In that terrific fight which occurred at Brandy Station, in June, 1863, he was most severely wounded, and taken to the residence of Gen. William C. Wickham, in Hanover County, where he was made a prisoner by a raiding party, and was carried off, at the expense of great personal suffering, to Fort Monroe.  From the latter place he was conveyed to Fort Lafayette, where he was confined until March, 1864, and treated with great severity, being held, with Capt.  R.H.  Tyler, of the Eighth Virginia Regiment, under sentence of death, as hostages for two Federal officers who were prisoners in Richmond, and whom it was thought would be executed for some retaliatory measure.

Exchanged in the spring of 1864, he returned, to find his young wife and children dead, his beautiful home burned to the ground, his whole estate devastated and laid waste by the ruthless hand of war; and yet almost his first act on reaching Richmond was to go to Libby Prison, visit the two Federal officers for whom he had been held as hostage, and who, like himself, had been under apprehension of being hung, and shake hands with and congratulate them.

Immediately joining his command, he led his division in every engagement from the Rapidan to Appomattox, where, with his father, the greatest soldier of modern times, he surrendered to the inevitable.

In a letter written by one of the most brilliant cavalry generals of the late war, in speaking of Gen. W.H.F.  Lee, he uses this language: 

He was a zealous, conscientious, brave, and intelligent soldier, who fully discharged all of his duties.  He was one of those safe, sound, judicious officers, and you always felt when you sent instructions to him that they were going to be obeyed promptly and to the letter.

What greater tribute could be paid a soldier?

Having been married to one of the most accomplished ladies in Virginia, Miss Bolling, of Petersburg (who, with two sons, survives him) he removed in 1874 to Ravensworth, and was the next year elected to the senate of Virginia, where he made an honorable record.

He was elected to the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses, and served his State with that fidelity which had characterized his every act through life—­faithful, conscientious, and painstaking—­ever alert to the interests of his constituents and seeking only how he could serve them.

He was again reelected to the Fifty-second Congress, and though by the will of Divine Providence he was not permitted to take his seat, he will ever be held in grateful remembrance by his late constituents, and when the long roll of Virginia’s noble and heroic dead is called, the name of William H. Fitzhugh Lee will be mourned by his mother Commonwealth as one of her noblest and truest sons.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I shall read, as the most fitting tribute I have seen, an editorial from the Alexandria Gazette written the day after the death of Gen. Lee: