Various - Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia)

V >> Various >> Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia)

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Soon, however, the indication of a long peace proved delusive, and the
scene shifted. This time it was decreed that he should behold the
terrible conflict in which one portion of his unhappy country was to
engage in deadly array with another portion. Obeying what he conceived
to be the mandate of his State, he followed the impulse of his feelings
and the example of his kindred and his friends, and periled all in that
belief. He participated at once, and most actively, in some of the most
sanguinary engagements of the civil war. Wounded at one place, taken
prisoner at another, then exchanged, and again in the van of battle, we
find him following the forlorn hope until the close of the struggle at
Appomattox, when he again returned to the old farm.

He possessed the undivided confidence of his constituents. He was
regarded by them, as he was so long observed by us in our intimate
associations with him in this Hall, and especially in the committee
rooms, as an intelligent and conscientious legislator, a laborious
servant of the people, a courtly gentleman, a generous and devoted
companion. Loyal as he was to his political convictions, he was yet the
most considerate and the most conservative in his relations with those
who radically differed with him. He admired frankness; he despised
duplicity. While he was obedient to the reasonable edicts of caucus and
party organization, we recall occasions when he was prompt to rise above
the partisan. He was as broad-gauge and comprehensive in the study and
performance of his duty toward all parts and all interests of his
reunited country as he was anxious for the obliteration of sectional
animosity and sincere and generous of heart in his social obligations to
all of his fellow-men.

The most touching remembrance we bear of Gen. LEE's goodness of heart
has reference to his custom in springtime of bringing to this Hall from
his farm great quantities of lovely roses, and having them distributed
to his associates of both political parties on this floor with his
compliments. Here we have a practical illustration that flowers are the
interpreters of man's best feelings. In oriental lands the language of
flowers was early studied and made expressive. As Percival says:

Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears.

With Gen. LEE they bore tidings of good will to partisan friend and
partisan foe alike. They bespoke in mute eloquence the expansive heart
of one "that loved his fellow-men." Little, however, did he think at the
time that these beautiful roses were especially speaking to him as
emblems of a near immortality. Awakening from their sleep of winter,
they were also harbingers of a brighter day to him and of the bloom of
a glorious resurrection. The Germans have a saying that "he who loves
flowers loves God." If this be applied to Gen. LEE, we have the blessed
assurance that he has approached close to the celestial throne.

Gen. LEE belonged to one of the most historic families of America.
Looking back to the early settlement and the pioneer struggles of the
peninsula and then through the plantation and colonial period of entire
Virginia, we everywhere discover the genius, the dauntless courage, the
independence, and the resolute patriotism of the Lees. It has been well
said, sir, that Virginia is the mother of Presidents; and this is true.
A momentary reflection does not suffice to demonstrate the various
causes which combined to bestow upon the Old Dominion this prominence. A
mature study, however, will serve a double purpose. It will teach us not
only how Virginia more than any other State became the nursery for
Presidents and statesmen, but how at the same time were given character
and fame to its distinguished family--the Lees.

The permanency and prosperity of states and political bodies are as much
due to the character of their superstructures as are the strength and
stability of the material edifice to the foundation upon which it rests.
The Argonauts of Virginia united in a remarkable degree the pride and
culture and learning and loyalty of the Cavaliers with the conviction of
purpose and martial courage and discipline of the followers of Cromwell.
First came the heroic vanguard--the men like Capt. John Smith--who
blazed the way through the forests of the James, the York, the
Chickahominy, and Pamunkey. Then followed the refined, enthusiastic, and
chivalric gentlemen of the polished court of Charles I, with many of the
clergy, who brought with them their intense loyalty to the Crown, as
well as to the episcopal government and Anglican ritual. Among these,
too, were the proselyted royalists; old and honorable families after the
defeat of Charles, seeking exile in the far distant yet faithful
Virginia. Then came those who triumphed at Naseby, and overthrew the
kingly office and maintained the constitution of the realm and the
integrity of Magna Charta and the Petition of Rights.

