The literature that may be found in the letters of the 
 great unfolds the very essence of the genius of the men, and 
 of the times they lived in ; and in my humble judgment it 
 were sufficient to read the letters written by General Lee, and 
 which are collated in the beautiful memorial volume prepared 
 by Rev. Dr. J. William Jones, to discern that the writer was 
 one who profoundly comprehended the topics of the day, and 
 wielded a pen as vigorous and polished as his sword. And 
 when we contemplate in connection with his deeds the fair 
 and lofty character that is mirrored in them, we behold one 
 whose strong, equitable, and wide-reaching mind was such 
 that, had he devoted it to jurisprudence, had made the name 
 of justice as venerable and august as when a Marshall enun- 
 ciated the law ; who, had he been a statesman, had moulded 
 the institutions of his country, and guided its political cur- 
 rents, with as wise, firm, and temperate a hand as that of 
 Washington ; who, had he headed any of the great corporate 
 enterprises of transportation, commerce, or development in 
 which aggregated capital relies on scientific sagacity for 
 great works, had greatly aided the solution of many per- 
 plexing problems that now agitate the public mind; who, 
 had he bent himself to literature, had produced a page filled 
 with the glory and dignity of philosophic inquiry or historic 
 truth; — one indeed so perfectly balanced in mind and will, 
 so nobly turned in moral worth, so just in heart, so clear 
 
 (39) 
 
in thought, and so authoritative in direction, that, in any 
 land where the common sentiment can have spontaneous 
 play, would, as inevitably as the sparks fly upward, and by 
 a law scarce less fixed than that which moves the planets in 
 their course, have been the leading man in whatever he un- 
 dertook, and would have been called by one voice to become 
 the chief magistrate of the people. 
 
 As little things make up the sum of life, so they reveal the 
 inward nature of men and furnish keys to history. It is in 
 the office, the street, the field, the workshop, and by the fire- 
 side, that men show what stuff they are made of, not less than 
 in those eventful actions which write themselves in lightnings 
 across the skies and mark the rise and fall of nations. Nay, 
 more ; the highest attributes of human nature are not dis- 
 closed in action but in self-restraint and repose. " Self- 
 restraint," as has been truly said by Thomas Hughes, " is the 
 highest form of self-assertion." 
 
 It is harder, as every soldier knows, to lie down and take 
 the fire of batteries without returning it, than to rise and 
 charge to the cannon's mouth. It is harder to give the soft 
 answer that turns away wrath than to retort a word with a 
 blow. De Long, in the frozen Arctic wastes, dying alone 
 inch by inch of cold and starvation, yet intent on his work, 
 and writing lines for the benefit of others, deserved as well 
 as the Marshal of France, who received it, the name of " the 
 bravest of the brave." The artless little Alabama girl, who 
 was guiding General Forrest along a dangerous path when 
 the enemy fired a volley upon him, and who instinctively 
 spread her skirts, and cried : " Get behind me ! " had a spirit 
 as high as that which filled the bosom of Joan of Arc or 
 Charlotte Corday, 
 
 The little Holland boy, who, seeing the water oozing 
 through the dyke, and the town near by about to be deluged 
 and destroyed, neither cried nor ran, but stopped, and all 
 alone stifled the opening gap with earth, in instant peril of 
 being swept to death unhonored and unknown, showed a 
 finer and nobler fibre than that of Cambronne when he 
 shouted to the conquering British: "The Guard dies, but 
 
 (40) 
 
never surrenders." The soldier of Pompeii, buried at his 
 post, — standing there, and flying not from the hot waves of 
 lava that rolled over him, — tells the Roman story in grander 
 language than the ruins of the Coliseum. And Herndon, on 
 the deck of his ship, doing all to save his passengers, making 
 deliberate choice of death before dishonor, and going down 
 into the great deep with brow calm and unruffled, is a 
 grander picture of true heroic temper than that of Caesar 
 leading his legions, or of the young Corsican at the Bridge 
 of Lodi. 
 
 Amongst the quiet, nameless workers of the world — in the 
 stubble-field, and by the forge, bending over a sick child's bed 
 or smoothing an outcast's pillow, is many a hero and heroine 
 truer, nobler than those over whose brows hang plumes and 
 laurels. 
 
