The speaker referred also to the circumstances attending General Lee’s crossing the Potomac on the march into Pennsylvania.  He (Mr. Davis) assumed the responsibility of that movement.  The enemy had long been concentrating his force, and it was evident that if he continued his steady progress the Confederacy would be overwhelmed.  Our only hope was to drive him to the defence of his own capital, we being enabled in the mean time to reenforce our shattered army.  How well General Lee carried out that dangerous experiment need not be told.  Richmond was relieved, the Confederacy was relieved, and time was obtained, if other things had favored, to reenforce the army.

“But,” said Mr. Davis, “I shall not attempt to review the military career of our fallen chieftain.  Of the man, how shall I speak?  He was my friend, and in that word is included all that I could say of any man.  His moral qualities rose to the height of his genius.  Self-denying; always intent upon the one idea of duty; self-controlled to an extent that many thought him cold, his feelings were really warm, and his heart melted freely at the sight of a wounded soldier, or the story of the sufferings of the widow and orphan.  During the war he was ever conscious of the inequality of the means at his control; but it was never his to complain or to utter a doubt; it was always his to do.  When, in the last campaign, he was beleaguered at Petersburg, and painfully aware of the straits to which we were reduced, he said:  ’With my army in the mountains of Virginia, I could carry on this war for twenty years longer.’  His men exhausted, and his supplies failing, he was unable to carry out his plans.  An untoward event caused him to anticipate the movement, and the Army of Northern Virginia was overwhelmed.  But, in the surrender, he anticipated conditions that have not been fulfilled; he expected his army to be respected, and his paroled soldiers to be allowed the enjoyments of life and property.  Whether these conditions have been fulfilled, let others say.

“Here he now sleeps in the land he loved so well; and that land is not Virginia only, for they do injustice to Lee who believe he fought only for Virginia.  He was ready to go anywhere, on any service, for the good of his country; and his heart was as broad as the fifteen States struggling for the principles that our forefathers fought for in the Revolution of 1776.  He is sleeping in the same soil with the thousands who fought under the same flag, but first offered up their lives.  Here, the living are assembled to honor his memory, and there the skeleton sentinels keep watch over his grave.  This citizen, this soldier, this great general, this true patriot, left behind him the crowning glory of a true Christian.  His Christianity ennobled him in life, and affords us grounds for the belief that he is happy beyond the grave.