Kitabı oku: «Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia)», sayfa 5
Address of Mr. Cowles, of North Carolina
Mr. Speaker: Truly "in the midst of life we are in death." There is scarcely one of the associates and colleagues of Gen. William H.F. Lee who knew him here and up to the closing days of the late Congress who would have been deterred by the thought of personal risk from exchanging the chances of life or death with him for a few months; and yet, in so short a time the dread summoner, who soon or late is to call us all, has taken him from this life into that which fadeth not, neither does it die.
The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.
Yes, death, the unsolved and unsolvable mystery, has enveloped him, and he has passed from our view never more to be seen and known of men on this earth. But yesterday the living, moving, brave, sympathetic, generous friend, and now, alas, but a memory—and yet a memory dear to all who knew and appreciated his noble attributes of heart and mind; a memory which has left its impress upon his fellow-men for nobility of character; a memory which can not wholly fade, but must influence for good not only his own immediate posterity, but all those who may come after him.
My acquaintance with Gen. Lee began in the early part of the war between the States. It was upon a night march, as we rode with the advance guard of the army, where we might expect at any moment a hostile volley. He related to me in a low impressive tone of voice an experience which had occurred to him when his command by reason of surprise had met with some disaster. What impressed me most at the time was that, although others must have been to some extent culpable, he took all the blame upon himself, and had not a word of complaint for either officer or man who served under him.
This trait of magnanimity, such a splendid companion to personal courage, I found afterwards to be characteristic of the man.
Though springing from a long line of heroic and patriotic ancestors, he had not a particle of pretentious pride, but to all men, privates in the ranks as well as officers, so that they were but brave and good soldiers, he always found "time enough for courtesy." He never tried to appropriate another man's laurels, but he possessed in a high degree that quality of courage which is so well described by Emerson:
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage, an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.
Great in itself, not praises of the crowd,
Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
In his friendship he was gentle and tender as one who is full of love and human sympathy. You might have thought him better fitted for the paths of peace, and yet upon the battlefield he was brave as the bravest. Whenever and wherever duty called him his personal safety was by him never considered. Often have I seen him in the thickest of the fight, by his presence and personal direction cheering and encouraging both officers and men. Though the son of the general in chief of the army, he took no favor by it.
He never took advantage of his rank to keep to the rear and send his regiments in. You could always measure his estimate of you by the manner in which he met you. The soul of candor, his heart shone in his eye, and placing a high estimate upon manhood, he loved all in whom he recognized it. For about two years during the latter part of the war I served in his command, and had every opportunity to observe and know him.
My acquaintance with him here was but a revival of old memories. I always loved him as one who—
Spake no slander; no, nor listened to it.
Who reverenced his conscience as his king.
Who, if he committed an error or wronged any man, was swift to redress it; never laying his blame at another man's door. Who excelled in all the virtues which go to make up a beautiful private life in all the essentials of faithful friendship and truthful character; who lived—
Thro' all this tract of years,
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life.
Think for a moment how much better and happier every one would be if all men were earnestly to strive to live up to this high standard and how much of pain would be spared the world. He was one of the most faithful members upon this floor; faithful to the public interest, and whenever any proposition was under consideration which specially concerned his own people, they always had in him an able advocate and strong defender.
He is gone! sincere Christian, loving husband and father, trusted friend. The life that was given him has been taken away. The widow and the orphan mourn, and their grief is our grief; but a merciful Father has given him more than he has taken away, and this strength and comfort through the tender mercy of our Saviour is theirs—
I am the resurrection, and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Address of Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky
Mr. Speaker: I never had the pleasure of Gen. Lee's acquaintance, so far as I could recall, until he entered this House as a Representative of the district which lies just across the river; but there were many things in common between us which soon caused a kindliness of feeling much warmer than the frequency of our association would indicate. It happened that we were almost of the same age, born within a few weeks of each other, and that on all great questions of the day we were singularly alike in our opinions, and, if I may use such an expression, even in our prejudices.