 In action there is the stimulus of excited physical faculties, 
 and of the moving passions — but in the composure of the 
 calm mind that quietly devotes itself to hard life-work — put- 
 ting aside temptations, contemplating and rising superior to 
 all surroundings of adversity, suffering danger and death, — 
 man is revealed in his highest manifestation. Then, and then 
 alone, he seems to have redeemed his fallen state, and to be 
 recreated in God's image. At the bottom of all true heroism 
 is unselfishness. Its crowning expression is sacrifice. The 
 world is suspicious of vaunted heroes. They are so easily 
 manufactured. So many feet are cut and trimmed to fit 
 Cinderella's slippers that we hesitate long before we hail the 
 Princess. But when the true hero has come, and we know 
 that here he is, in verity, ah ! how the hearts of men leap 
 forth to greet him — how worshipfully we welcome God's 
 noblest work — the strong, honest, fearless, upright man. 
 
 In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us and to 
 mankind, and whether we behold him declining command of 
 the Federal army to fight the battles and share the miseries 
 of his own people ; proclaiming on the heights in front of 
 Gettysburg that the fault of the disaster was his own ; leading 
 charges in the crises of combat ; walking under the yoke of 
 conquest without a murmur of complaint; or refusing for- 
 
 (41) 
 
tunes to come here and train the youth of his country in the 
 path of duty, — he is ever the same meek, grand, self-sacrific- 
 ing spirit. Here he exhibited quahties not less worthy and 
 heroic than those displayed on the broad and open theatre of 
 conflict, when the eyes of nations watched his every action. 
 Here, in the calm repose of civil and domestic duties, and in 
 the trying routine of incessant tasks, he lived a life as high as 
 when, day by day, he marshalled and led his thin and wast- 
 ing lines, and slept by night upon the field that was to be 
 drenched again in blood upon the morrow. 
 
 Here in these quiet walks, far removed from "war or bat- 
 tle's sound," came into view, — as when the storm o'erpast the 
 mountain seems a pinnacle of light, the landscape beams with 
 fresher and tenderer beauties, and the purple, golden clouds 
 float above us in the azure depths like the Islands of the 
 Blest, — so came into view the towering grandeur, the mas- 
 sive splendor, and the loving kindness of the character of 
 General Lee, and the very sorrows that overhung his life 
 seemed luminous with celestial hues. Here he revealed in 
 manifold gracious hospitalities, tender charities, and patient, 
 worthy counsels, how deep and pure and inexhaustible were 
 the fountains of his virtues. And loving hearts delight to re- 
 call, as loving lips will ever delight to tell, the thousand little 
 things he did which sent forth lines of light to irradiate the 
 gloom of the conquered land, and to lift up the hopes and 
 cheer the works of the people. 
 
 Was there a scheme of public improvement? He took 
 hearty interest in promoting its success in every way he 
 could. Was there an enterprise of charity, or education, or 
 religion, that needed friendly aid ? He gave it according to 
 his store, and sent with the gift words that were deeds. Was 
 there a poor soldier in distress ? Whoever else forgot him, it 
 was not Lee. Was there a proud spirit chafing under defeat, 
 and breaking forth in angry complaints and criminations, or a 
 wanderer who had sought in other lands an unvexed retreat 
 denied him here? He it was who with mild voice conjured 
 restraint and patience — recalled the wanderer home and 
 reared above the desolate hearthstone the image of duty. 
 
 (42) 
 
And whosoever mourned the loved and lost, who had died 
 in vain for the cause now perished, he it was who poured into 
 the stricken heart the balm of sympathy and consolation. 
 
 Here, indeed, Lee, no longer the Leader, became as it were 
 the Priest of his people, and the young men of Washington 
 College were but a fragment of those who found in his voice 
 and his example the shining signs that never misguided their 
 footsteps. 
 
 Many are the illustrations and incidents which show how 
 beautifully blended in his character were the sterner qualities 
 that command respect, with the gentler traits that engage af- 
 fection. And his quick apprehension of every natural beauty, 
 and keen sympathy for all living things, show the exquisite 
 sensibilities of his heart. His letters from Mexico teem with 
 expressions of the delight with which he looked upon the 
 bright-winged birds and luxuriant flowers of that sunny land ; 
 and, during the Confederate war, when cramped resources de- 
 nied bestowal of the smallest tokens of friendship, we find his 
 letters to dear ones frequently laden with the floral emblems 
 of his constant thought and love. In one of them he says : 
 " I send you some sweet violets that I gathered for you this 
 morning while covered with the dense white frost whose 
 crystals glittered in the bright sun like diamonds, and formed 
 a brooch of rare beauty and sweetness which could not be 
 fabricated by the expenditure of a world of money." 
 
