Loe raamatut: «Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia)», lehekülg 3
As a soldier he was always calm, cool, and self-possessed. Those who have had experience in the ranks know that the bravest and best soldiers will falter and hesitate when they are without confidence in the ability, judgment, and foresight of their leader. The soldiers who were ranged under the standard of Lee, believing that their noble commander was equal to all emergencies, followed him with unwavering trust, and their survivors testify to the affection in which a spirit so gentle and yet so brave was held.
No higher eulogy can be pronounced upon any man than to say of him that which can be truly alleged of Gen. Lee, that he was an honored and trusted leader in that splendid Army of Northern Virginia, which only failed where success was impossible. They challenged the respect and admiration of the world, and of their great captain it has been said that "a country which has given birth to men like him and those who followed him may look the chivalry of Europe in the face without shame, for the fatherlands of Sidney and Bayard never produced a nobler soldier, gentleman, and Christian than Robert E. Lee."
These meager details of our civil war have not been given with the purpose of reviving unpleasant memories or of perpetuating sectional animosities. They have been related because they constitute an important part of the story of the life of him whom we mourn.
On both sides were displayed the highest qualities of the military leader, and illustrated as never before the pluck, endurance, and dash of the American soldier. They were Americans all, and, without distinction of sections, we can claim part of the honor of their achievements and partake in the pride of their great names. We have furnished to the world the indubitable proof that these States united are invincible. When, at Appomattox, our arms were stacked and banners furled we returned to our homes with no divided allegiance.
We believe that in the safety of the Union is the safety of the States. And we rejoice that "the gorgeous ensign of the Republic is still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe polluted or erased, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' Nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards,' but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.'"
But while entertaining these sentiments, we can not, we will not, forget our glorious dead. The brave men against whom we fought neither expect nor desire such unnatural conduct. Whether the cause for which they died was just or not it would be idle to discuss. It is enough for us to know that—
They were slain for us,
And their blood flowed out in a rain for us—
Red, rich, and pure, on the plain for us;
And years may go,
But our tears shall flow
O'er the dead who have died in vain for us.
After the cessation of hostilities Gen. Lee resumed the occupations of a farmer on the old plantation which he had left in 1861. The implements of warfare were exchanged for those of the husbandman, and following the plow on the furrows he commenced the work of repairing the losses he had sustained. In 1868 he married Miss Mary Tabb Bolling, the daughter of Col. George W. Bolling, of Petersburg, and they continued their residence at the White House until 1874, when they removed to Ravensworth, in the county of Fairfax, where he died.
He was an able and faithful Representative, and always devoted to the interests of his constituents. As a fitting eulogy to his worth it may be truly said that it was his disposition to follow the line of duty to the end. The conscientious performance of every trust confided to him was the watchword of his life. In his conduct as a legislator he was never ruled by faction or interest, but the promotion of the public good was the motive of all his actions. While exhibiting none of the showy and sparkling qualities of the orator, he was distinguished for the possession of good judgment and strong practical common sense. He was a man of calm and even temperament, and was seldom, if ever, controlled by prejudices or swayed by passion. Those who were associated with him here remember his dignified and courteous bearing. No words of bitterness or reproach ever escaped his lips, and he never forgot what was due to others as well as to himself.
I never heard him speak an unkind word of another, and while reserved, and to a certain extent formal, in his demeanor, he was a man of infinite sweetness of disposition:
And thus he bore without abuse,
The grand old name of gentleman.
Both in his public and private life he furnished an example worthy of the emulation of all who love the true nobility of humanity. We will draw aside the curtain only for a passing glance at the domestic circle, of which his beautiful and lovely wife was at once the pride and the ornament. Surrounded by this devoted helpmeet and two manly sons, there was not a happier home in old Virginia. Warmed by the love of his big and generous heart, it was the abode of contentment and peace. The dread messenger was never more unwelcome than when he entered the portals of Ravensworth and made vacant forever the chair of the husband and the father.
We can say nothing to assuage the poignant grief of the widow and children, but our hearts are filled with the fervent prayer that Heaven's choicest blessings may be showered upon them.
