“Lee was never really defeated.  Lee could not be defeated!  Overpowered, foiled in his efforts, he might be; but never defeated until the props which supported him gave way.  Never, until the platform sank beneath him, did any enemy ever dare pursue.  On that melancholy occasion, the downfall of the Confederacy, no Leipsic, no Waterloo, no Sedan, can ever be recorded.

“General Lee is known to the world as a military man; but it is easy to divine from his history how mindful of all just authority, how observant of all constitutional restriction, would have been his career as a civilian.  When, near the conclusion of the war, darkness was thickening about the falling fortunes of the Confederacy, when its very life was in the sword of Lee, it was my proud privilege to know with a special admiration the modest demeanor, the manly decorum, respectful homage, which marked all his dealings with the constituted authorities of his country.  Clothed with all power, he hid its very symbol behind a genial modesty, and refused ever to exert it save in obedience to law.  And even in his triumphant entry into the territory of the enemy, so regardful was he of civilized warfare, that the observance of his general orders as to private property and private rights left the line of his march marked and marred by no devastated fields, charred ruins, or desolated homes.  But it is in his private character, or rather I should say his personal emotion and virtue, which his countrymen will most delight to consider and dwell upon.  His magnanimity, transcending all historic precedent, seemed to form a new chapter in the book of humanity.  Witness that letter to Jackson, after his wounds at Chancellorsville, in which he said:  ’I am praying for you with more fervor than I have ever prayed for myself;’ and that other, more disinterested and pathetic:  ’I could, for the good of my country, wish that the wounds which you have received had been inflicted upon my own body;’ or that of the latter message, saying to General Jackson that ’his wounds were not so severe as mine, for he loses but his left arm, while I, in my loss, lose my right;’ or that other expression of unequalled magnanimity which enabled him to ascribe the glory of their joint victory to the sole credit of the dying hero.  Did I say unequalled?  Yes, that was an avowal of unequalled magnanimity, until it met its parallel in his own grander self-negation in assuming the sole responsibility for the defeat at Gettysburg.  Ay, my countrymen, Alexander had his Arbela, Caesar his Pharsalia, Napoleon his Austerlitz; but it was reserved for Lee to grow grander and more illustrious in defeat than even in victory—­grander, because in defeat he showed a spirit greater than in the heroism of battles or all the achievements of war, a spirit which crowns him with a chaplet grander far than ever mighty conqueror wore.

“I turn me now to that last closing scene at Appomattox, and I will draw thence a picture of that man as he laid aside the sword, the unrivalled soldier, to become the most exemplary of citizens.