 And when after the war he visited Alexandria, the scene 
 of his boyhood days, one of his old neighbors found him 
 gazing over the palings of the garden where he used to play. 
 " I am looking," he said, " to see if the old snow-ball trees 
 are still here. I should be sorry to miss them." How he 
 loved, too, these grand mountains ! Amongst them, mounted 
 on his faithful war-horse Traveller, he often roamed while he 
 spent his days amongst you. And here in nature's works he 
 found refreshment from the toils of life, and looked from 
 nature up to nature's God. 
 
 His tenderness was as instinctive as his valor. A writer, 
 who on one occasion stood in his company watching a fire m 
 the mountains, relates how, when others were wrapt in its 
 
 (43) 
 
scenic grandeur, General Lee remarked : " It is beautiful ! but 
 I have been thinking of the poor animals that must perish in 
 the flames." And another tells how, when in the lines near 
 Richmond the bolts of battle swept the point where the Gen- 
 eral stood, he ordered his attendants to the rear, and while 
 himself calmly surveying the field under fire, he stopped to 
 pick up a fledgling sparrow that had fallen from its nest, and 
 restore it to the bough overhead. 
 
 Pictures, are these, full of infinite suggestion ! 
 
 A Robespierre and a Torquemada may exhibit emotional 
 tenderness, shallow and fitful, but that of Lee was the vital 
 principle of a robust, exalted nature, which found its inspira- 
 tions in the sacred heart of charity, and diffused itself in 
 ceaseless acts of magnanimity and love. 
 
 So it was that while the passions of men were loosened, 
 and the fierce work of war spread havoc and desolation far 
 and wide, he who directed its tremendous forces with stern 
 and nervous hand, moved also amongst its scenes of woe — 
 a gracious and healing spirit. So it was that to him a 
 stricken foe was a foe no longer — that his orders to the 
 surgeons of his army were to " treat the whole field alike " ; 
 and when at Chancellorsville he in person led the tempes- 
 tuous assault that won the victory, and stood amongst the 
 wounded of the blue and gray, heaped around him in indis- 
 criminate carnage, his first thought and care were for them 
 alike in their common suffering. So it was that whether 
 in Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia, he restrained every 
 excess of conduct, and held the reckless and the ruthless 
 within those bounds which duty sets to action. So it was 
 that to one homeless during the days of strife, he wrote : 
 " Occupy yourself in helping those more helpless than your- 
 self." So it was that when the gallant Federal General Phil. 
 Kearny fell at Ox Hill, he sent his sword and horse through 
 the lines to his mourning widow ; and that when Lincoln was 
 struck down by an assassin's hand, he denounced the deed as 
 " a crime previously unknown to the country, and one that 
 must be deprecated by every American." And so, too, when 
 one day here a man humbly clad sought alms at his door, 
 
 (44) 
 
Lee pointed to his retiring form and said: "That is one of 
 our old soldiers who is in necessitous circumstances. He 
 fought on the other side, but we must not remember that 
 against him now." And this poor soldier said of him after- 
 wards : " He is the noblest man that ever lived. He not only- 
 had a kind word for me, but he gave me some money to help 
 me on my way." Better is that praise than any garland of 
 the poet or the rhetorician. 
 
 As we glance back through the smoke-drifts of his many 
 campaigns and battles, his kind, considerate acts towards his 
 officers and men gleam through them as brightly as their 
 burnished weapons; and they formed a fellowship as noble 
 as that which bound the Knights of the Round Table to 
 Arthur, "the blameless King." His principle of discipline 
 was indicated in his expression that " a true man of honor 
 feels himself humbled when he cannot help humbling others," 
 and never exercising stern authority except when absolutely 
 indispensable, his influence was the more potent because it 
 ever appealed to honorable motives and natural affections. 
 In the dark days of the Revolution, two major-generals con- 
 spired with a faction of the Continental Congress to put Gates 
 in the place of Washington, denominating him a " weak gen- 
 eral." Never did Confederate dream a disloyal thought of 
 Lee, and the greater the disaster, the more his army leaned 
 upon him. 
 