Address of Mr. Herbert, of Alabama
Mr. Speaker: In this brief tribute to the memory of Gen. William H.F. Lee I should be unworthy of the friendship which it was my privilege to claim did I indulge in anything else than the language of soberness and truth. In him there was no manner of affectation; he pretended to be nothing but such as he was, and it is certain that if he had been giving directions to his biographer he would have laid down the rule announced by Thomas Carlyle, in his review of the life of Lockhart, that the biographer in the treatment of his subject "should have the fear of God before his eyes and no other fear whatever."
Froude, as biographer, claims subsequently to have applied to the life of Carlyle his own rule; and all the world knows that in the portrayal of Carlyle's faults of character the biographer left many a sting in the hearts of those who had loved the great man while he lived and who felt that the failings on which the historian had dwelt ought to have been interred with his bones. The biographer who shall perform faithfully the task of writing the life of "Rooney" Lee will not paint him as a genius like Carlyle; but, sir, if there was any single feature in the character of our friend that, laid bare to the world even by the bold hand of an Anthony Froude, would cause the faintest blush to tinge the cheek of family or friends, I, who knew him well, do not know what it was.
It is true, sir, that it was not my fortune to be thrown in contact with him in the earlier years of his life. I did not know him when his character was being shaped and molded by the generous and refining influences which surrounded him from his cradle to his manhood.
My personal acquaintance with him may be said to have begun only when he had taken his seat by my side in this Hall. But his fame had come before him. A representative of the most distinguished family in America, he had been, by this circumstance alone, conspicuous from his birth; and yet he came among us with not a spot upon his name.
During the civil war, from a subordinate position rising rapidly to high command and always in the bright light that surrounded him as a son of the most illustrious general of modern times, he bore himself as a soldier without reproach. Neither in civil life nor in war had calumny assaulted him. Such a man, entering here upon a new career, attracted attention the moment he came into this Hall.
It soon appeared to those who watched him closely that he was singularly modest. This modesty was not diffidence. He was at all times self-poised. On this floor, addressing himself to a public question just as in a private conversation among his friends, he always had the easy, unpretentious manner of the thoroughbred gentleman, but his modesty was easily apparent in an utter lack of self-assertion. He never put himself forward except when duty prompted, and then he did nothing for display; never a word did he speak for himself, but only for his cause.
He made indeed no pretensions to oratory; he had never been trained in its arts; but his mind was broad and highly cultured, he had a vast fund of vigorous common sense, and he expressed himself readily and pointedly. With these faculties he would in time have taken rank as a strong debater.
While broadly patriotic, he had at the same time a high sense of obligation to his immediate constituency, and he was patient to a remarkable degree. His district, you will remember, Mr. Speaker, lay just beyond the Potomac.
It was an easy matter for his constituents to come to the Capitol, and naturally many of them sought office at his hands. I sat near him in the Fifty-first Congress. Often have I known him to be carded out a dozen times a day; and if he ever expressed himself to me as worried by these interruptions he never failed to show by what he said that his annoyance arose not so much from the importunities of his friends as from his inability to serve them.
In address he was remarkably pleasing. Indeed, his manner was so genial, so pleasant, so hearty and sincere, that the memory of his kindly greeting will not be forgotten until the whole generation of his friends shall pass away. Who is there among his associates on this floor that will ever cease to remember him as, morning after morning in the springtime, he came into this Hall, bringing from his home a basket of roses to distribute among his friends? He was not seeking popularity. Such a thought had not occurred to him, nor did it enter into the mind of anyone here. He simply loved his friends, and he loved flowers just as he loved all things beautiful and true.
Such a man could not but be, as Gen. Lee was, a model brother, husband, and father. In all his life nothing was more lovely and beautiful than his family relations.
