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52d Congress, } HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. j Mis. Doc 
 
 1st Session. f ) No. 320. 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 WILLIAM H. F. LEE, 
 
 (A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA,) 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 House of Representatives and in the Senate, 
 
 FIFTY-SECOND CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF CONGRESS. 
 
 WASHINGTON : 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 i Sg 2 
 

 Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concurring), That there be 
 printed of the eulogies delivered in Congress upon the Hon. W. H. F. Lee, late a 
 Representative from the State of Virginia, eight thousand copies, of which number 
 two thousand copies shall be delivered to the Senators and Representatives of the 
 State of Virginia, which shall include fifty copies to be bound in full morocco, to be 
 delivered to the family of the deceased, and of those remaining two thousand shall 
 be for the use of the Senate and four thousand for the use of the House of Represent- 
 atives ; and the Secretary of the Treasury is directed to have engraved and printed a 
 portrait of the said W. H. F. Lee to accompany the said eulogies. 
 
 Agreed to i« the House of Representatives March 23, 1892. 
 
 Agreed to in the Senate March 22, 1892. 
 2 
 
 * D. 01 D. 
 
PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 ANNOUNCEMENT OF DEATH. 
 
 December 23, 1891. 
 
 Mr. Meredith, of Virginia: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make 
 the painful announcement to the House of the death of Hon. 
 William H. F. Lee, a Representative in the Fiftieth and 
 Fifty-first Congresses of the United States and a Representa- 
 tive-elect to the Fifty-second Congress. 
 
 He died at his home, in Fairfax County, Va., on the 15th day 
 of October last, after a lingering illness. Later in the session 
 I shall ask this House to fix a day when his colleagues and 
 friends can do justice to his memory and express their appre- 
 ciation of his high character. 
 
 It is only meet and fitting on this occasion that I should say 
 that in the death of Gen. L-EE the State of Virginia has lost 
 the services of one of her most chivalrous and noble sons, and 
 the district he so well represented a faithful guardian of the 
 interests of all its people. 
 
 3 
 
4 Proceedings in the House of Representatives. 
 
 I send to the desk and ask the adoption of these resolutions: 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the House has heard with deep regret and profound sorrow of the 
 death of Hon. W. H. F. Lee, a Representative from the State of Virginia. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk be directed to communicate a copy of these resolutions to 
 the Senate. 
 
 Resolved, That as a further mark of respect the House do now adjourn. 
 
 The resolutions were unanimously agreed to. 
 
 And accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 37 minutes p. m.) the 
 House adjourned until Tuesday, the 5th day of January next. 
 
EULOGIES. 
 
 February 6, 1892. 
 The Speaker. The Clerk will report the special order. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That Saturday, February 6, beginning at i o'clock afternoon, be set apart 
 for paying tribute to the memory of Hon. William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, late a 
 member of the House of Representatives from the Eighth district of the State of Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 Mr. Meredith. Mr. Speaker, I offer the resolutions which 
 I send to the desk. 
 
 The resolutions were read, as follows: 
 
 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 recog- 
 nition of his eminent ability and distinguished public services, that the House, at the 
 conclusion of these memorial proceedings, shall stand adjourned. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 
 
 The resolutions were adopted. 
 
Address of Mr. Meredith, of Virginia, on the 
 
 Address of Mr. Meredith, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: This day having been set apart for the pur- 
 pose of paying a last tribute to the memory of one who so lately 
 was a loved and honored member of this House, I shall, in the 
 brief remarks which I propose to make, attempt nothing but a 
 plain and truthful narrative of some of the characteristics and 
 public services of a Christian gentleman, who in my judgment 
 measured fully up to that standard which makes man the 
 noblest work of God. 
 
 On the 15th day of October, 1891, at Ravensworth, his beau- 
 tiful home in Fairfax County, Va. , surrounded by those loved 
 ones whose constant care and tender nursing had done all that 
 human power could do to stay the hand of the fell Destroyer, 
 all that was mortal of Hon. William Henry Fitzhugh L,EE 
 passed from this earth, and his noble spirit returned to the God 
 who gave it. 
 