 When Jackson fell, Lee wrote to him : " You are better off 
 than I am, for while you have lost your left arm, I have lost 
 my right arm." And Jackson said of him : " Lee is a phe- 
 nomenon. He is the only man that I would follow blind- 
 fold." Midway between Petersburg and Appomattox, with 
 the ruins of an empire falling on his shoulders, and the gory 
 remnants of his army staggering under the thick blows of 
 the advancing foe, we see Lee turning aside from the column, 
 and riding up to the home of the widow of the gallant 
 Colonel John Thornton, who had fallen at Sharpsburg. " I 
 have not time to tarry," he says, " but I could not pass by 
 without stopping a moment to pay my respects to the widow 
 of my honored soldier. Colonel Thornton, and tender her my 
 
 (45) 
 
deepest sympathy in the sore bereavement she sustained 
 when the country was deprived of his invaluable services." 
 
 Three of his sons were there in the army with him ; but 
 they were too noble to seek, and he too noble to bestow 
 honors, because of the tie of blood. One of them, a private 
 in the artillery, served his gun with his fellows. Another he 
 is requested by President Davis to assign to command an 
 army, but he will not be the medium of exalting his own 
 house, though a superior ask that it be done, and though his 
 son deserve it. Yet another is in a hostile prison, and a 
 Federal officer of equal rank begs that General Lee will effect 
 an exchange, the one for the other. The General declined, 
 saying, " that he will ask no favor for his own son that could 
 not be asked for the humblest private in the army." On the 
 cars crowded with passengers a soldier, scarce noticed, strug- 
 gles to draw his coat over his wounded arm. One from 
 amongst many rises and goes to his aid. It is General Lee. 
 An army surgeon relates that while the battle of the Crater 
 raged, General Lee rode to the rear of the line where the 
 wounded lay, and, dismounting, moved amongst them. 
 " Doctor, why are you not doing something for this man," 
 he said, pointing to one sorely stricken. The doctor raised 
 the gray jacket and pointed to the ghastly wound which 
 made life hopeless. General Lee bent tenderly over the 
 wounded man, and then, in a voice tremulous with emotion, 
 exclaimed: "Alas! poor soldier! may God make soft his 
 dying pillow." 
 
 Such were some of the many acts that made the men love 
 Lee. And in the fight he was ever ready to be foremost. Lee 
 the soldier, over-rode Lee the general, and when the pinch 
 and struggle came, there was he. " Lee to the rear " became 
 the soldiers' battle-cry ; and oftentimes, when the long lines 
 came gleaming on, and shot and shell in tempest ripped the 
 earth, uptore the forest, and filled the air with death, these 
 soldiers in their rusty rags paused as they saw his face 
 amongst them ; and then with manhood's imperious love, 
 these sovereigns of the field commanded, " General Lee go 
 back," as their condition of advancing. And then forward 
 
 (46) 
 
to the death ! Was ever such devotion ? Yes, Lee loved his 
 men "as a father pitieth his children," and they loved him 
 with a love that " passeth the love of woman," for they saw 
 in him the iron hero who could lead the brave with front as 
 dauntless as a warrior's crest, and the gentle friend who com- 
 forted the stricken with soul as tender as a mother's prayer. 
 
 Lee had nothing in common with the little minds that 
 know not how to forgive. His was the land that had been 
 invaded — his the people who were cut down, ravaged, and 
 ruined — his the home that was torn away and spoliated — 
 his was the cause that perished. He was the general dis- 
 crowned of his mighty place, and he the citizen disfranchised. 
 Yet Lee forgave, and counselled all to forgive and forget. 
 
 The Greek poet has said : — 
 
 "The firmest mind will fail 
 Beneath misfortune's stroke, and stunned, depart 
 From its sage plan of action." 
 
 But as the mind of Lee received the rude shock of destiny 
 without a quiver, so the genial currents of his sweet, heroic 
 soul rolled on unruffled, while in their calm, pure depths 
 were reflected the light of heaven. 
 
