Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1866-09-13

High Tribute TO the Character of Cen.
In Il long editorial article calling for q
subscription of G1O, 900 to Washington Col
lege by the friends and admirers of General
Lee in England, the London Standard of
August 18th, speaks of him as follows:
There is no living hero-there are few,
ii any, among those whose name shines with
the purest lustre in histOrv-whose charac-
ter has commanded so high tribute of af-
lection and admiration from their friends,
of respect and honor from their foes, as
that of General Lee. No life more perfectly
heroic, no reputation more unta1nished
even by the minor blemishes which are not
uncommonly found IN unison with the
highest heroism, has ever been connected
with great national struggle. No shade of
vanity egotism, nothing of the self-will
or petulence SO often Characteristic of con-
scious genius, no tinge of affectation, no
faint even of the pride almost inseparable
from ordinary greatness of mind, which
can endure everything but humiliation
and regards submission as disgrace, alloy
the simple grandeur of the Virginian sol
dier's nature. A piety without the slight
est shadow of Pharisaism, a sense of duty
to which the sacrifice of every personal
feeling and interest appears a matter of
course, have marked his whole course and
Sultteu Ills every pIUlIC ACT, WHETHER as a
soldier or as a citizen. A family connec-
ton and the nearest living representative
of the great champion of American indie
pendence, General Lee has been the Wash
ington of the Confederate war like Wash
lngtOn, a man whom envy dared 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 mem
DRY of his prototype. No more selfish
man and stainless gentleman" ever lived :;
no soldier ever set a more admirable exam
pie of the soldierly virtues of honor, chival-
ric generosity, and manly simplicity no
great man ever retired into obscurity, after
witnessing alike the ruin of his cause and
the destruction Of his private fortune, with
more of Christian patience and mistaken
fortitude.
"Of his military achievements we need
not spear 1t Is enough to say that nearly
all his victories were won against enormous
odds, and that his four years defence of
Virginia has few parallels in history as an
example OF great results accomplished with
small means and at fearful disadvantages.
What is now more interesting to remember
is the personal character of the man, as dis
played in the various exigencies of that trv-
ing struggle the simple honesty and kind
ly feeling which prompted him to console
his soldiers as they recoil8d from the can
non-crowned heights of Gettysburg, with
the assurance, SIT is all my fault ;" the I'M
affected self-depreciation which pronounced, !
when Stonewall Jackson fell, 81 would wish, |
for the sake of our cause, that [ had been
disabled rather than you - the christian
chivalry, which no outrage could provoke |
to retaliation, which, after Virginia had
been rendered desert, withheld the army
that invaded Pennsylyana. from INJECTING
the most trivial inquiry on person or proper
II which, when his own estates had beenI
plundered, ravaged and confiscated, took
care to protect the houses and property of
his enemies the horror of useless blood
she'd which withstood the CRY for retribu-
ton excited by the murder of Southern pris-.
oners in cold blood, and supported the re,
solve of the President that unless the ac-
tual murderers were taken ne, blood should I
be shed but On the field of battle the |
touching unselfshness of his last words to I
bis disbanding army, on. the sorrowful 9th |
OF April, 81 have done my best for YOU. -
But it was when all was over-when the I
chief of a great and long victorious army
was private man and paroled prisoner
that the peculiar greatness of General
Lees nature shines out with unequalled
brightness. |