He had about him none of the arts of the demagogue; he was always true to himself, and therefore never false to any man. His whole walk and conversation illustrated that he was the worthy son of his noble father; that from his youth up he had profited by the precepts and example of that illustrious chieftain, who declared, in those memorable words already quoted by my eloquent friend [Mr. Tucker], that duty was the sublimest word in the English language. And, Mr. Speaker, let me say that the idea conveyed by this word duty, as taught by the father and practiced by the son, was far higher than that ideal, lofty though it was, expounded by philosophers like Plato and Cicero. With the Lees duty meant Christian duty.
With all these characteristics Gen. Lee could not but grow and continue to grow as he did in power and influence in a body like this; and had he been spared for that long career in this Hall hoped for by his friends he would have risen to eminence as a legislator.
But this was not to be. He has passed away from us forever.
When such a man dies out from among us, let critics cavil as they may about time wasted in memorial addresses. We should do violence to our own feelings did we not pause to honor his memory; we should do wrong to the American people, whose heritage they are, did we not spread before them the lessons of his life, that the whole country may venerate his virtues and the youth of the land may emulate his example.
Address of Mr. Hermann, of Oregon
Mr. Speaker: Of all picturesque spots on the face of the earth there is perhaps none that can rival in scenic beauty Mount Arlington, in the State of Virginia. Shaded by the primeval forest to the rear, and in front beautified by the gently sloping lawn, decorated by variegated flowers and artistically trimmed shrubbery, with the dark-green waters of the Potomac ebbing and flowing not far away and in full view the mighty nation's splendid capital city, stands the stately old mansion, with its classic columns, where nearly fifty-five years ago was born our departed friend and colleague, and one of the beloved Representatives of the people of Virginia—Gen. William H.F. Lee. Born in Virginia, he remained a Virginian continuously to the hour of his death.
Inheriting the martial genius of his eminent ancestry, he early aspired to a career in the military service of his country, and at the comparatively early age of twenty we find him bidding adieu to his college studies at Harvard and uniting with the Army in its expedition to Utah in 1858, where he first experienced the fatigues and hardships incident to the life of the soldier in the long march over the arid plains and through the mountain canyons into the Mormon territory. The prospect of inaction, with a long period in garrison, proved a disappointment to so ambitious a spirit, and he resigned his commission and returned to the domestic welcome of his Virginia farm.
Soon, however, the indication of a long peace proved delusive, and the scene shifted. This time it was decreed that he should behold the terrible conflict in which one portion of his unhappy country was to engage in deadly array with another portion. Obeying what he conceived to be the mandate of his State, he followed the impulse of his feelings and the example of his kindred and his friends, and periled all in that belief. He participated at once, and most actively, in some of the most sanguinary engagements of the civil war. Wounded at one place, taken prisoner at another, then exchanged, and again in the van of battle, we find him following the forlorn hope until the close of the struggle at Appomattox, when he again returned to the old farm.
He possessed the undivided confidence of his constituents. He was regarded by them, as he was so long observed by us in our intimate associations with him in this Hall, and especially in the committee rooms, as an intelligent and conscientious legislator, a laborious servant of the people, a courtly gentleman, a generous and devoted companion. Loyal as he was to his political convictions, he was yet the most considerate and the most conservative in his relations with those who radically differed with him. He admired frankness; he despised duplicity. While he was obedient to the reasonable edicts of caucus and party organization, we recall occasions when he was prompt to rise above the partisan. He was as broad-gauge and comprehensive in the study and performance of his duty toward all parts and all interests of his reunited country as he was anxious for the obliteration of sectional animosity and sincere and generous of heart in his social obligations to all of his fellow-men.
The most touching remembrance we bear of Gen. Lee's goodness of heart has reference to his custom in springtime of bringing to this Hall from his farm great quantities of lovely roses, and having them distributed to his associates of both political parties on this floor with his compliments. Here we have a practical illustration that flowers are the interpreters of man's best feelings. In oriental lands the language of flowers was early studied and made expressive. As Percival says:
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears.
With Gen. Lee they bore tidings of good will to partisan friend and partisan foe alike. They bespoke in mute eloquence the expansive heart of one "that loved his fellow-men." Little, however, did he think at the time that these beautiful roses were especially speaking to him as emblems of a near immortality. Awakening from their sleep of winter, they were also harbingers of a brighter day to him and of the bloom of a glorious resurrection. The Germans have a saying that "he who loves flowers loves God." If this be applied to Gen. Lee, we have the blessed assurance that he has approached close to the celestial throne.