 If the earnest supplications to Almighty God, offered by the 
 good people of his native State upon their bended knees night 
 and morning, during the period of his lingering illness, could 
 have availed, he would have been restored to health and use- 
 fulness, and these melancholy proceedings postponed for many 
 a long year. 
 
 The great sorrow which made the heart of Virginia heavy 
 and bowed in grief the heads of her true sons and daughters 
 when the sad intelligence of his death was flashed over the elec- 
 tric wires was more genuinely spontaneous than were the loud 
 lamentations of the Roman populace (so graphically described 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 7 
 
 by Tacitus) when they beheld the widow of Germanieus, with 
 her weeping children entering the gates of the imperial city. 
 Nor was this sorrow confined to those of his own political 
 faith. Men of all parties vied with each other in their ex- 
 pressions of regret at his death and in their sympathy for his 
 bereaved family. 
 
 The blameless life he had led, his high character, his gentle 
 and unassuming manners, won for him not only the respect but 
 the admiration of all with whom he came in contact. 
 
 As gentle as a child and as tender as a woman, with the 
 courage of a hero and a faith that never faltered, he proved 
 himself a worthy descendant of that race of famous men from 
 whom he sprang, and most worthily bore a name which will 
 be honored as long as a liberty-loving people shall find a dwell- 
 ing place upon the earth. 
 
 William H. F. Lee was the son of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and 
 was born at Arlington, on the 31st day of May, 1837. 
 
 He was educated at Harvard, where he ranked not only as a 
 good scholar, but on account of his splendid size and strength 
 became quite famous in athletics, being ' ' stroke oar ' ' of the 
 University Rowing Club. 
 
 His great ambition was to follow the profession of his father 
 and to go to West Point ; but having had an older brother there, 
 that fact was considered in those days an insuperable obsta- 
 cle. While still at Harvard, completing his education, he was, 
 through the interest taken in him by Gen. Winfield Scott, who 
 made the request as a special and personal favor to himself, 
 appointed in 1857 a second lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment, 
 United States Infantry, and inaugurated his military career by 
 taking a detachment of troops to Texas by sea and then by land 
 up the country to San Antonio. 
 
8 Address of Mr. Meredith, of J T irginia, on the 
 
 In 1858 he accompanied his regiment, under the command of 
 Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, in the expedition to Utah against 
 the Mormons, taking an active part in that campaign, marching 
 from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake City, and then, when the 
 troubles were quelled there, traveling on foot to Fort Benicia, 
 Cal. While on the Pacific coast he received a letter from his 
 father, written January 1, 1859, in which he said: 
 
 I can not express the gratification I felt in meeting Col. May in New York, and at 
 the encomiums he passed upon your soldiership, zeal, and devotion to your duty. But I 
 was more pleased at the report of your conduct. I always thought and said there was 
 stuff in you for a good soldier, and I trust you will prove it 
 
 Resigning his commission in the Army, he came home to be 
 married to his cousin, a Miss Wickham, and settled down as a 
 farmer at the "White House" (where Washington met Martha 
 Custis and was married), a large estate on the Pamunkey River, 
 left him by his maternal grandfather, G. W. Park Custis, of 
 Arlington. 
 
 When that irrepressible conflict of 1861 was upon us, and Vir- 
 ginia called upon her sons to defend her soil, he, sharing the 
 faith of his fathers, in the belief that his allegiance was due to 
 his State, quickly raised a company of cavalry, and was attached 
 to the Army of Northern Virginia. Serving in every grade suc- 
 cessively from captain to major-general of cavalry, he led his 
 regiment in the famous raid around McClellan's army, and was 
 an active participant in all those brilliant achievements which 
 made the cavalry service so proficient. 
 
