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.
He rebuilt and reëstablished 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 reëlection, 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 constitution 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 associates,
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 hardships and dangers of his military career, some because
they were associated 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 companionship with him; it was
during that period of our lives that I first learned to regard him, and
my tribute is to my classmate 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.