 When a minister once denounced the North and the indict- 
 ment of General Lee for treason, the General followed him 
 to the door, and said : " Doctor, there is a good old book 
 which I read, and you preach from, which says : ' Love your 
 enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
 hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.' Do 
 you think your remarks this evening were quite in the spirit 
 of that teaching ?" And he added : " I have fought against 
 the people of the North because I believed they were seeking 
 to wrest from the South her dearest rights. But I have never 
 cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and have 
 never seen the day when I did not pray for them." 
 
 Soon after the passage of those harsh acts of Congress dis- 
 franchising Confederates for participating in the war, and 
 while every Southern breast was filled with indignation, some 
 friends in General Lee's presence expressed themselves with 
 
 (47) 
 
great bitterness. The General turned to the table near him, 
 where lay the manuscript of his father's life, which he was 
 then editing, and read these lines : — 
 
 " Learn from yon Orient shell to love thy foe, 
 And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe ; 
 Free like yon rock, from base, vindictive pride, 
 Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side, 
 Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower, 
 With fruit nectareous or the balmy flower ; 
 All Nature cries aloud : shall man do less 
 Than love the smiter, and the railer bless? " 
 
 " These lines," said he, " were written in Arabia, and by a 
 Mohammedan, the Poet of Shiraz, the immortal Hafiz; and 
 ought not we, who profess to be governed by the principles 
 of Christianity, to rise at least to the standard of this Mo- 
 hammedan poet, and learn to forgive our enemies ? " 
 
 In the rush of this age, a character so simply meek and 
 so proudly, grandly strong, is scarce compj-ehensible to the 
 eager, restless competitors for wealth and place and power. 
 And the " practical man," as he is called, who ever keeps a 
 keen eye to the main chance, and is esteemed happy just 
 in proportion as fortune favors his schemes of ambition or 
 profit, is apt to attribute weakness to one so void of self- 
 seeking and resentment, and so amiable and gentle in his 
 feelings and conduct towards his fellow-men. But could he 
 have seen with what patient attention to detail this cease- 
 less worker dispatched business and brought great results 
 from small materials — with what quick, strong, comprehen- 
 sive grasp he solved difficulties and conquered dangers ; what 
 good cheer he gave the toiling; what hope he gave the de- 
 spondent; what comfort he gave the afflicted; — aye! could 
 he have caught the glance of that eagle eye, and looked on 
 that serene, bold brow which overawed the field of battle, and 
 then beheld the swift, stern, inspiring energy which propelled 
 its forces to deeds which seemed almost impossible to man, 
 there would have been to him a new revelation. He would 
 have beheld a character which, to one unacquainted with it, 
 would seem to have been idealized by the genius of the poet 
 
 (48) 
 
rather than to have existed in the flesh, and to have stepped 
 forth from the sanctuary of romance rather than to have be- 
 longed to real history. He would have realized, by contact 
 with this simple gentleman, that the true greatness and the 
 true glory of man lies in those elements which are superior 
 to fortune, that he is most practical who is himself above it, 
 and that happiness, if ever on earth happiness be found, has 
 fixed her temple only in the heart that is without guile and is 
 without reproach of man or woman. 
 
 Five years rolled by while here "the self-imposed mission" 
 of Lee was being accomplished, and now, in 1870, he had 
 reached the age of sixty-three. A robust constitution, never 
 abused by injurious habits, would doubtless have prolonged 
 his life beyond the threescore years and ten which the Psalm- 
 ist has ascribed as the allotted term of man ; but many causes 
 were sapping and undermining it. The exposures of two 
 wars in which he had participated, and the tremendous strain 
 on nerves and heart and brain which his vast responsibilities 
 and his accumulated trials had entailed, had been silently and 
 gradually doing their work ; and now his step had lost some- 
 thing of its elasticity, the shoulders began to stoop as if 
 under a growing burden, and the ruddy glow of health upon 
 his countenance had passed into a feverish flush. Into his 
 ears, and into his heart, had been poured the afflictions of his 
 people, and while composed and self-contained and uncom- 
 plaining, — who could have looked upon that great face, 
 over whose majestic lineaments there stole the shade of 
 sadness, without perceiving that grief for those he loved was 
 gnawing at the heart strings? — without perceiving in the 
 brilliant eye, which now and then had a far-way, abstracted 
 gaze, that the soul within bore a sorrow " that only Heaven 
 could heal?" 
 
