The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1885-11-12
Origin OF Famous Expression.

The reviewer of MIR. McMaster's Sec
ond volume, in the last Dial noticed
his error in attributing to ge Mar
shall. instead of Col. Henry Lee. the
authorship of the well-known sentence
concerning Washington: First in
war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his couutrymen. The cor
rect reading OF this familiar quotation
is in doubt Marshall. in his Life of
Washington (vol. v. p. 76O, prints
the proceedings of the house of repre-
sentatives and the resolutions read on
the death of Washington, in which the
sentence first appeared. The last
clause there reads-'.and first in the
hearts of his fellow citizens" Col.
Lee, q week later, used the sentence in
his Grafton before congress. and makes
it end with ''countrymen" instead of
"fellow citizens. The "Annals of
Congress" Q799-1S01, page 204) re-
ports tho resolutions read in the house,
and ends the sentence with country
men," The ''AunaIs," however, was
not contemporaneous publication.
having been made up more than twen-
ty years later, by Gales and Seaton,
from such materials as they could find.
Its wording of the resolutions is so un-
like that given by Marshall and other
contemporaries that they must have
been reported from memory. wash
ingtoniana, published at Baltimore in
$500, is a compilation. made up soon af-
ter the death of Washington, of public
resolutions, testimonials of respect,
and orations. The resolutions read in
the house there appear in precisely the
words quoted by Marshall, except that
the sentence under consideration ends
neither with '.fellow-citi1ens" nor
''countrymen, but with country
(page 11O). Two pages later, the
same resolutions are given as adopted
in the senate, and the sentence again
ends with country" Gen. Robert
E, Lee, of the confederate army. was
the son of Col Henry Lee; and in the
life of his father, 1868 (prefixed to the
reprint of Col. Lees "Memoirs of the
Revolutionary War in the Southern
Department') quotes, on page 81, the
sentence, and ends it as Marshall gave
1t, with fellow-citizens. This state
ment might be regarded as authori-
tative us to the reading, if Gen. Lee on
the next page had not spoiled the in
ference by saying: But there is a
line-a single line-in the works of
Lee which would hand him over to inn
mortality, though he had never writ
ten another: First in war, first in
peace, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen' will last while language
lasts. +" The question is unanswered
''ln what form will it lastp' We VEN
ture to express the opinion that Col.
Lee used, on different occasions. both
forms; and hence either form is cor
rect. He was an ardent federalist and
devoted military and personal friend
of Washington during and subsequent
to the war. His grief at the death of
this dearest friend first took form in
mis- own personal loss; and then, as a
Virginian, in the loss his state had sus-
tanned. While in this frame of mind
he wrote the resolution read in con-
zenss =e@hief t6'ilffn meant '.virgIr-
ians." Having later been appointed
by congress 10 deliver an Grafton on
Washington, as an expression of the
grief OF the nation, be again used the
sentence, and gave it broader mean
ing by changing "his fellow-citizens"
to Ibis countrymen. '-1he Dial.