Year: 1866

General Lee.


In a long editorial article calling for
subscription Of G1O.00O to Washington
College by the friends and admirers of Gen,
Lee in England, the London Standard, Of
August 18th. speaks Of him as follows:


"There is no living hero-there are few.
if any, among those whose names shine
with the purest lustre in history-whose
character has commanded so high a tribute
of affection and admiration from neir trends,
of respect and honor from their foes, as chat
of Gen. Lee. No life more perfectly heroic,
no reputation more untarnished even by the
minor blemishes which are not uncommon
monty found in union with the highest he
Foisn, has ever been connected with a great
national struggle. No shade Of vanity or
egotism, nothing of the self-will of petu-
lance so often characteristic of conscious
genius, no tinge of afeotation, no taint even
of the pride almost inseparable from ordi-
nary greatness Of mind, which can endure
everyt ing but humiliation, and regards
submission as disgrace, alloy the simple
grandeur of the Virginia soldiers nature.


A piety without the slightest show of
Phariseism; sense of duty to which the
sacrifice OF every personal feeling and inter-
est appears matter of course. have marked
his whole course and guided his every
public act, whether as a soldier or as a citi-
zen.


A family connection and the nearest liv-
ing representative of the great champion
of American independence, Gen. Lee has
been the Washington of the Confederate
war; like Washington a man whom envy
dared not to hate but without the one dark
stain of doubt, if not of dishonor, which
the death of Major Andre has left on the
memory of his prototype. No more self
less man and stainless gentleman ever
lived: no soldier ever set a more admirable
example to the soldiery virtues of honor,
chivalric generosity and manly simplicity;
no great man ever retired into obscurity,
after Witnessing alike the ruin of his
cause and the destruction of his private
fortune, with more of christian patience
and unshaken fordtude.


Of his military achievements we need not
speak. It is enough to say that nearly all
his victories were won against enormous
odds, and that his four years defence of
Virginia had but few parallels in history as
an example of great results accomplished
with small means and at fearful disadvan-
! ,age What is more interesting to remem-
I I, i r l,,,
displayed in the various exigencies OF that
trying struggle; the simple honesty and
kindly feeling which prompted him to con
sole his soldiers as they recoiled from the
cannon crowned mouth at Gettysburg, with
the assurance, ''It is all my fault;' the uu-
affected self depreciation which pronounced,
when Stonewall Jackson fell, 1 could wish
/ for the sake of our cause, that 1 had been
disabled rather than yon;' the christian
chivalry, which no outrage could provoke
to retaliation, which after Virginia had
/ been reduced to a desert, withheld the army
/ that invaded Pennsylvania from inficdng
the most trivial injury on person OF proper
/ ty; which, when his own estate had been
/ plundered, ravaged and confscated, took
care to protect the houses of his enemies;
the horror Of useless bloodshed which with
stood the cry for retributiou 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 field Of
battle; the touching unselfshness of his
last words to his dsbanding army, on the
sorrowful 9th of April, L have done my
best for YOU


But it was when all was over-when
the chief of great and long victorious
army was a private man and a Paroled
prisoner-that the peculiar greatness OF
General Lees nature shines out with une-
qualed brightness"