The necessity for self-defense and the maintenance of order originated
self-government and the assertion of individual right, and these united
the widely variant elements of the community in a loyal union. It was
the amalgamation of such spirits in Virginia in 1676 which demanded the
right of personal liberty, of universal suffrage, and of representation;
and here was fought the prelude of that great drama one hundred years
later, when a Virginian, in the name of a whole nation, penned the
immortal words which proclaimed to all the world the "inalienable right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Here were the Lees, the
Patrick Henrys, the Randolphs, the Jeffersons, the Madisons, and the
Masons of Virginia; and here, to close the drama with freedom's
triumphant army, was the most illustrious of them all--George
Washington. It was from such an ancestry our late colleague was
descended, and it was from such teachings and such examples he imbibed
his zealous convictions of right and his sturdy regard for the exalted
prerogatives of a free people.

ADDRESS OF MR. WASHINGTON, OF TENNESSEE.

Mr. SPEAKER: On the 15th of last October death again invaded the ranks
of this House. The mysterious messenger laid the summons of his cold
silent hand upon one who had immeasurably endeared himself to all whose
good fortune it had been to know him. To-day we pause amid the rush of a
nation's public business to mourn the country's loss and to pay a just
tribute to the noble dead. When such a man as our late colleague, Gen.
WILLIAM H.F. LEE, is taken from our midst, a void is made which can
nevermore be filled. It is not his visible presence or his tangible body
that we shall so much miss. It is the magnetism of a pure mind, the
silent, potent influence of a spotless character, the power of a great,
good, and noble soul to elevate and dignify all with whom it came in
contact that will prove our irreparable loss. No man ever associated
with Gen. LEE without feeling the better for it. To have been with him
made you feel like one who had drawn a long deep inspiration of pure
fresh air into his lungs after breathing the stifling atmosphere of a
close room. His thoughts, his conversation, his ideas diffused about him
a sound and healthy morality, that was as natural to him as its delicate
odor is to the rose. Modest and gentle as a woman; sympathetic as a
child; guileless as the day; a logical, well-trained, accurate mind; a
horror of injustice; absolutely devoid of resentment; a benignant
countenance, and a splendid physique, made him indeed a man among men.

Sir, I believe not only in early training, but in the force of early
surroundings and family traditions. Sprung from an illustrious line of
statesmen and patriots, who had left their impress on every page of the
history, civil and military, of this country from the colonial days to
the present; born on those beautiful heights overlooking this city at
Arlington, where the house was filled with the sanctified relics and the
very atmosphere he breathed in childhood was pregnant with the
traditions and precepts of "the Father of his Country;" his mother being
the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of the
immortal Washington; his father that world-renowned military commander,
the self-poised, calm, patient, dignified, glorious Gen. Robert E. Lee,
it would be unnatural not to expect to find the impress of all these on
the heart and mind and character and life of Gen. WILLIAM H.F. LEE.

To some my words of eulogy may appear fulsome; but having known him in
public and in private, at home by his own fireside, as well as abroad on
the active field of life, I know that my poor words can but fail to do
full justice to his true worth. With him the performance of duty was
accompanied by no harsh word or cynical expression; on the contrary, his
calmness and uniform sweetness of manner were almost poetical. I recall
a notable instance in the Fiftieth Congress, when, pressing under the
most trying circumstances the passage of a bill for the relief of the
Episcopal high school near Alexandria, he was temperate and patient.
Standing on the Republican side of this Hall, among those who questioned
him, his words fell softly and evenly as snowflakes on the turbulent
House, which finally by an almost unanimous vote passed his bill.

He shrank from publicity; therefore he never spoke on this floor unless
it was necessary to push a measure intrusted to his charge; then he
always acquitted himself with credit. In the committee and among his
colleagues his influence was irresistible, because his judgment and
integrity were above dispute.

With him a public office was a public trust, which he accepted and
administered for his State and his constituents without regard to race,
color, or party affiliation. Many times have I seen him, when coming in
from his country home in the morning, met at the depot by a dozen or
more of his constituents, claiming his attention to their private
matters with the Departments of the Government.

