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.