The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1865-03-29

( OF uulLGQ ptUpfGs lUom6u uU III view,
and the many monuments of National
greatness with which it has been adorned,
must have struggled with the mad pride
and ambition that made Robert e. Lee
fugitive from his home, a stranger to
bis noblest inheritance, and a foe TO lib.
erty and free government Long did he
hesitate, and earnestly did his faithful
wife-true to her patriotic ancestry
plead for fidelity to the best of civil gov
ernments But Virginia faltered and
vas swept into the vortex of treason, and
with it was swept Gen. Lee.
| would, that be were here to-day to
fake retrospect of his murderous, desc
lating work, amidst the deafening thun-
ders coming up from his own once bloom
ing fields, to tell faithful people that an
otherlink is broken IN the chain that would
have been woven in the chaplets of the
relentless despot upon thirty millions of
freemen, but for the uneZampled heroism
of the sons of the North Sadly indeed
would these salutes fall upon the heart
of the once happy master Of Arlington
Place. They would come as the terrible
proclamation of vindicated Justice
"And make the keynote of the saddest dirge
That fancy ever played to melancholy"
But although far off at the head of his
shattered and despairing army Of crime,
be is there greeted with the same salutes
coming from the shotted guns of Grant
No. there alone, for from the green Sa-
7annah of the South to the farthest gun
on the North East coast from the
Atlantic shore 10 the sunset side Of the
Father of Waters; from the Northern
Lakes to the very heart Of the laud once
enveloped in the deadly grasp of treason,
there are salutes this hour proclaiming
that the day Of our National Dcliyerance
is nigh at hand. Fifty, indeed, might he
look out from his deserted home to the
thousand graves which are hard, By his
old:ime walks, each of which is an eternal
monument to his pgfdy, Should be
enter the beautiful grounds of Arlington
now, he must pass beneath graceful
arch, on which is woven in evergreen
"HERE SLEEP oUR PATRIOTIC DEAD"
and turn whence he might, the mouruful
track of war would confront him
Thousands of the brave defenders of the
Republic rest in the very shades of
! Arlington, and now the warhlings of
/ Heavens sweet choristers who people
this lovely forest IN spring time, must be
alone for the heroic dead, or the sad
! visitor who here learns his country's woes.
! When he turned at once upon his home
and his country, treason held supreme
sway in all the Southern and Border
States, and the cowardIy treachery that
was smouldering in the North, promised
au easy victory to those who would have
dismembered the Republic. Since then
four years f terrible, exhausting, devast.
ating and bloody war have been crowded
into history, aud the fair land Of the
South is one vast cemetery; mourning
and want shadow every household; despair
Teigns IN the councils of crime, and soon
/ pray and trust al all wise and ever just
J God will crown the Right with decisive
victory. Around me on every side NAV
now be heard the voices of the oppressed
who have been freed in the throes of civil
war. and those who confessed the lord of
Arlington as master, now return thanks
to Him who accepts alike the praise of
the honored and the lowly, as the guns
/ Of Fort Whipple shook the neglected
halls where they lived in servitude
But truce to painful memories
George Washington Parke Custls wa. a
grandson of Mrs Martha Washington.
She was the widow of Mr.. Lustis when
she was married to Gen. Washington,
and O. W Parke Gusts was the son Of
her only son By her first husband. He
was adopted by Gen, Washington and
raised and educated by the Hero States
man of the Revolutign. He became
proprietor Of Arlington Place, whether
bY purchase or by devise from Wishing.
ton, | am not informed, and here be lived
until he more than attained the age
allotted to mortals. He had but one
child, who married Robert E. Lee, and
thus Captain Lee Gas he was them became
the possessor of the finest estate on the
Potomac, and also Of a large estate known
as the White House on the James River
"a place that has figured largely in
military operations on the Peninsula
am not familiar with the history of this
estate but the old mansion looks as if ii
had brayed the stsrms of a century,
Everything seems TO have been in har-
mony in and about t. The sanet1ty of
venerable age is stamped upon every
feature Of the house and grounds The
colossal pillars on the large pOrtico are
nearly six feet in diameter; the spider
has woven bis siken net in the crevices
and on the hich cnrninns annarenflr