Amid all the trials of life we two found we had adhered to simple beliefs of those Southern homes in which we were the reared; that no advance in civilization, no pretense of progress, had ever obscured our views as to the olden beliefs and the simpler truths which had been inwrought into our being by the venerable fathers and beloved mothers with whom we had been blessed. The substratum of our beliefs was precisely the same. And we found that we were not ashamed of that substratum, that we were not given to apologizing for adhering to so-called "obsolete" traditions or to creeds "that were passing out of fashion."
We also found that on the political questions of the day we were similarly in accord. We believed in the same political principles. And so it was a very rare occurrence that when the roll was called in this House we were not found voting, even on what seemed to be trivial matters, upon the same side. It was not strange that with these coincidences of belief and with our having both served in the Confederate army and the local accident of the nearness of our seats which threw us together, there grew up a regard greater than was indicated by our association outside of this Hall.
If I were to select in my acquaintance him who, as much as any other, deserved the title, I would say of Gen. Lee that he was a gentleman. All that had concurred in producing him was of the best. The blood which gave him life, the soil out of which he grew, the kindly influences which always surrounded him, the molding powers to which he had been subjected—all were of the noblest. A son of such houses, reared at such knees, influenced by such powers, he passed early under the influences of Harvard. Later he took his young experience as a soldier under Albert Sidney Johnston. He began his civil life in a delicious home, with the love of an exquisite young wife. And in the Confederate service he was associated with the best and the bravest volunteers of the Old Dominion herself.
It was not strange that the product of such influences should be a gentleman. All that was courageous, all that was loyal to truth, all that was courteous to those with whom he came in contact, all that was gentle and kindly was not only the heritage which he received with his name and his blood, but it was developed by all the environments which he was so fortunate as to have surround him. If I were to select a character of which it might be said that it was round, without angles, even without salient points, it would be his—not because he was weak, but because the calmness, the serenity, and the magnificence (if I may use a word that seems to be hyperbolic) of the equipoise of his qualities made each of them seem less important than it would have seemed if other qualities had been less.
It would not be extravagant to apply to him the paraphrase of the apostolic description of a Christian gentleman—loving without dissimulation; abhorring the evil; cleaving to the honorable; preferring to confer honor rather than to receive it; earnest in the work of life, and careful of time and opportunity to labor; hopeful of all good; patient in tribulation; forbearing to resent trespass; charitable in thought and word, as in deed; given to hospitality; at peace with his own conscience and with God.
We live, Mr. Speaker, in a heroic age. I constantly hear of this being an age of materialism, of the worship of the "almighty dollar." I challenge all the past, in all the endeavors of man, to reach a higher level, to equal the heroism of the age in which we have been called to perform our part—the devotion to duty, the readiness to make sacrifices, the willingness to give all for the truth which have marked our generation—the era in which we have to act our part.
This simple, kindly, unaffected, modest gentleman; this man, with his sweet calm smile, who met us every day, passing in and out with a certain reticence of modesty, was himself but the type of the age in which he lived and of the people from whom he sprang. All modest as he was, he had given up everything at the call of duty. All simple and kindly as he seemed to be, he had at the head of charging squadrons captured cannon, and with more heroic endurance had lain without complaint in the cell of solitary confinement. He carried about with him in the simple modesty of his everyday life the heart that at a moment's notice was ready to still its beating at the call of duty; and with the same simplicity, with the same freedom from ostentation, with the same delicious smile, he would have walked into the jaws of death if it had become him as a gentleman to do so.
To live in such an age, to be associated with such men—and, thank God, they are not uncommon amongst us—the bar at which I practice, the tables at which I sit in the kindliness of social intercourse, the men with whom I have been blessed enough to be called into contact, the very strangers who call on business at my house, rank among them men just like unto him. I say to live in such an age, to be associated with such men, to play a part, however obscure, in such drama, make life worth the living; make the hereafter nobler for him who has been so blessed.
