of the love for him which lives in every Southern heart—­ay, in many a Northern heart—­were heard long before his death, and that honor shed noble lustre around the last years of his life.  He was the representative of a lost cause; he had sheathed his sword forever; he had surrendered his army to superior numbers; he was broken in fortune and in health, and was only president of a Virginia college, yet he was one of the foremost men of all the world.

“It has been said of General Lee, as it has been said of Washington, that he was deficient in genius.  His character was so complete that what would have seemed evidences of genius with other men, were lost in the combination of his character and mind.  He was always, and especially in every great crisis, a leader among men.  During the four years of his education at West Point he did not receive a single reprimand.  As a cavalry-officer, wherever he went he was a marked man; and when General Scott made his wonderful march to the capital of Mexico, Captain Lee was his right arm.  At the commencement of the late war, though only a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, he was offered the command of the armies of the United States.  What a prize for ambition!  Fortune, fame, and honors, awaited him.  Where would he have been to-day?  Probably in the presidential chair of this great nation.  But he rejected all to take his chance with his own people, and to unite with them in their resistance to the vast numbers and resources which he knew the North was able to bring against them.  There is nothing more remarkable in the annals of warfare than the success with which General Lee defeated for years the armies of the United States.  Consider the six-days’ battles around Richmond; the second battle of Manassas; the battles at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg; the wonderful contest at Chancellorsville; then again the remarkable battle of the Wilderness, in which it has been said by Federal authority that General Lee actually killed as many men as he had under his command; the defence at Cold Harbor, the prolonged defence of Richmond and Petersburg, and the admirably-conducted retreat with but a handful before an immense army.  Well has he been spoken of as ‘the incomparable strategist.’  Did any man ever fight against more desperate odds or resources?

“But not merely as a great general is General Lee to be admired.  He claims our admiration as a great man—­great in adversity.  I think there is nothing more admirable in all his life than his conduct in assuming the sole responsibility at Gettysburg.  In the midst of defeat Lee was calm, unmoved, showing no fear where despair would have been in the heart of any other general, and saying to his officers and men, ‘The fault is all mine.’  Let the monument be raised, not merely by soldiers of General Lee, but by all men, no matter of what political feelings, who appreciate and honor that which is manly, great, and patriotic.  The monument at Richmond will be the resort of pilgrims from the North as well as from the South, and the grave of Lee will be second only in the hearts of the people to the grave of Washington.”