“Even amid the turmoil of the great European struggle, the intelligence from America announcing that General Robert E. Lee is dead, will be received with deep sorrow by many in this country, as well as by his followers and fellow-soldiers in America.  It is but a few years since Robert E. Lee ranked among the great men of the present time.  He was the able soldier of the Southern Confederacy, the bulwark of her northern frontier, the obstacle to the advance of the Federal armies, and the leader who twice threatened, by the capture of Washington, to turn the tide of success, and to accomplish a revolution which would have changed the destiny of the United States.  Six years passed by, and then we heard that he was dying at an obscure town in Virginia, where, since the collapse of the Confederacy, he had been acting as a school-master.  When, at the head of the last eight thousand of his valiant army, the remnants which battle, sickness, and famine had left him, he delivered up his sword to General Grant at Appomattox Court-House, his public career ended; he passed away from men’s thoughts; and few in Europe cared to inquire the fate of the general whose exploits had aroused the wonder of neutrals and belligerents, and whose noble character had excited the admiration of even the most bitter of his political enemies.  If, however, success is not always to be accounted as the sole foundation of renown, General Lee’s life and career deserve to be held in reverence by all who admire the talents of a general and the noblest qualities of a soldier.  His family were well known in Virginia.  Descended from the Cavaliers who first colonized that State, they had produced more than one man who fought with distinction for their country.  They were allied by marriage to Washington, and, previous to the recent war, were possessed of much wealth; General (then Colonel) Robert Lee residing, when not employed with his regiment, at Arlington Heights, one of the most beautiful places in the neighborhood of Washington.  When the civil war first broke out, he was a colonel in the United States Army, who had served with distinction in Mexico, and was accounted among the best of the American officers.  To him, as to others, the difficult choice presented itself, whether to take the side of his State, which had joined in the secession of the South, or to support the central Government.  It is said that Lee debated the matter with General Scott, then Commander-in-chief, that both agreed that their first duty lay with their State, but that the former only put the theory into practice.

“It was not until the second year of the war that Lee came prominently forward, when, at the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks, in front of Richmond, General Johnston having been wounded, he took command of the army; and subsequently drove McClellan, with great loss, to the banks of the James River.  From that time he became the recognized leader of the Confederate army of Virginia.  He repulsed wave after wave