 In that terrific fight which occurred at Brandy Station, in June, 
 1863, he was most severely wounded, and taken to the residence 
 of Gen. William C. Wickham, in Hanover County, where he was 
 made a prisoner by a raiding party, and was carried off, at the 
 expense of great personal suffering, to Fort Monroe. From the 
 latter place he was conveyed to Fort Lafayette, where he was 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 9 
 
 confined until March, 1864, and treated with great severity, being 
 held, with Capt. R. H. Tyler, of the Eighth Virginia Regiment* 
 under sentence of death, as hostages for two Federal officers who 
 were prisoners in Richmond, and whom it was thought would 
 be executed for some retaliatory measure. 
 
 Exchanged in the spring of 1864, he returned, to find his young 
 wife and children dead, his beautiful home burned to the ground, 
 his whole estate devastated and laid waste by the ruthless hand 
 of war; and yet almost his-first act on reaching Richmond was 
 to go to Libby Prison, visit the two Federal officers for whom 
 he had been held as hostage, and who, like himself, had been 
 under apprehension of being hung, and shake hands with and 
 congratulate them. 
 
 Immediately joining his command, he led his division in 
 every engagement from the Rapidan to Appomattox, where, 
 with his father, the greatest soldier of modern times, he surren- 
 dered to the inevitable. 
 
 In a letter written by one of the most brilliant cavalry gen- 
 erals of the late war, in speaking of Gen. W. H. F. Lee he 
 uses this language: 
 
 He was a zealous, conscientious, brave, and intelligent soldier, who fully discharged 
 all of his duties. He was one of those safe, sound, judicious officers, and you always 
 felt when you sent instructions to him that they were going to be obeyed promptly and 
 to the letter. r : 
 
 What greater tribute could be paid a soldier ? 
 
 Having been married to one of the most accomplished ladies 
 in Virginia, Miss Boiling, of Petersburg (who, with two sons, 
 survives him) he removed in 1874 to Ravensworth, and was 
 the next year elected to the senate of Virginia, where he made 
 an honorable record. 
 
 He was elected to the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses, and 
 served his State with that fidelity which had characterized his 
 
10 Address of Air. Meredith, of Virginia, on the 
 
 every act through life — faithful, conscientious, and painstak- 
 ing — ever alert to the interests of his constituents and seeking 
 only how he could serve them. 
 
 He was again reelected to the Fifty-second Congress, and 
 though by the will of Divine Providence he was not permitted 
 to take his seat, he will ever be held in grateful remembrance 
 by his late constituents, and when the long roll of Virginia's 
 noble and heroic dead is called, the name of William H. Fitz- 
 hugh LEE will be mourned by his mother Commonwealth as 
 one of her noblest and truest sons. 
 
 In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I shall read, as the most fitting 
 tribute I have seen, an editorial from the Alexandria Gazette 
 written the day after the death of Gen. LEE: 
 
 Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, second son of Gen. Robert Edward Lee, is 
 dead. The bells here tolled late yesterday evening. A few hours before the general 
 had crossed over the river and was at rest under his rooftree at Ravensworth, the 
 southern sun lighted his deathbed and the autumn breeze sang his requiem. After life's 
 fitful fever he sleeps well. He was sick a long time, and as his disease was incurable, 
 death was a relief. No more pain for him now, but the long and peaceful sleep of the 
 just. His sorrowing family were at his bedside, but he told them not good-bye, pre- 
 ferring to greet them when they shall rejoin him in a better world. His death is re- 
 gretted by all the many who knew him; the more so by those who knew him well. 
 