Gen. Lee belonged to one of the most historic families of America. Looking back to the early settlement and the pioneer struggles of the peninsula and then through the plantation and colonial period of entire Virginia, we everywhere discover the genius, the dauntless courage, the independence, and the resolute patriotism of the Lees. It has been well said, sir, that Virginia is the mother of Presidents; and this is true. A momentary reflection does not suffice to demonstrate the various causes which combined to bestow upon the Old Dominion this prominence. A mature study, however, will serve a double purpose. It will teach us not only how Virginia more than any other State became the nursery for Presidents and statesmen, but how at the same time were given character and fame to its distinguished family—the Lees.
The permanency and prosperity of states and political bodies are as much due to the character of their superstructures as are the strength and stability of the material edifice to the foundation upon which it rests. The Argonauts of Virginia united in a remarkable degree the pride and culture and learning and loyalty of the Cavaliers with the conviction of purpose and martial courage and discipline of the followers of Cromwell. First came the heroic vanguard—the men like Capt. John Smith—who blazed the way through the forests of the James, the York, the Chickahominy, and Pamunkey. Then followed the refined, enthusiastic, and chivalric gentlemen of the polished court of Charles I, with many of the clergy, who brought with them their intense loyalty to the Crown, as well as to the episcopal government and Anglican ritual. Among these, too, were the proselyted royalists; old and honorable families after the defeat of Charles, seeking exile in the far distant yet faithful Virginia. Then came those who triumphed at Naseby, and overthrew the kingly office and maintained the constitution of the realm and the integrity of Magna Charta and the Petition of Rights.
The necessity for self-defense and the maintenance of order originated self-government and the assertion of individual right, and these united the widely variant elements of the community in a loyal union. It was the amalgamation of such spirits in Virginia in 1676 which demanded the right of personal liberty, of universal suffrage, and of representation; and here was fought the prelude of that great drama one hundred years later, when a Virginian, in the name of a whole nation, penned the immortal words which proclaimed to all the world the "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Here were the Lees, the Patrick Henrys, the Randolphs, the Jeffersons, the Madisons, and the Masons of Virginia; and here, to close the drama with freedom's triumphant army, was the most illustrious of them all—George Washington. It was from such an ancestry our late colleague was descended, and it was from such teachings and such examples he imbibed his zealous convictions of right and his sturdy regard for the exalted prerogatives of a free people.
Address of Mr. Washington, of Tennessee
Mr. Speaker: On the 15th of last October death again invaded the ranks of this House. The mysterious messenger laid the summons of his cold silent hand upon one who had immeasurably endeared himself to all whose good fortune it had been to know him. To-day we pause amid the rush of a nation's public business to mourn the country's loss and to pay a just tribute to the noble dead. When such a man as our late colleague, Gen. William H.F. Lee, is taken from our midst, a void is made which can nevermore be filled. It is not his visible presence or his tangible body that we shall so much miss. It is the magnetism of a pure mind, the silent, potent influence of a spotless character, the power of a great, good, and noble soul to elevate and dignify all with whom it came in contact that will prove our irreparable loss. No man ever associated with Gen. Lee without feeling the better for it. To have been with him made you feel like one who had drawn a long deep inspiration of pure fresh air into his lungs after breathing the stifling atmosphere of a close room. His thoughts, his conversation, his ideas diffused about him a sound and healthy morality, that was as natural to him as its delicate odor is to the rose. Modest and gentle as a woman; sympathetic as a child; guileless as the day; a logical, well-trained, accurate mind; a horror of injustice; absolutely devoid of resentment; a benignant countenance, and a splendid physique, made him indeed a man among men.
