The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-10-15

NEWSPApERS OF THE CITY. &c
THE PRESS ON THE DEATH OF
GENERAL LEE.
From the Fredericksburg Hcraldl
The intelligence of the death of Robert
T.. Lee touched every heart with the deep
est grief. A nation Is In mourning, and the
entire world is sad at his demise. Ifs charac.
| ter and life, "without fear and without re-
prpach," are fresh In the memory Of his
countrymen. He needs no eulogy. His
Tame and name are emblazoned for all time
With the greatest and noblest of the earth.
Peace to his ashes.
lFrom the Fredericksburg News.1
Gen. Robert E. Lee is dead.
Breathes there man on earth whose
eyes do not weep and whose heart does not
bleed ut the announcement? The great,
brave, grand heart is still. Virginia, the
South, America, the world, has lost man
more worthy to be worshipped than Geo.
Washington.
lFron tho Charlottesville Chroucle.1
In General Lee the country loses one Of
the greatest men this world ever produced,
-; ~: - sihi'1 hct hopiest SOFA SOlQler, q
Christian, n gentleman, and q scholar,
From the Fredericksburg Leieer.l
Ihis sad news, although not entirely un-
eApected, Hills our heart with SORROW, and
casts gloom over our entire community.
y! MS services to the country, as an off,
Ger IN the United States service md the,, In
the Southern Contederacy. we need NOT
| write now. We may say, and sneak the
sentiment Of every heart that admires true
greatness and goodness, that he was greatly
endeared TO our entire people, and his
memory will ever live fresh in the hearts of
his countrymen. v
| From the New York Worldl
| General Lee.
70 say that the news which we this dav
publish of the death Of Robert Lee will
touch chord Of profotsnd and sincere re.
gret IN the hearts of Americans of all Sec
tions and Of the most diverse political opin.
ions, is to pay very high tribute to the
innate nobility and justice of the popular
instincts In free country. High as the tri-
butte is. it is not too high. There are many
things in the history Of our recent unhappy
dren; calm from our passions, if not wiser
IN their own day, may look back with
chagrin and shame. But to the latest
moment Of our national existence it will
be remembered with pride and sstIs-
faction Of tic northern people, who
fought through to its triumphant end
the great war for the Union, that they
paused i'll the darkest and bitterest season
OF the awful conflict to honor the high
souled ralor and the stainless, though, us
they judged it, the. sadly mistaken, zeal of
lowers who bore that rugged and religious
Firginian leader to his rest had no need TO
fear for him what the poet dreaded for the
| hero Of Corunna, that the foemen, march
ing past his soldiers grave, would
! ''u'er his cold ashes upbraid him.,
| \ great people proved their greatness in
his case by justice to magnificent qualities,
even when arrayed against the cause which
| they held to be their own and the cause OF
right.
What it might well have seemed hard
even for American flrptncil to do for the
| lion-hearted lieutenant of the contcderated
| South in the time of our greatest DANGER,
it will be comparatively easy to do for the
| steadtust eantait OF the contedcrated South
in the time Of our success. For; if tho
brave and gifted man who n0w has passed
away, more tiian all others who fought
against us, delayed our nevitable triumph
by his constancy and conduct while hone
lie
| moro than ali others also who had fought
| against US, more, too. than many others
| who had fought with us, did he contri-
butte, when the voice of fate had uttered
! its final verdict, to make our tri.
umph complete, noble, and assured. II is
Il poor and base standard of moral jjudg-
ment in public or in private affairs which
elects this OF that act of u mans life, no
matter how grave in itself or how wide
| rnu in tS Il -
| of his claims upon the respect of his fellows.
Every man is to be judged, SO tir 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 delib-
crate admiration even of those who most
earnestly condemned the course upon which
| he decided in the most solemn and impera-
! tive crisis of his life. Of his genius as mill
itary commander we do not now speak. To
| that the unanimous voice OF all the true
and gallant men who fought our long battle
out with him and his untirng army has
| borne abundant witness. The events which
| evoked it are still too near to us, too many
| melancholy memories still cluster about the
names OF those prodigious battle-fields of
| Virginia. to make 1t natural or possible for
| Il Northern pen TO dwell with complacency
upon the strategic resources, the mex
haustible patience, the calm determination,
of our most illustrious antagonist. But if
the testimony Of all honorable men who
contendcd against the great Southern Gen.
eral agrees with the verdict Of all competent
foreign critics in awarding to him a place
! among the most eminent soldiers of history
the concord is not less absolute Of all who
knew the man in the private and personal
aspects Of his life, as to his gentleness, his
love of justice, his truth, and his elevation
OF soul. Born of family identified with
the traditions of the oldest of American
Commonwealth, trained to believe that
loyalty to Virginia could not possibly in
the end be disloyalty to the republic which
Virginia had done and suffered SO much to
found-Robert Lee shrank with sincere
and unfeigned horror from the prospect of
civil war opened to the country by the Sc
ccsSion of the extreme southern States nor
is there any reason to doubt that, when
at the command Of Virginia, he finally and
regretfully drew his sword againt what he,
in common with hundreds Of thousands
more of upright and honest American citi-
Zens, regarded as the unconstitutional at
tempt of the Federal Government to arrest
secession by force of arms, he sincerely and
sadly believed himself to be doing his duty
to the principles of American liberty and
of American law. There was nothing in
him of the onspirator-nothing of the
fanatic. He fought neither for slavery nor
for empire. The men ut the South who
fought for either or for both distrusted
and disliked him from the first moment
of the war and to the last they yielded
an unwilling homage only to his skill
as commander, not to his motives
as Il citizen. To Robert Lee the dreadful
ordeal of battle was indeed u supreme arbi-