Clarksville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1865-1867, 1866-09-28
A High Tribute to the Character OF
General Lee,

In q long editorial article calling for a
subscription Of 10000 to Washington COL
lege, by the friends and admirers of General
Lee in England, the London Standard speaks
Of him as follows:
"There is no living hero-there are few.
if any, among those whose names shine with
the purest lustre in history-wbose character
has commanded 80 high a tribute of affection
and admiration from their friends, Of respect
and honor from their foes, as that of General
Lee. No life more untarnished, even, by
the minor blemishes which are not uncom-
monty found in union with the highest hero
ism, has ever been connected with great
national struggle. No shade OF vanity or
egotism, nothing of the self-will or petulance
so often characteristic of conscious genius, no
tinge Of affectation, no taint even of the
pride almost inseparable from ordinary great
ness Of mind, which can endure anything
but humiliation, and regards submission as
disgrace, alloy the simple grandeur of the
Virginian soldiers nature. A piety without
the simplest shadow of Pharisaism, "a sense of
duty to which the sacrifice of every personal
feeling and interest appears matter of
course, has marked his whole course and
guided his every public act whether as
soldier or as citizen. A family connection
and the nearest living representative of the
great champion of American Independence,
General Lee has been the Washington of the
Confederate war; like Washington, 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 name of his prototype. No
more self1ess man and stainless gentleman
ever lived; no soldier ever set a more ad-
mirable example of the soldierly virtues of
honor, chivalric generosity, and manly sim
plicity no great man ever retired into OBJ
scurity, after witnessing alike the ruin of his
cause and the destruction of his private for
tune, with more of christian patience and
unshaken forttude.
"Of his military achievements we need
not speak. 1t is enough TO say that nearly
all his victories were won against enormous
odds, and that his four years defense of Vir-
ginia has few parallels in history as an ex-
ample of great results accomplished with
small means and at fearful disadvantage
What is more interesting to remember, is
the personal character of the man, as dis
played in the various exigencies of that try
ing struggle; the simple honesty and kindly
feeling which prompted him to console his
soldiers as they recoiled from the cannon
crowned heights of Gettysburg, with the as
surance, " 1t is all my fault" the unaffected
self-depreciation which pronounced, when
Stonewall jackson fell. l would wish, for
the sake of our cause, that had been disa-
bled rather than you; the christian chival-
ry, which no outrage could provoke to re-
taliation, which, after Virginia had been rem
dered desert, withheld the army that in
vaded Pennsylvania from inficting the most
trivial injury on person or property; which,
when his own estates had been plundered,
ravaged and con6scated, took care to protect
the houses and property 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 nm
less the actual murderers were taken, no
blood should be shed but on the field of bat
tie; the touching unselfshncss of his last
words to his disbanding army, on the sor-
rowful 9th of April, 81 have done my best
for you" But IL was when all was over
when the chief Of a great and long victo-
rious army was private man and paroled
prisoncr-that the peculiar nature of General
Lees nature shines out with unequaied
brightness"