Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1897-12-23
JUSTICE TO GENERAL LEE,

OO0AASA IL O1l4V 12xGkAA AIL1l
The day of sectional bitterne,
is surely passing away when
Northern man a pay such a tr
butte to a Confederate leader s
did DR.. E. Benjamin Andrew.
President of Brown University, s
Providence, R.. l., in an address
recently delivered in Chicago
when he proclaimed General Rob
E. Lee to have been the most val
liant and heroic military genius O
modern times. DR.. Andrews di
not discredit the valor and bray
cry of the leaders under whom b
himself fought, but he gave tn
head of the Confederate army
more glory, according to a Chic
ago Times Herald's report of thu
address, because he had to face
giant problems in addition to the
ordinary puzzel of the severesl
fighting that history knew. He
thought that General Lee carried
out the instinct that was born in
him-the love for the art of wal
and the heart to carry, on war-in-
herited from an ancestry which
could could be traced to one of the
fercest of the companions of Will
liam who sailed away from the
shores of Normandy and conquer
Ell England. Continuing, he
said:
General Lee joined the Con
federacy because Virginia asked
him to. He was a Virginian. The
call of Virginia to any of her sons
is the voice of law and duty. He
had the faith of the crusader; his
letters would make a guide to hol-
mess. He was always a soldier,
never impure in thought or act,
never profane or obscene. He did
not touch the cup, as did Grant,
Hooker, or Phil Sheridan, and
when he lost a fight it was never
said of him that the defeat was due
to the habit which makes mems
heads into muddles. He was
never outgeneraled by Grant in
all the campaign from Rappahan-
mock to James river-never trap
ped and never caught mapping. It
usually happened that when the
men on u side ordered a march
at 5 in the morning they never
made more than half the distance
between the two armies. Lee had
ordered an advance at 4:3O.
81 fail to find in the books any
such masterful generalship as this
hero showed, holding that slim,
gray line, half starved, with no
prospect of additions, and fighting
when his army was too hungry to
stand and the rifles were only
used as clubs. His courage was
sublime. He was as great as Gus
taVus Adolphus, or Napoleon, or
Wellington, or Won Moltke. His
cause was not the Lost Cause so
much as is suspected. All that
good in his cause has been
grated into our laws and our con-
stitution. General Lee lost at
Gettysburg because the Federal
had received a new motor
If tremendous strength whose
power only one knew-General
He also lost because
Meade's men fighting on
soil-almost within hearing :
distance of the prayers Of their (
wives and children for victory. E
they we're at their hearthstones I
len are tigers when wives and :
antilles are the inspiration of 1
rar.7 a
With the cloud of sectionalism t
ntirely dispelled as is rapidly a
eing done, Robert e. Lee will
tand confessed by all men the
Yorld oyer as the most chival- :
ic, and as DR.. Andrews says,
the most valiant and heroic mill G
AIRY genius Of modern times."
S he undoubtedly was. It is t,
leasant to read the words of the s.
istinguished Northern educator. =
hey foretell the rapid approach p
: the day when equal and exact n
istice will be accorded by all to Z,
lie leaders on both sides in the 81
reat struggle of a third of a III
sntury ago. :;