 What he suffered his lips have never spoken. In the beau- 
 tiful language of another: "His lips were closed like the 
 gates of some majestic temple, not for concealment, but be- 
 cause that within was holy." Yet let us take consolation to 
 ourselves that there came to him much to give him joy. 
 Around him were those united by the closest ties of blood 
 
 (49) 
 
and relationship in unremitting fidelity. Not a man of those 
 who ever fought under him — aye, not one — ever proved 
 faithless in respect for him ; the great mass of them gave to 
 him every expression in their power of their affection. To 
 the noble mind sweet is the generous and genuine praise of 
 noble men, and for Lee there was full measure. He lived to 
 see deeply laid the foundation, and firmly built the pedestal, 
 of his great glory, and to catch the murmur of those voices 
 which would rear high his image and bear his name and 
 fame to remote ages and distant nations. The brave and 
 true of every land paid him tribute. The first soldiers of 
 foreign climes saluted him with eulogy; the scholar decor- 
 ated his page with dedication to his name; the artist en- 
 shrined his form and features in noblest work of brush and 
 chisel; the poet hymned the heroic pathos of his life in 
 tender, lofty strain. Enmity grew into friendship before 
 his noble bearing, and humanity itself attended him with 
 all human sympathy. And over all, " God made soft his 
 dying pillow." 
 
 The particular form of his mortal malady was rheumatism 
 of the heart, originating in the exposure of his campaigns, 
 and aggravated by the circumstances of his many trying 
 situations. He traveled South in the spring of 1870, and in 
 the summer resorted to the Hot Springs of Virginia, and 
 when September came he was here, in better health and 
 spirits, at his accustomed work. On the 28th of September 
 he conducted as usual his correspondence, and performed the 
 incidental tasks of his office, and after dinner he attended a 
 meeting of the vestry of Grace Episcopal Church, of which 
 body he was a member. A question as to the minister's 
 salary coming before the board, and there being a deficiency 
 in the amount necessary, General Lee said: " I will give that 
 sum." A sense of weariness came over him before the meet- 
 ing ended, and at its close he retired with wan, flushed face. 
 Returning home, he found the family circle gathered for tea, 
 and took his place at the board, standing to say grace. The 
 lips failed to voice the blessing prompted by the heart, and 
 without a word he took his seat with an expression of sub- 
 
 (50) 
 
lime resignation on his face ; for well he knew that the 
 Master's call had come, and he was ready to answer. 
 
 He was borne to his couch, and skilled physicians and 
 loving hands did all that man could do. For nearly a fort- 
 night 
 
 " 'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge, 
 Between two worlds love hovered like a star." 
 
 And then, on the morning of October I2th, the star of the 
 mortal sank into the sunrise of immortality, and Robert Lee 
 passed hence to " where beyond these voices there is peace." 
 
 "Tell A. P. Hill to prepare for action," were amongst the 
 last words of Stonewall Jackson. " Tell Hill he must come 
 up," were the last words of Lee. Their brave lieutenant, 
 who rests under the green turf of Hollywood, seems to 
 have been latest in the minds of his great commanders, 
 while their spirits, yet in martial fancy, roamed again the 
 fields of conflict, and ere they passed to where the soldier 
 dreams of battle-fields no more. 
 
 And did he live in vain, this brave and gentle Lee ? And 
 have his works perished with him? I would blush to ask 
 the question save to give the answer. 
 
 A leader of armies, he closed his career in complete dis- 
 aster. But the military scientist studies his campaigns, and 
 finds in them designs as bold and brilliant, and actions as 
 intense and energetic, as ever illustrated the art of war. The 
 gallant captain beholds in his bearing courage as rare as ever 
 forced a desperate field or restored a lost one. The private 
 soldier looks up at an image as benignant and commanding 
 as ever thrilled the heart with highest impulse of devotion. 
 
 The men who wrested victory from his little band stood 
 wonder-stricken and abashed when they saw how few were 
 those who dared oppose them, and generous admiration burst 
 into spontaneous tribute to the splendid leader who bore 
 defeat with the quiet resignation of a hero. The men who 
 fought under him never revered or loved him more than on 
 the day he sheathed his sword. Had he but said the word 
 they would have died for honor. It was because he said the 
 word that they resolved to live for duty. 
 
