scanned his every motive.  His cause was lost.  He was unsuccessful.  Yet he lived to illustrate to the world how, despite failure and defeat, a soldier could command honor and love from those for whom he struggled, and admiration and respect from his foes, such as no success had ever before won for warrior, prince, or potentate.  And, when his life was ended, the whole population of the South, forming one mighty funeral procession, followed him to his grave.  His obsequies modestly performed by those most tenderly allied to him, he sleeps in the bosom of the land he loved so well.  His spotless fame will gather new vigor and freshness from the lapse of time, and the day is not distant when that fame will be claimed, not as the property of a section, but as the heritage of a united people.  His soul, now forever freed from earth’s defilements, basks in the sunlight of God.’ Pro tumulo ponas patriam, pro tegmine caelum, sidera pro facibus, pro lachrymis maria.’” (Great applause.)

GENERAL IMBODEN

Rose and said: 

“It is with emotions of infinite grief I rise to perform one of the saddest duties of my life.  The committee who have arranged the ceremonies on this occasion, deemed it expedient and proper to select a Virginian as their organ to present to this large assembly of the people of New York a formal preamble and resolutions, which give expression to their feelings in regard to the death of General Robert E. Lee.  This distinction has been conferred by the committee upon me; and I shall proceed to read their report, without offering to submit any remarks as to the feelings excited in my own heart by this, mournful intelligence:” 

RESOLUTIONS.

“In this great metropolitan city of America, where men of every clime and of all nationalities mingle in the daily intercourse of pleasure and of business, no great public calamity can befall any people in the world without touching a sympathetic chord in the hearts of thousands.  When, therefore, tidings reached us that General Robert E. Lee, of Virginia, was dead, and that the people of that and all the other Southern States of the Union were stricken with grief, the great public heart of New York was moved with a generous sympathy, which found kindly and spontaneous expression through the columns of the city press of every shade of opinion.

“All differences of the past, all bitter memories, all the feuds that have kept two great sections of our country in angry strife and controversy for so long, have been forgotten in the presence of the awe-inspiring fact that no virtues, no deeds, no honors, nor any position, can save any member of the human family from the common lot of all.