Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1870-10-21


a mans life, no matter how grave in itsell
or how wide-reaching in its relations, al
the decisive test of his claims upon the re
spect of his fellows. Every man is to be
Judged, SO. far as. human Judgment may be
passed upon him at all, by the tenor
Of the motives to which the main current
OF his days has responded. Judged by
this standard, the career of ROBERT LEE
must command the deliberate admiration
even of those who most earnestly condemn
the course upon which he decided in the
most solemn and imperative crisis of his
life. Of his genius as military COM
mander We do not now speak. To that
the unanimous voice of all the true and
gallant men who fought our long battle
ont with him and his untiring army has
borne abundant witness. The events which
evoked 1T are still too near us, too macy
melancholy memories still cluster about
the names of those prodigious battle fields
of Virginia, to make it natural or possible
for Northern pen to dwell with compla-
cency upon the strategic resources, the in
exhaustible patience, the calm determine
ton, of our most illustrious antagonist
But if the testimony of all honorable men
who contendcd against the great Southern
General agrees with the verdict of all COM
petent foreign critics in awarding to him
place among the most eminent so diers of
history the concord is not less absolute of
all who knew the man in the private and
persona! aspects OF his life, as to his gen
| tleness, his love of justice, his truth, and
his elevation of soul. Born of q family
identified with the traditions of the oldest
of American commOnwealths trained to
believe that loyalty to Virginia could not
! possibly in the end be disioyalty to the
republic which Virginia had done and suf-
fered SO much to found-IsoBERT LEE
shrank with sincere and unfoigned horror
! from the prospect of civil war opened 10
| the country By the secession OF the extreme
| Southern States ; nor is there any reason
to doubt that, when al the command of
| Virginia ho finally and rogrotfuiIy drew
| his sword .,Bainst what he, In common
with hundreds Of thousands more
of upright and honest Americar
citizens, regarded as the uncons itutl ma.
attempt OF the Federal government to ar
| rest secession by force of arms, he sincere-
| ly and sadly believed himself to be doing
his duty to the principles of Am erican
| liberty and Of American Jaw. There was
nothing IL him OF the conspirator, moth
ing of the fanatic. He fought neither for
slavery nor for empire. Ihe men OF the
South who fought for either or for both
distrusted and disllked him from the first
moment of the war !; and to tho last they
yielded an unwilling homage only to his
| skill as O commander, not to his motives
as citizen. To ROBERT LEE the dreadful
ordeal of battle was indeed supreme
arbltrament between two vast and mad
dened sections of @ common country-an
arbitrament thrust upon him, not invited
| by him; accepted, and not desired. The
sternest censor of his action, being just as
well as stern, must acquit him OF ali par
| ticipation in the proceedings which
| brought US to this awfnl arbitrament, as
the general sense of the whole reunited
people of the Union acquits him of any
act done or word uttered to protract for g.
| single hour beyond the closing of the dread
account at Appomattox the passions and
| the perturbations of the strife.
Under all the provocations-and they
have been manifold and bitter-addressed
| by reckless and interruptions partisans to
the sore and humiliated South, the broken
sword, the silent dignity, of ROBERT LEE
have pleaded more eloQuently than words
with the people, who had learned to trust
him rs their head and hand, and eye, for
patience and for self-command. Neither
withdrawing himself from the daily life
and conversation of the community in
| which he lived. nor thrnsting himself upon
| the public affairs of the nation, he has
earned an enduring title to something
more than admiration from the one, to
something more than forgiveness from the
other. It was the hope of our fathers,
when they founded the republic, that they
had secured for us through all time an
exemption from those cruel commissions of
civil strife through which all other nations
| had been condemned to pass. That hope
was vain. But it is still permitted us to
believe, despite the follies and the crimes
| of power perpetrated during the past five
years, that our great civil war may end, as
none in history before It have ended,
without perpetuating to remote generations
| the bitterness of our own passions. To
J make this belief reality is the very nobest
task which any true American can set him
self to day. It can be achieved neither by
the people of the South alone nor by the
people of the North. No section can ac-
complish it, nor any party; but the stead
fast CO. operation alone of honest and brave
ald generous men in all sections and of all
parties. TO all such mon the soldier -citi-
zen-and let US not shrink from saying it
the patriot, whom Virginia mourns to-day,
speaks from his grave, as from his modest
home he has spoken for Eve long years of
magnanimous calm, words full of warning
at once and of hope:
| ''You SEQ what mischief and what murder. TOO.
| Hath been enacted through your enmity
Then, be at peace. except ye thirst for blcod!"
From the N. Y. Herald.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE.
Within tho last six months death has
been remarkably busy among the great
warriors of our civil conflict. With THOMAS,
FARRAGUT and LEE, the three men who
throughout the contest most nearly repre-
sented the American idea of the true
knightly soldier, the Bayards of the con-
tending forces, have departed from earth.
While the reunited Union deeply deplored
the loss of FARRAGUT anl THyMAs, and
freely lavishe the highest encomiums uLo
, their names and memories, it cam It with
!, hold its tribute TO the soldier just dead
who, while warning in an unhappy and IL
lusory cause pursued his individual course
with the true instincts of soldierly honor
While he sought by force of arms, by al
the accepted appliances OF the military
at, and by the energetic exerciseq OF hll
unqays lonable military genius secure th,
: victory, be never descended 70 the childisI
trick of undertaking his enemv nor suiiIec
his record with the horrible atrocities &
! soma of his auhnrdin atea OF IL. o..,,.--