The patience and tender care with which he heard and looked after each
were paternal and pathetic. His love for little children was intense and
beautiful. Nothing made him happier than to fill some little fellow's
hands and pockets with candies and fruits, claiming only in return a shy
caress. In his home is where his perfectly balanced Christian character
shone in its brightest light. As father and husband he was indeed a
model man.

I shall attempt no extended biographical sketch; that has already been
well done by others. Yet I can not refrain from saying that in every
stage of his career Gen. LEE did his whole duty, actuated entirely and
solely by the loftiest motives.

A graduate of Harvard at twenty, he was appointed a second lieutenant in
the regular Army. Often I have heard him tell of the wearisome march
across the plains to California with his regiment, long in advance of
civilization and railroads, when most of that journey through the desert
was made perilous by roving bands of hostile Indians. Retiring from the
Army, he married and settled at the historic White House, in lower
Virginia. There he was the typical Southern country gentleman of
refinement and culture, taking an active interest in agriculture and the
public affairs of his community. When the war between the States
summoned Virginia's sons to her defense he again became a soldier.

Throughout the struggle he discharged every duty and was equal to every
responsibility placed upon him. His soldiers loved and trusted him as a
father, for they knew he would sacrifice no life for empty glory. The
saddest chapter in all his life was when--a prisoner of war at Fort
Monroe, lying desperately wounded, with the threat of a retaliatory
death-sentence suspended over his head, in hourly expectation of its
execution--he heard of the fatal illness of his wife and two little
children but a few miles away. Earnestly his friends begged that he
might be allowed to go and say the last farewell to them on earth. A
devoted brother came, like Damon of old, and offered himself to die in
"Rooney's" place. War, inexorable war, always stern and cruel, could not
accept the substituted sacrifice, and while the sick wounded soldier,
under sentence of death, lay, himself almost dying, in the dungeon of
the Fort, his wife and children "passed over the river to rest under the
trees" and wait there his coming. Yet no word of reproach ever passed
his gentle lips. He accepted it all as the fortune of war.

In all the walks of life--as a student at college, as an officer in the
regular Army, as a planter on the Pamunkey, as a leader of cavalry in
the civil war, as a farmer struggling with the chaos and confusion that
beset him under the new order of things following the abolition of
slavery, as president of the Virginia Agricultural Society, as State
senator, and as a member of Congress--Gen. WILLIAM H.F. LEE met every
requirement, was equal to every emergency, and left a name for honor,
truth, and virtue which should be a blessed heritage and the inspiration
for a nobler and loftier life to all those who shall succeed him.

ADDRESS OF MR. HENDERSON, OF ILLINOIS.

Mr. SPEAKER: It is not my purpose at this time to make any extended
remarks upon the life and public services of the late Gen. WILLIAM H.F.
LEE. Other gentlemen of the House, more intimately acquainted with Gen.
LEE in his lifetime, are better prepared to do justice to his memory
than I am. But having enjoyed a very pleasant acquaintance with the
deceased during his four years' service as a member of this body, I
desire to express the great respect which I entertained for him as a
gentleman of high character and of noble, manly qualities. Descended
from one of the most highly honored families in the State in which he
had his birth, he was liberally educated, and at an early age entered
the Army as a second lieutenant and served as such until 1859, when he
resigned his commission and returned to the peaceful pursuits of civil
life. In 1861 he followed his illustrious father, and entered the
service of the Confederate States as a captain of cavalry. That he was a
brave and gallant soldier there can be no doubt, for his military
history shows that he rose step by step from the rank of a captain to
that of a major-general of cavalry. In 1865 he surrendered with his
father at Appomattox, and renewed his allegiance and devotion, as I am
glad to believe, to the Government of the United States.

I can but wish, Mr. Speaker, that such honored names as those of Gen.
WILLIAM H.F. LEE and his distinguished father had never been led into
rebellion against the Government of their country. But they felt it to
be their duty to follow the fortunes of their State, and let us to-day,
while mourning the departure of our deceased friend, rejoice that the
surrender at Appomattox has been followed by a restored Union, and that
our reunited, undivided country is now one of the strongest, most
powerful, and prosperous of all the nations of the earth.

