New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-09-21
[From the New York Tribpne.l


AND IT'S FUTURE,
from the New York Trbunel
LEXINGTON, Monday, Sept 10, 1866.
With the Blue Ridge frowning upon it on one
side and the North Mountains sneering at it the
other, and lying in so picturesque valley that the
little town is q hideous scar upon the face OF
mother earth, the chief glory of Lexington in the
region round about has grown to be that 1T Is the
grave of jackson and the home of Lee.
Putting the greater before the less, brings the
dead Jackson before the living Lee. The Gene
terry where the greater lies is on the edge OF the
struggling town, opposite the college and inst.
tute; it is small, very small, not more than q
dozen acres should judge, and of the common
type of country church-yards the world over. In
its exact center is a small lot about twenty feet
square, surrounded by one of those hideous iron
fences that the purer taste of the present is so
rapidly driving from our cities of the dead.
There is, of course, q gate in this pallsade OF
iron; the gate bears plate, and on u III SIMPLE
Roman characters the single word "Jacksen."
Within this enclosure, with the great everlasting
mountains looking down upon him from the dim
| distance from every side, sleeps him whom this
| people style the great StoneWall An aseeuc
taste has been shown in the surroundings OF this
sepulchure.. 4 plain marble slab three feet IN
4 height slightly curved at the top, and bearing
| nothing more than the words g Gen. Thomas j.
Jackson and an upright footstone of foot and
a half in height, with nothing more n the way OF
legend 7. J.. J.-these are all Of words or monu
ments that are about the grave of Jackson. But
there are other visible signs and more significant
Yesterday morning was the holy Sabbath, but the
| green turf was covered with the rarest flowers.
At the head of the grave was an elaborate wreath.
4 and almost every inch from stone to stone bore
/ howery tribute to the sleeper beneath. Nearly
| all these flowers were as fresh as ii pulled from
1 the stalk but an hour before, and the villagers
bear witness that they are renewed almost every
Thus sleeps jackson, where he lived and was
loved 50 long, and the kindly hearts that each day
/ deck his grave are mourning for the chiyalrous
gentleman, the kindly Christian and loving neigh
4 Dor and friend, rather than for dead hero and
the cause for which he died This is their own
4 explanation.
4 THE LIVING LEE,
i a misnomer however for his is rathera life-ins
deathin aless degree holds the affections of this
people in the hollow Of his hands, for similar rea
Il SON No man more courteous than he, none more
4 highbred, none more generous, none more Kindly
i in his intercourse with his neighbors And Lee
lives peaceful, cheerful, Huobtrusiye life among
1 these mountains. So far as he is himself con-
/ eerned, he would prefer that his name should be
j dropped from present talk and currentSneWs
History must mention him, he knows, but that time
has not yet come. Lee holds himself utterly aloof
4 from the disputes and passions of the hour; and
i here is a proof: On Saturday night he was at
j Rockbridge Baths. Stalwart and erect as ever,
white-h haired ana ruddy -hued his eye still bright
il and kindly, as of DID, he sat among the ladies Of
i the neighborhood, chatting as any other man
might do; but with him, with his past and present
Il
holding converse with the MUSES.. Presently there
4 was the confusion Of the nightly arrival from
i Richmond, and one gentleman, being acquainted
i with the general, greeted him, and after the COM
i moR-places, rendered him the newspapers of the
| day. /" Thank you, said Lee, " but never read
| any of Them.
/ Lee lives here comfortably and calmly, with his
i family and many of his former friends around
His son, Gusts Lee, is professor in the Institute
here, and his former chief of-staf Gen. Pendleton
1 is the Episcopal clergyman of the town. Fully
| absorbed in the duties of his college presidency,
| the man who once welded the military power of
| colossal insurreetion sojourns here, where
scarcely rurnors from the great world ever come,
and if he has ambition for the future never allows
| it to appear, and if he repines at the present,
keeps it always far under the surface.
I 4 have touched first upon the permanent attrac
| tons of Lexington, but to-day it has had mere
tricious Importance, because of the re,opening of
the Virginia Military Institute, and the reinaugura
/ ton of Washington's statue, carried away by
Hunter. It had been expected that chief feature
OF the occasion would have been the presence OF
.aafs5 GEN. .GRANT. 58s ssas il II
| But the American commander was absent and
1.-The history in brief of his connection in the mat
| ter is this Some weeks ago General Smith, the
superintendent of the institution, wrote to Gen.
Grant, stating that the ceremony of reinaugura-
| ton would take place on the 10th of September,
and in the name of the board of visitors and the
faculty, inviting him to be present, Gen. Grant
replied, accepting the invitation, and stating his
intention to be present. Nothing more was heard
from him until Thursdaylast when Gen. Smith
received another letter from him, wherein he states
that having, since the date of his former letter,
been requested BY the President to accompany
him on his tour to the West, he had been forced
to recall his acceptance of the invitation 10 Lex
ington.
IInay add, in this connection, that the chief of
the other invited guests was the President, who
declined on account OF his previous cement at
Chicago, and Governor Pierpont, who accepted
and then did not come, or send any reason why he
did not.
THE OCCASION OF TODAY.
Thus sunk at once, so far az. those engaged were
concerned, to mere local celebration, and as
result ont Of this fact, and the character of the
address tlehyeredi was shorn of national impor-
lance. The ceremonies were interesting because
here were gathered in one assemblage much Of
the intellectual culture and recent renown Of Viz
ginia but theywere only historical as a milestone
|. on the nations road to peace.
The affair consisted simply of the delivery Of
the address, the preparations for which had been
extremely simple, and consisted only in arranging
few rough board seats in front, and the erection
of stand for the speaker against the wall of the
lruined barracks and Immediately in front of
THE. RECOVERED STATUE,
/ Which had beenreplaceduponit it's former pedestal,
and had stoodin its accustomed place yelled until
now. This statue, which Hunters insanity has
fnow made famous, is an admirable copy in bronze
| of the renowned Houdon statue of Washington
/ which stands in the rotunda of the capitol at
Richmond, and an attempt at a copy of which
/ disgraces the old Hall of Representatives Wash
jmgten. The bronze statue here was cast by Hub
ard, by order Of the Virginia legislature, and was
erected, where it again stands to-day, in 1856.
0nlthe 18th of June, 1864, Hunter made that
| spoliation ofthe town which its inhabitants will
long remember, burning the Institute buildings
and Leteher's house, andcarrging away the statue
and the cadet battery Of four immense bronze
pieces, presented many years ago by France to
t Virginia, and utterly useless then and now for
4 anything but ornament. Never was commander
guilty of an act of such unutterable folly as was
4 Hunter on that occasion. He was in the midst of
IN intensely hostile population isolated by hun
4 dreds Of miles ofrough mountain roads from sue
4 cor, with an army feeble in numbers and in an
/ amoststarying condition, and yet he encountered
the retreat he was forced to make by dragging
LATTER! him. up and down the mountains, this huge
/ pile Of useless. bronze. If the government had
4 sent him to make war on bronze ornaments, well
and good if not, he was guilty of an act of van.
dalism. But Hunter went off satisfied he had
i given the rebellion deadly thrust by robbng the
Institute Of its bronze, and dragged lis statue all
i the weary road to Wheeling, where he delivered
\ it to the government Of West Virginia. The guns
j he sent to Washington, as the sole results and
trophies Of that disastrous raid into this garden of
4 the Lord.
/ Well, the war ended and peace came, and with
II different IDEAS of meum and teuGs, and the legis
/ lature of West Virginia pissed last winter reso-