 (SI) 
 
Plato congratulated himself, first, that he was born a man ; 
 second, that he had the happiness of being a Greek; and, 
 third, that he was the cotemporary of Sophocles. And in 
 this vast throng to-day, and here and there the wide world 
 over, is many a one who wore the gray, who rejoices that he 
 was born a man to do a man's part for his suffering country ; 
 that he had the glory of being a Confederate ; and who feels 
 a just, proud, and glowing consciousness in his bosom when 
 he says unto himself: " I was a follower of Robert Lee. I 
 was a soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia." 
 
 Did he wield patronage and power ? No. He could not 
 have appointed a friend to the smallest office. He could 
 bestow no emolument upon any of his followers. But an 
 intimation of his wish amongst his own people carried an 
 influence which the command of the autocrat can never pos- 
 sess ; and his approval of conduct or character was deemed 
 an honor, and was an honor, which outvied the stars and 
 crosses and titles conferred by kings. 
 
 Did he gain wealth ? No. He neither sought nor des- 
 pised it. It thrust itself upon him, but he put it away from 
 him. He refused its companionship because his people could 
 not have its company. He gave what he had to a weak 
 cause, and to those whose necessities were greater than his 
 own. And home itself he sacrificed on the altar of his coun- 
 try. But he refuted the shallow worldling's maxim that 
 " every man has his price," and proved that true manhood has 
 none, however great. 
 
 The plunderer of India defended himself by exclaiming 
 that "when he considered his opportunities, he was aston- 
 ished at his own moderation." Mark Antony appeased the 
 anger of the Roman populace against the fallen tyrant by 
 reading Caesar's will, wherein he left them his rich and fair 
 possessions — to them and their heirs forever. The captive 
 of St. Helena, aggrandized with the tears and blood of 
 Europe, drew his own long will, dispensing millions to his 
 favorites. Lee had opportunities as great as any conqueror 
 and took nothing — not even that which others pushed upon 
 him. 
 
 (52) 
 
But he has left a great, imperishable legacy to us and our 
 heirs forever. The heart of man is his perpetual kingdom. 
 There he reigns transcendent, and we exclaim : " Oh, king, 
 live forever." 
 
 Did he possess rank ? Not so. Far from it. He was not 
 even a citizen. The country which gave the right of suffrage 
 to the alien ere he could speak its language, and to the Af- 
 rican freedman ere he could read or understand its laws, de- 
 nied to him the privilege of a ballot. He had asked amnesty. 
 He had been refused. He had not been tried, but he had 
 been convicted. He forgave, but he was unforgiven. He 
 died a paroled prisoner of war, in the calm of peace, five 
 years after war had ended — died the foremost and noblest 
 man in a republic which proclaims itself "the land of the 
 free and the home of the brave," himself and his commander- 
 in-chief constituting the most conspicuous of its political 
 slaves. But as the oak stripped of the foliage by the winter 
 blast, then, and then only, stands forth in solemn and mighty 
 majesty against the wintry sky, so Robert Lee, stripped of 
 every rank that man could give him, towered above the earth 
 and those around him, in the pure sublimity and strength of 
 that character which we can only fitly contemplate when we 
 lift our eyes from earth and see it dimmed against the 
 heavens ! 
 
 Did he save his country from conquest? No. He saw his 
 every foreboding of evil verified. He came to share the 
 miseries of his people. He shared them, drinking every 
 drop of sorrow's cup. His cause was lost, and the land for 
 which he fought lives not amongst the nations. But the 
 voice of history echoes the poet's song : — 
 
 " Ah ! realm of tombs ! but let it bear 
 This blazon to the last of times ; 
 No nation rose so white and fair, 
 Or fell so pure from crimes." 
 
 And he, its type, lived and died, teaching life's greatest les- 
 sons, "to suffer and be strong," and that "misfortune nobly 
 borne is good fortune." 
 