Sir, I believe not only in early training, but in the force of early surroundings and family traditions. Sprung from an illustrious line of statesmen and patriots, who had left their impress on every page of the history, civil and military, of this country from the colonial days to the present; born on those beautiful heights overlooking this city at Arlington, where the house was filled with the sanctified relics and the very atmosphere he breathed in childhood was pregnant with the traditions and precepts of "the Father of his Country;" his mother being the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of the immortal Washington; his father that world-renowned military commander, the self-poised, calm, patient, dignified, glorious Gen. Robert E. Lee, it would be unnatural not to expect to find the impress of all these on the heart and mind and character and life of Gen. William H.F. Lee.
To some my words of eulogy may appear fulsome; but having known him in public and in private, at home by his own fireside, as well as abroad on the active field of life, I know that my poor words can but fail to do full justice to his true worth. With him the performance of duty was accompanied by no harsh word or cynical expression; on the contrary, his calmness and uniform sweetness of manner were almost poetical. I recall a notable instance in the Fiftieth Congress, when, pressing under the most trying circumstances the passage of a bill for the relief of the Episcopal high school near Alexandria, he was temperate and patient. Standing on the Republican side of this Hall, among those who questioned him, his words fell softly and evenly as snowflakes on the turbulent House, which finally by an almost unanimous vote passed his bill.
He shrank from publicity; therefore he never spoke on this floor unless it was necessary to push a measure intrusted to his charge; then he always acquitted himself with credit. In the committee and among his colleagues his influence was irresistible, because his judgment and integrity were above dispute.
With him a public office was a public trust, which he accepted and administered for his State and his constituents without regard to race, color, or party affiliation. Many times have I seen him, when coming in from his country home in the morning, met at the depot by a dozen or more of his constituents, claiming his attention to their private matters with the Departments of the Government.
The patience and tender care with which he heard and looked after each were paternal and pathetic. His love for little children was intense and beautiful. Nothing made him happier than to fill some little fellow's hands and pockets with candies and fruits, claiming only in return a shy caress. In his home is where his perfectly balanced Christian character shone in its brightest light. As father and husband he was indeed a model man.
I shall attempt no extended biographical sketch; that has already been well done by others. Yet I can not refrain from saying that in every stage of his career Gen. Lee did his whole duty, actuated entirely and solely by the loftiest motives.
A graduate of Harvard at twenty, he was appointed a second lieutenant in the regular Army. Often I have heard him tell of the wearisome march across the plains to California with his regiment, long in advance of civilization and railroads, when most of that journey through the desert was made perilous by roving bands of hostile Indians. Retiring from the Army, he married and settled at the historic White House, in lower Virginia. There he was the typical Southern country gentleman of refinement and culture, taking an active interest in agriculture and the public affairs of his community. When the war between the States summoned Virginia's sons to her defense he again became a soldier.
Throughout the struggle he discharged every duty and was equal to every responsibility placed upon him. His soldiers loved and trusted him as a father, for they knew he would sacrifice no life for empty glory. The saddest chapter in all his life was when—a prisoner of war at Fort Monroe, lying desperately wounded, with the threat of a retaliatory death-sentence suspended over his head, in hourly expectation of its execution—he heard of the fatal illness of his wife and two little children but a few miles away. Earnestly his friends begged that he might be allowed to go and say the last farewell to them on earth. A devoted brother came, like Damon of old, and offered himself to die in "Rooney's" place. War, inexorable war, always stern and cruel, could not accept the substituted sacrifice, and while the sick wounded soldier, under sentence of death, lay, himself almost dying, in the dungeon of the Fort, his wife and children "passed over the river to rest under the trees" and wait there his coming. Yet no word of reproach ever passed his gentle lips. He accepted it all as the fortune of war.
In all the walks of life—as a student at college, as an officer in the regular Army, as a planter on the Pamunkey, as a leader of cavalry in the civil war, as a farmer struggling with the chaos and confusion that beset him under the new order of things following the abolition of slavery, as president of the Virginia Agricultural Society, as State senator, and as a member of Congress—Gen. William H.F. Lee met every requirement, was equal to every emergency, and left a name for honor, truth, and virtue which should be a blessed heritage and the inspiration for a nobler and loftier life to all those who shall succeed him.