As a Representative in this body, while he was not inclined to
participate actively in the discussion of public and political
questions, still Gen. LEE took great interest in all that pertained to
the public welfare, and especially in that which, in his judgment, was
in the interest of his immediate constituents. He was an able, faithful,
and efficient Representative as well as a noble, manly man, and in all
my intercourse with men I never met a more genial, warm-hearted,
pleasant gentleman than the distinguished citizen to whose memory we pay
tribute to-day. I well remember his kindly greetings, and I am sure all
of us who knew Gen. LEE deeply regret his loss as a member of this body,
to which he was for a third time elected by his confiding constituents,
and extend to his sorrowing bereaved family our warm heartfelt
sympathies.

ADDRESS OF MR. CHIPMAN, OF MICHIGAN.

Mr. SPEAKER: I have not been in the habit of speaking upon occasions of
this kind, but it is one of the joys of my life, a very great joy
indeed, to feel that I had a place in the heart of the gentleman whom we
are now commemorating. I knew him very well, and in many respects I
regarded him as one of the most fortunate men whom it was ever my
pleasure to know. While many men here are struggling for fame, while
many of them will leave the struggle heartsick, weary, defeated, he had
that power, that charm, so precious and so lovely, of attaching men to
him by the ties of affection. Little children loved him.

There was a benignancy, a sweetness of demeanor, which attracted them to
him, and while his name may not be sounded in the trump of fame, yet the
subtile power of his gentleness and goodness has permeated many lives,
will shape many destinies, and will have a force in the history of the
world greater than that which will be exerted by many who will succeed
him here. He was a soldier, yet he was gentle and kind. He was a
descendant of a long line of honored ancestry, yet he did not believe
that mere wealth was necessary either to respectability or to greatness.
He was a farmer and loved the soil. He looked upon the ripened grain as
the flower of human hope and as a minister to human needs. He loved the
breath of cattle, and he regarded the occupation of an agriculturist as
the noblest and the best in which a man could be engaged. He was a true
son of the soil--hearty, simple, gentle, true.

But, sir, the particulars of his career, both public and private, have
been recounted by those who knew him well; have been recounted with
great force, with great eloquence and propriety. There is, however, one
part of that career to which I wish to refer. He was engaged in the
memorable struggle which convulsed this nation from center to
circumference and which fastened the gaze of the civilized world. I wish
upon this occasion to say emphatically, that wherever we may have stood
in that struggle, whatever was good and great in any man participating
on either side of it is a precious heritage to the entire American
people to-day. We proved that, North, South, East, West, we had not
degenerated in the qualities which make a nation great.

Grant and Lee, Sherman, Sheridan, and the two Johnstons have gone from
us forever, and every day the green sward of peace, the flowers of
affection, are placed above the grave of some hero of the blue or the
gray. But I love to think that above these graves stands the Genius of
American freedom, serene and grand, and bids the world behold how brave
the sons of the Republic were in the past; how united they are in one
purpose and one destiny in the present; how certain they are to be a
people noted for reasonable liberty, for perfect union, and for
sufficient material power to be formidable and just alike to the other
nations of the earth.

And so, sir, I come and lay the flowers of my Northern home upon the
bier of this son of Virginia, this good citizen, this patriot, this man
who, I am proud to believe, held even me in his affection. And when
gentlemen here speak of the terror and the mystery of death, I tell them
that to such a man death has no terrors, and that to the good man it has
no mystery; for in that illimitable hereafter, which must be populated
by all the sons of men, it must be, it will be, well with all of us.

ADDRESS OF MR. WILSON, OF WEST VIRGINIA.

Mr. SPEAKER: The House has already heard from his friend and successor
the story of Gen. LEE's life. I shall not, therefore, repeat it even in
briefest outline. Enough for me to say that he was one in a long lineage
of noted men, who by some innate force and virtue had stood forth in
three generations as leaders of their fellow-men; that he was the son of
the greatest of all who have borne the name, and that in early manhood
he exhibited the soldierly instincts and the soldierly capacity that
seemed to be historically associated with it.

