The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1866-09-27
General Lee.

.Ihe following tribute to General Lee
lis extracted from long article in tho
London Standard, written on the subject
of subscription in London in aid Of
Washington College:
"There is no living hero-there are few
if any, among those whose names shine
with the purest lustre in history-whose
character has commanded so high q tri.
butte of affection and admiration from
their frionds-of respect and honor from
their foes-as that Of Gen. Lee. No life
more perfectly heroic, no reputation more
untarnished, even by the minor blemishes
which are not uncommonly found in union
with the highest heroism, has ever been
connected with great national struggle
No shade of vanity or ogotism-nothing
of the selfwill or petulance SO often char.
actcristic Of conscious genius-no tinge Of
affectation-no taint even of the pride
almost inseparable from ordinary great
ness of mind, which can endure every
thing but humiliation, and regards sub
mission as disgrace-alloy the simple
grandeur of the Virginia soldiers nature.
A piety, without the slightest shadow of
Pharisaism, a sense Of duty to which the
sacrifice of every personal feeling and in
terest appears matter of course, having
marked his whole course and guided his
every public act, whether as q soldier or
citizen. A family connexion, and the
nearest living representative of the great
champion of American independence, Gen.
Lee has been the Washington of the Con-
federate war; like Washington, man
"whom envy dare not hate" but without
even the one dark stain Of doubt, if not
of dishonor, which the death of Major
Andre has left on the memory of his pro-
totype. No moro "selfess man and STAIN
less gentleman" ever lived no soldier
ever set more admirable example Of the
soldierly virtues of honor, chivalric gen.
erosity and manly simplicity; no great
man ever retired into obscurity, after
witnessing alike the ruin of his cause and
the destruction ofhis private fortune, with
more OF Christian patience and unshaken
fortitude.
"Of his military achievements, we need
not speak. It's enough to say that near
ly all his victories were won against enor-
nous odds, and that his four years de-
fence of Virginia has few parallels in his
tory as an example of great results ac-
complished with small means and at fear
full disadvantage, What is now more in
teresting to remember is the personal
character of the man, as displayed in the
various exigencies Of that trying strug-
gle; the simple honesty and kindly feel
ing which prompted him to console his
soldiers as they recoiled from the cannon
crowned heights of Gettysburg, with the
assurance, 1T is all my fault;' the unat-
fected self.depreciation which pronounced,
when Jackson fell, I would wish, for the
sake of our cause, that I had been disa-
blcd rather than you;' the Christian
chivalry, which no outrage could provoke
to retaliation, which, after Virginia had
been rendereda desert, withheld the army
that invaded Pennsylvania from inficting
the most trivial injury on person or prop
erty; which, when his own estates had
been plundered, ravaged and confscated,
took caro- to protect the houses and prop
erty of his enemies; the horror of useless
bloodshed which withstood the cry for
retribution excited by the murder of
Southern prisoners in cold blood, and sup
ported the resolve Of the President, that
unless the actual murderers were taken,
no blood should be shed but on the field
of baltic; the touching unsefshncss of his
last words to his disbanding army on the
sorrowful 9th of April, 4 have done my
best for YOU But it was when all was
over-whon the chief of great and long
victorious army was private man and Q
paroled prisoner-that the peculiar great
ness of Gen. Lees nature shines out with
unequaled brightness"