A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 615 pages of information about A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 615 pages of information about A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

“Now that he is fallen, I may mention what I have never spoken of before, to show you not only what were the feelings that actuated him in the duty to which his beloved countrymen called him, but what noble sentiments inspired him when he saw the cause for which he had been fighting so long about to perish.  Just before the surrender, after a night devoted to the most arduous duties, as one of his staff came in to see him in the morning, he found him worn and weary and disheartened, and the general said to him, ’How easily I could get rid of this and be at rest!  I have only to ride along the line, and all will be over.  But,’ said he—­and there spoke the Christian patriot—­’it is our duty to live, for what will become of the women and children of the South if we are not here to protect them?’ That same spirit of duty which had actuated him through all the perils and all the hardships of that unequalled conflict which he had waged so heroically, that same high spirit of duty told him that he must live to show that he was great—­greater, if that were possible, in peace than in war; live to teach the people whom he had before led to victory how to bear defeat; live to show what a great and good man can accomplish; live to set an example to his people for all time; live to bear, if nothing else, his share of the sorrows, and the afflictions, and the troubles, which had come upon his people.  He is now at rest; and surely we of the South can say of him, as we say of his great exemplar, the ‘Father of his Country,’ that ’he was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.’”

BALTIMORE.

At a meeting of the officers and soldiers who served under General Lee, held in this city on October 15th, a number of addresses were made, which we are compelled to somewhat condense.  That of Colonel Marshall, General Lee’s chief of staff, was as follows: 

COLONEL CHARLES MARSHALL.

“In presenting the resolutions of the committee, I cannot refrain from expressing the feelings inspired by the memories that crowd upon my mind when I reflect that these resolutions are intended to express what General Lee’s surviving soldiers feel toward General Lee.  The committee are fully aware of their inability to do justice to the sentiments that inspire the hearts of those for whom they speak.  How can we portray in words the gratitude, the pride, the veneration, the anguish, that now fill the hearts of those who shared his victories and his reverses, his triumphs and his defeats?  How can we tell the world what we can only feel ourselves?  How can we give expression to the crowding memories called forth by the sad event we are met to deplore?

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A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.