Part 7 (1/2)

In 1887 we both became members of the Fiftieth Congress. I well remember his coming to me, with kindly face and outstretched hand, on the first day of our session in December, as I sat in my seat in this Chamber, expressing pleasure at meeting me after so many years of separation and satisfaction that we were to have opportunities of renewing the acquaintance and friends.h.i.+p of our early days. Though the exacting duties of Congressional life gave me fewer opportunities of a.s.sociating with him than I could have wished, yet I saw much of him during the years we spent here together, and I shall always remember those occasions with satisfaction. Sometimes it was only a word in pa.s.sing, a shake of the hand, a brief conference on public business, but whether the interview was brief or prolonged his manner and conduct were always kind and friendly and sincere.

While we were together in Congress he often referred to our college life and its a.s.sociations, and remembered them with evident satisfaction. He became a member of the Harvard Club here in Was.h.i.+ngton, and I recall a pleasant evening when he was one of the after-dinner speakers there. In the summer of 1888 he went to Cambridge, to revisit the old scenes and once more meet his friends and a.s.sociates of the olden time. He attended the commencement exercises and spoke pleasantly at the cla.s.s supper. His cla.s.smates who then met him will long cherish the remembrance of that last visit, his hearty greetings, his cordial manners, the interest he manifested.

The renewal of our acquaintance soon satisfied me that the experience of life had strengthened and developed all that was good and n.o.ble and manly in the young student. The same warmth and cordiality which had endeared him to his cla.s.smates won the regard and affection of his a.s.sociates here. The same general ability and rotundity of character which had made him prominent in the little world of college life made him useful and influential in various lines of duty in the wide field of Congressional legislation.

During the intervening years the manly bearing, the physical superiority, the n.o.bility of spirit which had characterized him in the earlier days had made him a leader among men when the storm of war raged over the land. Brief as were the days of the unacknowledged Southern Confederacy, his name was enrolled in bright letters upon the pages of its history, and his brave deeds will in future days be chronicled in song and story by those who admire true courage and recognize all that was gallant and n.o.ble and heroic in the lives of all those who fought on both sides of our great struggle as worthy of preservation and commemoration.

When LEE first left college his military duties, as has been already stated, carried him to the far West, and he there saw some rough service. The Utah expedition was a training school for soldiers and generals, and many who afterwards gained renown and fame, under the different standards were there a.s.sociated together in a common duty.

Besides the leader and commander, Col. Johnston, were Robert E. Lee, Hardee, Thomas, Kirby Smith, Palmer, Stoneman, Fitz Lee, and Hood. When the Army first entered upon this service there was a small cloud of war in the horizon, but it soon cleared away, and the company to which LEE was attached was a.s.signed to a dull and monotonous routine of garrison life. This possessed no attractions for the young lieutenant, and there were other influences drawing him towards his native State. He resigned his commission, returned to Virginia, and settled at the White House, in New Kent County, where George Was.h.i.+ngton had married the widow Custis.

The plantation had descended to her son, George Was.h.i.+ngton Parke Custis, and from him through LEE's mother to the grandson. He soon established his cousin, Miss Wickham, as queen of this historic home, and he was here with his little family amid these surroundings, with everything to make life attractive, when Virginia and her sister States of the South pa.s.sed their ordinances of secession and sent delegates to Montgomery to unite in the attempt to form a Southern Confederacy. LEE never doubted that allegiance was due first to his State, and when war followed he drew his sword in defense of Virginia.

As long as the strife continued he avoided no danger, he shunned no peril, he feared no adversary.

Now with a company, now a squadron, now a regiment, now a brigade, now a division of cavalry behind him, he went upon the march, formed the line of battle, or rode into the enemy's lines. Whatever duty was a.s.signed to him, he entered upon its discharge with energy and vigor. In the varying fortunes of war he was wounded, captured, held as a hostage; but the day of recovery and exchange came, and he once more headed the brave followers who loved and honored and trusted him, and during the last year of the struggle he again shared their hards.h.i.+ps and privations and dangers. But the end came at last, the issue was settled, the arbitrament of war was decided adversely, and he sheathed his sword and returned to the place where his home had been.

The year 1865 marked a low ebb in the fortunes of the Southern people, and perhaps it may not be unprofitable to dwell briefly upon their conduct when under the shadow of defeat and disaster. The distinguished father of him to whose memory we are this day paying tribute went from the head of a great army to train the new generation of young men of the South in the halls of a university to usefulness in the various walks of citizens.h.i.+p. The students who enjoyed the privilege of sitting at the feet of this grand college president there learned lessons of patriotism. They were advised to build up the places left waste and desolate, and to look hopefully forward to a reunited country and a more prosperous future.

Whatever public disappointment or private grief or loss he suffered was buried in his own breast. He advised his countrymen that the great questions which had long divided the country, and upon which opinions had been so diverse that legislative debate and administrative action had failed in finding a solution, had been finally settled by the sword, and that henceforth their duty was to the Union restored and indissoluble.