With such a lineage and with such a history he came to this House, and I
believe I can offer no higher tribute to his memory to-day than to say
that in all his associations with us here he was the embodiment of
gentleness and modesty. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, as I now recall Gen. LEE,
and explore with aching heart the memory of a close and cordial
friendship with him, I can say with confidence that in the blending of
these rare traits I have never known his equal. They were a part of his
nature, not more illustrated in business and social intercourse with
fellow-members than in his relations with the page who did him service
and who learned to regard himself in some way as the special friend and
associate of Gen. LEE.

Many of us doubtless can recall the evident pride of the little fellow
who occasionally placed upon our desks the roses which his kindly patron
brought by the basketful in the spring mornings from his Virginia home
to brighten the sittings of the House. And this gentleness and modesty
were the more attractive because they were the adornment of a sincere
and manly character. How much came to him as the rich legacy of
ancestral blood and how much was wrought into his nature by the training
of his youth it is idle to speculate. In both respects he was lifted far
above the common lot of men. Of his mother it is said by those who knew
her well that she was one of the most accomplished and at the same time
most domestic, sensible, and practical of women. Of his father's
influence and teaching, to say nothing of his lofty example, we have the
striking proofs, if any were needed, in letters that have been
published. Let me cull but an occasional expression from these
unaffected outpourings of the heart of Robert E. Lee toward the son he
loved so well. "My precious Roon," as he was wont to call him.

When the boy was not yet ten years of age he closes a playful letter,
adapted to such tender years, with these earnest words:

Be true, kind, and generous, and pray earnestly to God to enable
you to keep His commandments and to walk in the same all the days
of your life.

A year later, writing from the ship _Massachusetts_, off Lobos, to his
two sons, a letter full of interest to boys, he urges them to diligence
in study:

I shall not feel my long separation from you if I find that my
absence has been of no injury to you, and that you have both grown
in goodness and knowledge as well as in stature; but how I shall
suffer on my return if the reverse has occurred. You enter into all
my thoughts, into all my prayers, and on you in part will depend
whether I shall be happy or miserable, as you know how much I love
you.

Ten years later, when the son had become a lieutenant in the Army, he
admonishes him:

I hope you will always be distinguished for your avoidance of the
universal bane whisky and every immorality. Nor need you fear to be
ruled out of the society that indulges in it, for you will acquire
their esteem and respect, as all venerate, if they do not practice,
virtue. I hope you will make many friends, as you will be thrown
with those who deserve this feeling. But indiscriminate intimacies
you will find annoying and entangling, and they can be avoided by
politeness and civility. When I think of your youth, impulsiveness,
and many temptations, your distance from me, and the ease (and even
innocence) with which you might commence an erroneous course, my
heart quails within me and my whole frame and being tremble at the
possible results. May Almighty God have you in His holy keeping. To
His merciful providence I commit you, and I will rely upon Him and
the efficacy of the prayers that will be daily and hourly offered
up by those who love you.

A year or two later, on New Year's Day, 1859, he writes:

I always thought there was stuff in you for a good soldier and I
trust you will prove it. I can not express the gratification I
felt, in meeting Col. May in New York, at the encomium he passed
upon your soldiership, your zeal, and your devotion to your duty.
But I was more pleased at the report of your conduct; that went
more to my heart and was of infinite comfort to me. Hold on to your
purity and virtue; they will proudly sustain you in all trials and
difficulties and cheer you in every calamity.

So, too, when the young lieutenant had married and settled down a
typical Virginian farmer upon the estate left him by his grandfather
Custis, the well-known "White House" on the Pamunkey, the home of Martha
Washington:

I am glad to hear that your mechanics are all paid off and that you
have managed your funds so well as to have enough for your
purposes. As you have commenced, I hope you will continue never to
exceed your means. It will save you much anxiety and mortification
and enable you to maintain your independence of character and
feeling. It is easier to make our wishes conform to our means than
to make our means conform to our wishes. In fact, we want but
little. Our happiness depends upon our independence, the success of
our operations, prosperity of our plans, health, contentment, and
the esteem of our friends, all of which, my dear son, I hope you
may enjoy to the full.

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