At ten o’clock precisely, in accordance with the programme agreed upon, the students, numbering four hundred, formed in front and to the right of the chapel.  To the left an escort of honor, numbering some three hundred ex-officers and soldiers, was formed, at the head of which, near the southwestern entrance to the grounds, was the Institute band.  Between these two bodies—­the soldiers and students—­stood the hearse and the gray war-steed of the dead hero, both draped in mourning.  The marshals of the procession, twenty-one in number, wore spotless white sashes, tied at the waist and shoulders with crape, and carrying batons also enveloped in the same emblematic material.

Shortly after ten, at a signal from the chief marshal, the solemn cortege moved off to the music of a mournful dirge.  General Bradley Johnson headed the escort of officers and soldiers, with Colonel Charles T. Venable and Colonel Walters H. Taylor, both former assistant adjutant-generals on the staff of the lamented dead.  The physicians of General Lee and the Faculty of the college fell in immediately behind the hearse, the students following.  Slowly and solemnly the procession moved from the college grounds down Washington Street to Jefferson, up Jefferson Street to Franklin Hall, thence to Main Street, where they were joined by a committee of the Legislature, dignitaries of the State, and the citizens generally.  Moving still onward, this grand funeral pageant, which had now assumed gigantic proportions, extending nearly a mile in length, soon reached the northeastern extremity of the town, when it took the road to the Virginia Military Institute.

AT THE MILITARY INSTITUTE.

Here the scene was highly impressive and imposing.  In front of the Institute the battalion of cadets, three hundred in number, were drawn up in line, wearing their full gray uniform, with badges of mourning, and having on all their equipments and side-arms, but without their muskets.  Spectators thronged the entire line of the procession, gazing sadly as it wended its way, and the sites around the Institute were crowded.  As the cortege entered the Institute grounds a salute of artillery thundered its arrival, and reverberated it far across the distant hills and valleys of Virginia, awakening echoes which have been hushed since Lee manfully gave up the struggle of the “lost cause” at Appomattox.  Winding along the indicated route toward the grounds of Washington College, the procession slowly moved past the Institute, and when the war-horse and hearse of the dead chieftain came in front of the battalion of cadets, they uncovered their heads as a salute of reverence and respect, which was promptly followed by the spectators.  When this was concluded, the visitors and Faculty of the Institute joined the procession, and the battalion of cadets filed into the line in order, and with the greatest precision.

ORDER OF THE PROCESSION.