Mr. Speaker, to-day, in the midst of this the ending of the nineteenth century, we who will soon pass away, we who are but the remnants of a generation of war, can proudly hand over to those who shall come after us the example of lives that in war feared nothing but God, in peace strove for nothing but the good of the people.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE
EULOGIES
March 4, 1892.
The Vice-President. The Chair lays before the Senate resolutions from the House of Representatives, which will be read.
The resolutions were read, as follows:
In the House of Representatives, February 6, 1892.
Resolved, That the business of the House be now suspended, that opportunity be given for tributes to the memory of Hon. William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, late a Representative from the State of Virginia.
Resolved, As a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased, and in recognition of his eminent abilities as a distinguished public servant, that the House, at the conclusion of these memorial proceedings, shall stand adjourned.
Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate.
Mr. Barbour. Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which I send to the desk.
The Vice-president. The resolutions will be read.
The resolutions were read, as follows:
Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow the announcement of the death of Hon. William H.F. Lee, late a Representative from the State of Virginia.
Resolved, That the business of the Senate be now suspended, in order that fitting tribute may be paid to his memory.
Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect the Senate shall, at the conclusion of these ceremonies, adjourn.
Address of Mr. Barbour, of Virginia
Mr. President: The resolutions just read were passed by the House of Representatives on the 6th day of February last in respect to the memory of William H.F. Lee, deceased, late a member of that body from the Eighth Congressional district of Virginia.
Before asking the Senate to adopt the resolutions it is incumbent upon me, as one of the Senators from Virginia, as it is in harmony with my own personal feelings, to submit some remarks in explanation of their purpose and object; a sad and mournful duty to be performed on my part.
Gen. Lee was my immediate successor in the House of Representatives, and served with ability and efficiency in both the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses. He was reëlected to the present Congress, but his career was arrested by that higher and supreme Power to which we must all yield, and on the 15th of October, 1891, he departed this life at his home in the county of Fairfax, and in the midst of his family and friends.
I do not consider it necessary in this presence or on this occasion to go into much detail touching the life and character of the deceased.
The full and eloquent tributes paid to his memory in the House of Representatives show the high appreciation in which he was held by his associates in that body, and express in far more fitting terms than I could employ their estimate of his character, services, and virtues.
Gen. Lee came from a distinguished lineage. Two of the family signed our Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, and another was Attorney-General under Gen. Washington.
On the paternal side he could refer to his distinguished grandfather, Gen. Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary army, who was known as Light-Horse Harry, the commandant of Lee's Legion, so conspicuous in the annals of that period. His maternal grandfather was the late G.W. Parke Custis, of Arlington, the stepson of Gen. Washington, and familiarly called in his day the child of Mount Vernon.
His father, Gen. R.E. Lee, the chief military figure on his side in the late civil war, was too well known for comment at my hands. It is the boast of some of the old baronial families of England that their ancestors rode with William the Conqueror at Hastings. To a certain extent the pride of ancestry is an ennobling sentiment, and Virginians must be pardoned when tempted to refer to the illustrious names which their State in the past has furnished to the nation. The name of Lee has been a household word in Virginia for three generations of men. In the death of Gen. William H.F. Lee the State has lost one of her truest and worthiest sons and the Federal Government a faithful and patriotic Representative.
Although acquainted personally with Gen. Lee for many years, it was only within a year or two before his death that I had the opportunity to appreciate fully the high personal qualities of the man and to understand the real nobility of his nature. The more I saw of him the higher became my respect and admiration. He grew upon me with closer contact and more intimate association.
I was greatly impressed with his invariable courtesy of manner and great amiability and kindness of heart, to which was added a knightly bearing and cordiality of greeting which, combined, made Gen. Lee with all classes of society an imposing and attractive figure.
