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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What a rush was there to the standards when war broke out in 1861!
Americans acted like Americans. They divided in conviction. They did not
differ as to the method of dealing with conviction. To divide was the
propulsion of conditions, to fight the law of blood. Not one of the Lees
had provoked war, but not one stood back. The whole family of Lees
became representative soldiers of their people; Gen. Robert E. Lee
commanded the greatest of the Southern armies and his brother became an
admiral of the Southern navy. His sons and nephews were soldiers and
sailors.

The nephew of Northern identity kept place with the North. The more
numerous class of Southern identity kept place with the South; the boy,
a private in the ranks or cadet on shipboard, the young men leading
companies and regiments and winning brigades and divisions, the sire and
chief commanding all. Their names are interwoven with war's dread story
and splendid deed. Not one had any reproach; not one struck a blow below
the belt. The woman, the child, the captive found a fortress in the hand
of Lee, the foeman met his peer. The history of two continents and many
centuries was written over again on fields of blood.

WILLIAM H.F. LEE raised a company of cavalry at the beginning of the war
and surrendered as a major-general of cavalry at Appomattox. He fought
his way to his rank and suffered all of war's vicissitudes save death.
His men believed in him and followed him. He was wounded; he was twice a
prisoner; he was held as a hostage in solitary confinement with death
impending. His wife and his children died while he lay wounded and in
prison. Whatever man may suffer he suffered to the uttermost. Amongst
his first acts when he emerged from prison was to visit, shake hands
with and congratulate the Federal officer for whom he had been held as
hostage. He was a representative Christian, void of vindictiveness and
uncomplaining; he made no outcry of pain; he sealed his lips to
reproach.

I knew him well, respected him profoundly, and loved him dearly. I have
often heard him speak at gatherings of old soldiers and on a variety of
occasions; sometimes those of turbulence. I have marveled at his
self-poise and reserved power. Never once did I hear him say ill of any
man, nor allude to his own sufferings or deeds, nor utter words of
bitterness. He took his lot as it came to him, as a man who does the
best he can and leaves the rest to the Disposer of events. His
conscience and his human sympathy, like his soldiership, were instincts,
and his Christian creed was the sum of his intuitions. Gen. LEE was a
representative of the times in which he lived, eccentric in no opinion,
even-tempered, wise, cautious, prudent, steadfast, and gentle; he sought
to be useful rather than to shine. He took deep and active interest in
all that concerned his State.

As a State senator he could be relied upon to support liberal and
progressive measures; as president of the State Agricultural Society he
did much to excite interest and develop improvements; as a trustee or
visitor to educational institutions he rendered valuable practical
service to the cause of popular enlightenment. In political life he had
sharp contests; friend was surprised and opponent discouraged when
emergency brought forth the reserve forces of his character and ability.
If modesty cloaked his powers in retirement, opposition elicited them;
and the fluency, tact, and ability with which he discussed issues and
met exigencies were remarkable in one whose experiences of early life
had separated him from civil pursuits and training.

If I have spoken of Gen. LEE's ancestral distinctions, it was not
because either he or his people have ever presumed upon them. On the
contrary, no people whom I have ever known have rested less of claim
upon their antecedents or less sought to substitute reminiscences for
achievements. The independent, honest, and simple Republicans and
Democrats of our country justly despise a pretender who boasts the
shadow of a name; but that of which the individual may not boast becomes
his country's pride; and I count it great glory to our country that its
institutions have nourished and the highest characteristic of our race
that it has produced successive generations of men who preserve the
continuity of sterling virtues. I count also as the star of hope for
this grand Republic that a distinguished soldier of a lost cause becomes
the beloved statesman of the cause that won, and finds around him the
old-time comrades and old-time foes, all his friends and each other's
friends united in the service of our common country.

No nobler words have been spoken of the late Gen. LEE than by soldiers
who fought against him, and I respond to them with honor and praise. The
production of men who may maintain the rights their fathers won, and
ever grow in liberal thought, noble character, and worthy achievement is
the highest mission of republican institutions. From Hastings, A.D.
1066, to Boston in 1776, the name of Lee was blended with the glories of
our fatherland. But from Boston to Appomattox it grew the more
illustrious with grander opportunities. Victorious through a track of
eight hundred years to the 9th of April, 1865, it has been still more
victorious since--rising to the height of harder trials and sterner
tasks and grander duties than those of leading embattled lines. The
glorious nation of which he was a type and the glorious band of which he
was the son come forth from ruin and desolation on one side, moved by
gracious institutions and magnanimous sentiments upon the other, taking
their place in the reunited columns of parted friendship, cementing anew
by adaptive virtues the broken ties, marching again with the mutual
magnanimities of companionship at the head of column.

If a race that has won liberty and made it a birthright lets it slip
away through hands of weakness or deeds of folly, and if the self-made
man of to-day loses the vantage ground of his life work with his
fleeting breath, the careers of nations would be brief, the story of
liberty would be a nurse's tale, and the careers of individuals would be
vanity of vanities. The prepotent blood that made an empire of an
insignificant island and stamped its language and its laws upon it made
also here the most splendid Republic of the earth out of a savage
wilderness and assimilated to itself all tributaries. That Republic
delegates its unfinished tasks to a posterity that will lift higher the
monuments of its greatness and strengthen the foundations of its
endurance; and in the lives of Gen. LEE and those of his worthy
compatriots of all sections who unite as friends the moment conditions
cease that made them foes, I see exemplified the noblest qualities of
our kind and read the auguries of prolonged peace, progress, happiness,
and stability.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the resolutions
submitted by the Senator from Virginia.

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously, and under the last
resolution the Senate (at 4 o'clock and 20 minutes p.m.) adjourned until
Monday, March 7, 1892, at 12 o'clock m.

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