 Gen. Lee, like his father, was naturally quiet and retiring, and in his intercourse 
 with others, when right and principle were not involved, invariably acted in accord- 
 ance with the rule of noblesse oblige, but when they were involved he was as firm in sup- 
 port of his convictions as any other man could be. He stood foursquare to all the 
 winds that blow, but always with the propriety that characterizes the perfect gentleman. 
 He did his duty to his God, his family, his State, and his country, and did it well, and 
 executed faithfully all the trusts committed to him in both military and civil life. He 
 liked the old manners and customs of Virginia, but tried to conform to the new order 
 of things with becoming grace, and did so with no audible complaint and no useless 
 repinings. He served his State efficiently in her senate and in the national Congress, 
 and in the Confederate army he filled, by merited promotion, every position from cap- 
 tain up to major-general of cavalry. It was different once, but Virginia can ill-afford 
 to part with such a man now, and in his death, as in that of his illustrious father, she 
 has lost a true and gallant son, who when not on duty was as gentle as a woman. 
 Her fame has been increased by having had such a son. May she have many more 
 like him. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 11 
 
 Address of Mr. Edmunds, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: It is not my purpose to attempt any extended 
 remarks upon the life and character of Gen. William H. F. 
 Lee, late a Representative from the Eighth Congressional dis- 
 trict of Virginia, yet I can not permit this occasion to pass and 
 my hand and heart to fail to pay my humble tribute to his 
 memory. Gen. Lee's life had been spent after manhood in 
 arms or as a tiller of the soil. In early life he saw military 
 service as lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment, United States In- 
 fantry, and was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston in the expe- 
 dition in 1858 against the Mormons. 
 
 Resigning from the Army, he returned to his native State of 
 Virginia and engaged in the pursuit of agriculture. Early in 
 the late civil struggle he raised a cavalry company, and rose 
 from the position of company commander to that of major- 
 general, and followed the cause in which he had enlisted until 
 the end at Appomattox. There two great military chieftains 
 met, and one, his illustrious father, gave up to the other his 
 sword and the mutilated remnant of an army which had fought 
 with the utmost bravery and fortitude under a leader of unsur- 
 passed skill and fidelity. 
 
 Gen. LEE, after the struggle had ended, resuming his citi- 
 zenship in peace, returned to his farm and occupation of agri- 
 culture. 
 
 He was elected by his people from his senatorial district 
 to the legislature. He served one term in the senate of Vir- 
 ginia and declined a renomination. He was afterwards elected 
 from the Eighth Congressional district of his State to the Fif- 
 
12 Address of Mr. Edmunds, of Virginia, on the 
 
 tieth and Fifty-first Congresses and again returned by his 
 constituency to the present Congress; but the hand of death 
 interposed, and he did not live to again take his seat in this 
 legislative hall. 
 
 The name of Lee, Mr. Speaker, has been an illustrious one 
 in Virginia. No one can with safety challenge the assertion 
 that that old Commonwealth has furnished, from the time of 
 the Revolution, as many great men, in peace and in war, as 
 any of the States of our Union. When the foundations of this 
 great Republic were laid and constitutional principles evolved, 
 whether the sword of the warrior or the mind and philosophy 
 of the statesman were needed, you will find the marks and 
 handiwork of some son of that State. 
 
 Among those great men the ancestry of Gen. LEE were con- 
 spicuous. He inherited from his great father a disposition 
 that was frank, manly, and chivalrous. Although with these 
 distinguished surroundings, Gen. LEE had no undue pride, 
 reserve, or self-assertion. His nature, on the contrary, was 
 eminently amiable, generous, and sympathetic, and at the same 
 time he was dignified, manly, brave, and ever courteous. 
 
 Identified with the agricultural interests of his State, at one 
 time president of the State society, and himself a practical and 
 successful farmer and proud of his occupation, he mingled 
 freely and congenially with that great class of our citizens upon 
 whose shoulders repose in great measure the preservation and 
 safety of the institutions of our common country. While he 
 was especially devoted to the interests of the farmer, he was 
 essentially a patriot, and loved his State and all its diverse 
 interests with an enthusiastic devotion and yearned for her 
 prosperity. 
 