With so ill.u.s.trious an example the immediate restoration of peace and good order all over the South is not to be wondered at. The annals of all nations may be searched in vain for a parallel. It is an easy task for men who have accomplished all they desired to lay down their arms and return to their homes and resume their former avocations.

The Southern soldier did all this after failure and defeat. The cause was lost; his efforts availed nothing. The homes of many were in ashes; sorrow was in every household; many were stripped of their all. The labor system of the country was destroyed; commerce was dead. Many had not seed to plant their lands. The workshop, the manufactory, the s.h.i.+pyard were silent as the grave. The arts of peace seemed to have perished. The soldiers were disbanded without the means of reaching their homes, and the few survivors of those who went forth with bright hopes, proud and confident in their strength, returned one by one weary and footsore and disheartened.

The history of other nations would have suggested to the historian that the result must be open riots and secret a.s.sa.s.sinations, a reign of violence and terror, years of turbulence and lawlessness, before society would settle down to its former condition. But how different was the result. The parole upon which the soldier was released was in no instance violated. The situation was accepted without a murmur or complaint. The laws were obeyed. The terms imposed were acceded to. Soon the busy hum of industry was heard through the land. The arts of peace were revived. Agriculture and trade once again flourished, and our fair country began to bloom again into something like its old-time beauty and prosperity.

There were few Southern soldiers who returned to a greater desolation than did our late a.s.sociate, Gen. LEE. Fate seemed to have done its worst. The beloved wife and the two dear children who had made his home at the ”White House” a paradise had died in 1863, while he was held as a prisoner and a hostage at Fort Lafayette and Fort Monroe. The place had been occupied by Union troops; the mansion, with all its surroundings, had been destroyed by fire, and, as has been well said by another, there was ”not a blade of gra.s.s left to mark the culture of more than a hundred years.” Had he been an ordinary man he would have sunk with the load of sorrow and trouble which weighed him down. But he had a brave heart, which defeat and affliction and disaster with united effort could not conquer.

With the same n.o.ble spirit which had actuated his father, the elder Lee, he threw aside his discouragement and took up the duties of life and citizens.h.i.+p anew. He had made himself famous as a soldier; he now began in earnest to cultivate the arts of peace. It was no easy task, for the era of reconstruction immediately succeeded the war, and only those who were actually under its ban can realize the burdens and hards.h.i.+ps it entailed upon an unfortunate people emerging from a disastrous conflict.

He rebuilt and reestablished his home at the White House plantation. He was married November 27, 1867, to Miss Mary Tabb, daughter of Hon.

George W. Bolling, of Petersburg. In 1874 the family removed to Ravensworth, in Fairfax County.

At both these places he cultivated his broad acres and interested himself in all matters relating to agricultural progress and development. He advanced and promoted these interests as president of the Virginia State Agricultural Society. He represented his county for a term in the State senate, but declined a reelection, and returned to his plantation and the enjoyment of home life. After a few years of quiet he was called, in 1886, to a new field of activity by neighbors and political friends, who desired his services at the national capital, and he became the Representative from the Alexandria district in the Fiftieth Congress, and he was in his third term, when, on the 15th day of October, 1891, the hand of death removed him from his career of usefulness. For weeks his strong const.i.tution and vigorous frame had resisted disease in his Ravensworth home. All that kindness and skill could suggest was done in his behalf, but skill and kindness were of no avail, and he bade adieu to home and family, companions and a.s.sociates, earthly duties and surroundings, and entered upon his eternal rest. His mortal life was closed.

I well remember a day spent in his company nearly four years ago, and its occurrences gave me an opportunity to witness the regard in which he was held by those among whom he had lived and to whom he was best known.

It was on Decoration Day, in a section of country where he had seen service as a soldier, not far from where he had lived in his early childhood. He was the orator of the occasion. Many of his old companions in arms and members of their families were among his audience, and they listened eagerly as he made appropriate reference to the departed comrades who slept under the little hillocks near by them, bright and fragrant with the flowers of early summer, which the loving hands of woman and childhood had heaped upon them. As he descended from the platform he was surrounded by old and young, who thronged about him to shake his hand or give expression to a friendly greeting. Admiration and affection were expressed upon their countenances for the brave man before them, whose gallant deeds had been told at every fireside in the country around, and who was loved and honored because, in addition to his own merits and virtues, he represented the great leader whose name was the embodiment of a precious memory.

I have portrayed WILLIAM HENRY FITZHUGH LEE as a student, a soldier, a planter, a public man representing his people in the State legislature and the National Congress.

Some have united in paying tribute to his memory because they were born and reared in the State which gave him birth, some because they shared with him the hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of his military career, some because they were a.s.sociated with him in Congressional life and committee work.

But while I take a great pride in all that he accomplished in the after years, it is more pleasant to me to recollect him as the student, for in that relation I was first drawn into companions.h.i.+p with him; it was during that period of our lives that I first learned to regard him, and my tribute is to my cla.s.smate and friend of auld lang syne. May he rest in peace in the bosom of the honored State he loved so well and served so faithfully.

ADDRESS OF MR. STEWART, OF NEVADA.