He has gone to his last resting place, mourned by his family and friends and lamented by an extensive acquaintance throughout the country. He had filled the measure of his duties in every respect, and was entitled, as he passed from the stage of action, to the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Address of Mr. Pasco, of Florida
Mr. President: My acquaintance with William Henry Fitzhugh Lee commenced in the summer of 1854, when we met at Cambridge as members of the new freshman class at Harvard College. He was just then entering his eighteenth year, was well grown for his age, tall, vigorous, and robust, open and frank in his address, kind and genial in his manners. He entered upon his college life with many advantages in his favor. The name of Lee was already upon the rolls of the university, for other representatives of different branches of the family had entered and graduated in the years gone by and had left pleasant memories behind them. His distinguished lineage made him a welcome guest in the older families of the University city, and of Boston, its near neighbor, who felt a just pride in the historic and traditional associations connected with the earlier history of the country, and many of the influential members of the class belonged to such families.
He was rather older than the average age of his classmates, and his life had been spent amid surroundings that had enabled him to see a good deal of society and the world, so that he brought with him into his college life a more matured mind and a greater insight than the student usually possesses at the threshold of his career. He had enjoyed excellent advantages in preparing for the entering examinations, and was well grounded in the languages as well as mathematics, so that he entered the class well fitted for the course of study to be pursued. Thus, from the first, he was prominent in the university, and soon became popular among his classmates, and his prominence and popularity were maintained during his stay among us.
This was due not to superior distinction in any particular study or in any one feature of college life, but rather to his general standing and characteristics. He kept pace with his classmates in the recitation room, not so much by hard and continuous study as by his quick comprehension and ready grasp of the subject in hand and the general fund of knowledge at his command. He was of a friendly and companionable nature, and there were abundant opportunities in a large class to develop this disposition, cultivate social intercourse, and strengthen the bonds of good fellowship. He had been accustomed to an outdoor life in his Virginia home, and his manly training had given him an athletic frame which required constant and vigorous exercise. This he sought in active sports on the football ground and in the class and college boat clubs, where he was welcomed as a valuable auxiliary.
In a large university—and Harvard had gained that rank even as far back as those days—there are various fields of action, and other honors are recognized than those marked on the catalogue or contained in the degrees. The graduate who excels in mathematics, the languages, the arts and sciences, is decked with the highest honor on commencement day, but there are unwritten honors given by general consent of classmates to those who have developed a superiority in any mental or physical excellence. When in after life the members of a class meet on some public college anniversary or gather together at a reunion and the memories and traditions of college life are talked over anew, the merits of those who excelled in pleasant companionship, in kindly bearing, in generous conduct towards their associates, in outdoor games and sports requiring strength and dexterity, are pleasant subjects to dwell upon, even if the possessors failed to stand among the highest upon the roll of scholarship.
Thus it was that Lee established himself among his associates during the three years that he remained among us, and though he contented himself with a medium standing in scholarship and exhibited no ambition to gain a high rank upon the college rolls, he won the regard and confidence and respect of all his classmates and held a warm place in the hearts of those with whom he was most intimate.
Towards the close of our junior year, in the early part of 1857, upon the recommendation of Gen. Winfield Scott, he received a commission as second lieutenant in the Army, and was assigned to the Sixth Regiment of Infantry, which was ordered into active service on the Western frontier, and took part in the expedition to Utah which was commanded by Col. Albert Sidney Johnston. Lee accepted this appointment, closed his connection with the college, and our paths in life diverged for more than thirty years.
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 friendship of our early days. Though the exacting duties of Congressional life gave me fewer opportunities of associating 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 passing, 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 associations, and remembered them with evident satisfaction. He became a member of the Harvard Club here in Washington, 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 associates of the olden time. He attended the commencement exercises and spoke pleasantly at the class supper. His classmates 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 noble and manly in the young student. The same warmth and cordiality which had endeared him to his classmates won the regard and affection of his associates 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 nobility 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 noble 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 associated 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 assigned 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 Washington had married the widow Custis.
The plantation had descended to her son, George Washington 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 passed 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 assigned 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 hardships 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 citizenship. 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 illustrious 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 shipyard 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 assassinations, 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 associate, 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 grass 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 noble spirit which had actuated his father, the elder Lee, he threw aside his discouragement and took up the duties of life and citizenship 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 hardships it entailed upon an unfortunate people emerging from a disastrous conflict.