 He was a faithful, able, and vigilant Representative, and had 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 13 
 
 in the greatest degree the confidence of his constituents and 
 the people of his entire State. No one who ever knew him 
 could fail to implicitly trust him. His State has lost a pure 
 and noble son; the country a wise, conservative, and faithful 
 Representative. We who knew him here can recall his manly 
 robust form, his genial kindly face, his frank accessible ad- 
 dress, his unfailing gentleness of manner, his cheerful friendly 
 voice, as he walked along the aisles of this Hall. 
 
 A man of his character and bearing could but wield an in- 
 fluence for good wherever his presence was. 
 
 In a republic, where the people are the state, the advice, the 
 suggestions, and the example of a citizen so high-minded and 
 incorruptible are of great value not only in the councils of 
 the nation, but in the everyday walks and details of life, in his 
 beautiful rural home, surrounded by and mingling with his 
 country people ; and it was ever the pleasure and practice of 
 Gen. IvEE to associate freely and unrestrainedly with the great 
 body of the people. His generous and noble heart had a sym- 
 pathetic touch with them and their struggles, their callings, 
 their work. 
 
 But he has passed from us under the decree of the great 
 Master to the great hereafter, leaving the record of a life of 
 singular purity, directness of purpose, and freedom from guile; 
 the record of a character unblurred, untarnished, unshadowed 
 by the least stain; the record of a man high, noble, honorable, 
 faithful to all the duties and relations of life. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, Virginia, one of the oldest of the Common- 
 wealths, within whose borderes lie the remains of many great 
 names, and the energies and reserved forces of whose people in 
 times gone by have risen to great heights, receives to her 
 bosom her dead son and bows with sincere grief over his 
 
14 Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, on the 
 
 grave; for to her, whether her hand wore the mailed gauntlet 
 or followed the gentler pursuits of peace, he had ever been 
 faithful, loyal, and true. 
 
 Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I shall leave to others the task of portraying 
 the life of Gen. L,EE in its diversified pursuits, and shall content 
 myself with the effort of giving to the House my conception of 
 some of the characteristics of our deceased friend which made 
 him throughout his life, wherever placed, a conspicuous actor 
 in private and public affairs. 
 
 In the early period of Virginia's history lived William Ran- 
 dolph, of Turkey Island (a plantation some 15 or 20 miles 
 from the city of Richmond, near the scene of the terrific 
 battle of Malvern Hill). He was the ancestor of all of that 
 name in Virginia, and from him was descended in direct line 
 Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Robert E. Lee; the last- 
 named the father of our departed friend. How could he have 
 manifested in his life less patriotism, justice, and courage with 
 such exemplars of these virtues ever before him? 
 
 His mother, as is well known, was a descendant from the 
 wife of Gen. Washington by her prior marriage with John 
 Parke Custis. Sprung from such a lineage ; trained in a 
 school where the amenities of life as well as "the humanities" 
 were taught in their highest excellence, he practiced from his 
 earliest childhood a scrupulous regard for the rights and feel- 
 ings of others, and an indulgence to all faults except his own. 
 
 With a self-control and equipoise which were never dis- 
 turbed under the most trying circumstances, and a gracious- 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 15 
 
 ness of manner which broke down all barriers, giving to the 
 humblest as well as to the highest the assurance of his friendly 
 consideration, and a mind well disciplined by education in the 
 highest schools, it was impossible that he could have been 
 other than a man of mark and influence in his State. 
 
 It is not claiming too much to say that Gen. LEE was the 
 natural product of the civilization existing in Virginia during 
 his boyhood and early manhood, which, alas, except here and 
 there in certain localities, is fast passing away. The home, 
 not the club, was its center; the family, not each "new-hatched, 
 unfledged comrade, ' ' its unit. The father was the head of the 
 family, not the joint tenant with the wife of a house nor the 
 tenant at will of his wife. The wife and the mother was the 
 queen of the household, not merely a housekeeper for a hus- 
 band and the family. Obedience to those in authority was the 
 first lesson exacted of the boy. Inculcated with tenderness, it 
 was enforced with severity, if need be, until the word of the 
 father or the expressed wish of the mother carried with it the 
 force of law as completely as the decree of a court or t,he 
 mandate of a king. 
 
