Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, second son of Gen. Robert Edward Lee, is dead.  The bells here tolled late yesterday evening.  A few hours before the general had crossed over the river and was at rest under his roof tree at Ravensworth, the southern sun lighted his deathbed and the autumn breeze sang his requiem.  Afterlife’s fitful fever he sleeps well.  He was sick a long time, and as his disease was incurable, death was a relief.  No more pain for him now, but the long and peaceful sleep of the just.  His sorrowing family were at his bedside, but he told them not good-bye, preferring to greet them when they shall rejoin him in a better world.  His death is regretted by all the many who knew him; the more so by those who knew him well.

Gen. Lee, like his father, was naturally quiet and retiring, and in his intercourse with others, when right and principle were not involved, invariably acted in accordance with the rule of noblesse oblige, but when they were involved he was as firm in support of his convictions as any other man could be.  He stood foursquare to all the winds that blow, but always with the propriety that characterizes the perfect gentleman.  He did his duty to his God, his family, his State, and his country, and did it well, and executed faithfully all the trusts committed to him in both military and civil life.  He liked the old manners and customs of Virginia, but tried to conform to the new order of things with becoming grace, and did so with no audible complaint and no useless repinings.  He served his State efficiently in her senate and in the national Congress, and in the Confederate army he filled, by merited promotion, every position from captain up to major-general of cavalry.  It was different once, but Virginia can ill-afford to part with such a man now, and in his death, as in that of his illustrious father, she has lost a true and gallant son, who when not on duty was as gentle as a woman.  Her fame has been increased by having had such a son.  May she have many more; like him.

ADDRESS OF MR. EDMUNDS, OF VIRGINIA.

Mr. Speaker:  It is not my purpose to attempt any extended remarks upon the life and character of Gen. William H.F.  Lee, late a Representative from the Eighth Congressional district of Virginia, yet I can not permit this occasion to pass and my hand and heart to fail to pay my humble tribute to his memory.  Gen. LEE’s life had been spent after manhood in arms or as a tiller of the soil.  In early life he saw military service as lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment, United States Infantry, and was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston in the expedition in 1858 against the Mormons.

Resigning from the Army, he returned to his native State of Virginia and engaged in the pursuit of agriculture.  Early in the late civil struggle he raised a cavalry company, and rose from the position of company commander to that of major-general, and followed the cause in which he had enlisted until the end at Appomattox.  There two great military chieftains met, and one, his illustrious father, gave up to the other his sword and the mutilated remnant of an army which had fought with the utmost bravery and fortitude under a leader of unsurpassed skill and fidelity.