 (53) 
 
There is a rare exotic that blooms but once in a century, 
 and then it fills the light with beauty and the air with fra- 
 grance. In each of the two centuries of Virginia's statehood, 
 there has sprung from the loins of her heroic race a son 
 whose name and deeds will bloom throughout the ages. 
 Each fought for liberty and independence; each against a 
 people of his own race ; each against the forms of established 
 power. George Washington won against a kingdom whose 
 seat was three thousand miles away, whose soldiers had to 
 sail in ships across the deep, and he found in the boundless 
 areas of his own land its strongest fortifications. August, 
 beyond the reach of detraction, is the glory of his name. 
 Robert Edward Lee made fiercer and bloodier fight against 
 greater odds, and at greater sacrifice, and lost — against the 
 greatest nation of modern history, armed with steam and 
 electricity, and all the appliances of modern science ; a na- 
 tion which mustered its hosts at the very threshold of his 
 door. But his life teaches the grandest lesson: — how man- 
 hood can rise transcendent over adversity, and is in itself 
 alone, under God, pre-eminent, — the grander lesson, because, 
 as sorrow and misfortune are sooner or later the common lot, 
 even that of him who is to-day the conqueror, he who bears 
 them best is made of sternest stuff, and is the most useful and 
 universal, as he is the greatest and noblest exemplar. 
 
 And now he has vanished from us forever. And is this all 
 that is left of him — this handful of dust beneath the marble 
 stone ? No ! the ages answer as they rise from the gulfs of 
 time, where lie the wrecks of kingdoms and estates, holding 
 up in their hands, as their only trophies, the names of those 
 who have wrought for man in the love and fear of God, and 
 in love unfearing for their fellow-men. 
 
 No ! the present answers, bending by his tomb. 
 
 No ! the future answers, as the breath of the morning fans 
 its radiant brow, and its soul drinks in sweet inspirations from 
 the lovely life of Lee. 
 
 No ! methinks the very heavens echo, as melt into their 
 depths the words of reverent love that voice the hearts of 
 men to the tingling stars. 
 
 (54) 
 
Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our memo- 
 ries, to purify our hopes, to make strong all good intent by 
 communion with the spirit of him who, being dead, yet speak- 
 eth. Come, child, in thy spotless innocence ; come, woman, 
 in thy purity ; come, youth, in thy prime ; come, manhood, in 
 thy strength ; come, age, in thy ripe wisdom ; come, citizen, 
 come, soldier, let us strew the roses and lilies of June around 
 his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in his life nature's benefi- 
 cence, and the grave has consecrated that life and given it to 
 us all ; let us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his 
 strength, and with the laurel, the emblem of his glory; and let 
 these guns, whose voices he knew of old, awake the echoes of 
 the mountains, that nature herself may join in his solemn 
 requiem. 
 
 Come, for here he rests, and — 
 
 ' ' On this green bank by this fair stream 
 We set to-day a votive stone, 
 That memory may his deeds redeem 
 When, Hke our sires, our sons are gone." 
 
 Come, for here the genius of loftiest poesy in the artist's 
 dream, and through the sculptor's touch, has restored his 
 form and features — a Valentine has lifted the marble veil 
 and disclosed him to us as we would love to look upon 
 him — lying, the flower of knighthood, in "Joyous Card." 
 His sword beside him is sheathed forever; but honor's seal 
 is on his brow, and valor's star is on his breast, and the peace 
 that passeth all understanding descends upon him. Here, not 
 in the hour of his grandest triumph of earth, as when, 'mid the 
 battle roar, shouting battalions followed his trenchant sword, 
 and bleeding veterans forgot their wounds to leap between 
 him and his enemies — but here, in victory supreme, over earth 
 itself and over death, its conqueror, he rests, his warfare done. 
 
 And as we seem to gaze once more on him we loved and 
 hailed as chief, in his sweet, dreamless sleep, the tranquil face 
 is clothed with heaven's light, and the mute lips seem elo- 
 quent with the message that in life he spoke : — 
 
 " There is a true glory and a true honor ; the glory of duty 
 done — the honor of the integrity of principle!' 
 
 (55) 
 
®l)i0 ebition of tl)c 
 
 QDration of 
 
 major Jol)n iDarxokk JUani^ 
 
 t)atl) been 
 
 " , , prioatelg printeii for 
 
 iflrg. (George tofimberlcs Jonea ?De Uenne 
 
 ®l)e impression is Umiteir to 
 
 one l)nnbred copies 
 
/ 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS