The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1867-10-12
4 High Tribute TO she Character
Of General Lee.

In long editorial article calling for
the donation Of 10000 TO Washington
College by the friends and admirers Of
General Robert f. Lee in England. the
Loadoa Standard speaks of him as fol-
lows;
There Is no living hero-ihere are
few. if any. whose names shine with the
purest lustre in history-whose charac-
lers have commanded so high a tribute Of
affection aLd admiration FROM their friends.
Or respect aud honor firm their foes as
that Of General Lee No life more per
fectly hc.oic, no reputation more untarn-
ished even by the minor blemishes which
are no. uncommonly fouud in union with
the highest heroism, has ever been con
nected with the great national struggle
No shadessoF vanity, Of egoiism, nothing
Of the sell. viii Or peiulence so often char
actcristic of conscious genius, no tiuge Of
afocta,iou, no faint even Of the pride al.
most inseparable from ordinary grcati Q IS
Of mind, which can endure everything
but humiliation, aud regards submission
as disgrace, alloy the simple grandeur of
the Virginia soldiers nature.
4 piety without the slightest shadow
of Pharisaism, a sense of duty to which
the sacrifice of every personal feeling and
interest appears matter of course, have
marked his whole conrse 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 Tndepend-
ence. General Lee has been the Washing
ton of the Confederate war; like Wash.
ington, man "whom envy did not hate, :
but without even the one dark stain of
doubt, if not dishonor. which the death
of Major Andre has left on the memory
of his prototype No more sclfess man
and stainless gentleman ever lived; no
soldier ever set 4 more admirable example
of the soldicrly virtues of honor, chiyrl-
ric generosity and manly simplicity: no
great man ever retired into obscurity, af-
ter witnessing alike the ruin of his cause
and the destruction of his private fortune,
with more of Christian patience and un-
shaken fortitudc.
OF his militory achievements we need
not speak. tits enough to say that nearly
all his victories were won against enor-
nous odds, and that his four years defense
of Virginia has few parallels in history
as an example of great results accom-
plished with small means and fearful
disadvantage.
What is now interesting to remember
is the personal character o. the man, as
displayed in the various exigcncies of
that trying struggle; the simple honesty
aud kindly feeling which prompted him to
console his soldiers as they recoiled from
the cannon-crowned heights of Gettys-
burg, with the assurance, it was all my
fault" the unaffected self-depreciation
which he pronounced when Stonewall
jackson fell, / could wish, for the sake
of our cause, that | had been disabled
rather than you;" the Christian chivalry
which no outrage could provoke to retail
alton which, after Virginia had been
rendered desert, Withheld the army that
inyaded Pennsylvania from iuficting the
most trivial injury on person or property;
which, when his own estates had been
plundered rayaged aud confscated, took
care to protect tho houses and property Of
his enemies the horrors of useless blood
shed which withstood the cry for retribu-
ton excited by the murder of Southern
prisoners in cold blood, and supported the
resolve of the President that unless the
actual murderers were taken, no blood
should be shed but on the battlefield
the touching unselfshness of his last
words to his disbanding army, on tho sor,
rowful 9Th Of April, have done my
best for you" But it was when all was
over-when tho chief of great and lone
victorious army was private man and !
paroled prisoner-that the peculiar great
nes of General Lees nature shone ou
with unequaled brightness.