 Reverence for superiors in age and deference to all, rather 
 than arrogant self-assertion, was magnified as a cardinal virtue, 
 not as teaching humility and enforcing a lack of proper self- 
 respect, but rather to exalt high ideals and stimulate an admira- 
 tion for "the true, the beautiful, and the good." 
 
 Fidelity to truth, the maintenance of personal honor, defer- 
 ence for the opinions and feelings of others, without abating 
 one's own or aggressively thrusting them on others ; a kindli- 
 ness of manner to dependents, a knightly courtesy to all, but 
 with special and tender regard in thought, word, and action 
 toward woman, were in turn patiently taught in all the lessons 
 
16 Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, on the 
 
 of the fireside and at the family altar, and earnestly insisted 
 upon in the formation of the character of a true gentleman. 
 "Any man will be polite to a beautiful young woman, but it 
 takes a gentleman to show the same respect to a homely old 
 woman" was the stinging rebuke of a father to his son who 
 failed to remove his hat in passing a forlorn old woman on the 
 public highway. 
 
 The old-field school, the private tutor, the high school, whose 
 excellence in Virginia I can not praise too much, the college, 
 the university, led the young mind by easy stages to its full 
 intellectual maturity. 
 
 Nowhere was the principle " Sana metis in sano corpore" 
 more scrupulously taught than in Virginia. The rod and 
 stream, the gun, the "hounds and horns," the chase, with the 
 music of the pack, the bounding steed, all lent their ready aid 
 in developing the physical manhood of the boy. In the pure 
 atmosphere of his country home, amid its broad fields and vir- 
 gin forests, contracted houses in narrow streets had no charms 
 for him. To join the chase was the first promotion to which 
 the boy looked as evidencing his permanent release from the 
 nursery. The gun and dog became his constant companions, 
 while "Old Betsey," his father's trusted double-barreled gun 
 of many years' usage, standing in the sitting-room corner or 
 hanging on stag-horns or dog-wood forks on the side of the 
 wall, was the eloquent subject of nightly rehearsals of her 
 prowess and power in the annual deer hunt "over the moun- 
 tains." Skill in horsemanship was essential, and breaking 
 colts was naturally followed by broken limbs ; but manhood 
 found a race of trained horsemen, both graceful and skillful in 
 the saddle, unexcelled, I dare venture to assert, by any civilized 
 people. A child of nature, the Virginia boy communed with 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 17 
 
 her as his mother, and from her purest depths drew the richest 
 inspirations. To him no mountains were so blue as hers, no 
 streams so clear, no forests so enchanting, no homes so sweet. 
 
 While others hailed in distant skies the glories of the Union 
 He only saw the mountain bird stoop o'er his Old Dominion. 
 
 How vividly the picture comes to me now (never to be 
 effaced) of a learned professor in one of Virginia's highest 
 schools, himself three-score years and ten, a soldier of two wars, 
 as he led the way through a quiet Virginia town on horseback, 
 followed by two sons, distinguished ministers of the gospel, and 
 they in turn by a younger son and the grandson of the leader, 
 with a goodly train of friends, amid the blasts of horns and 
 baying of hounds, who followed, eager for the chase among 
 the beautiful hills which surrounded the town of Lexington, 
 even as the mountains stand ' ' round about Jerusalem. ' ' 
 
 Religion — the duty of man to his Creator, not sectarianism — 
 was scrupulously taught, and Sunday morning found the family 
 alive in preparations for attending religious service at Zion or 
 Trinity, as it might happen to be the first or the fourth Sun- 
 da)' of the month. From this duty none were exempt from the 
 least to the greatest. The pastor was the friend on whom all 
 troubles both temporal and spiritual were cast, and his visits 
 were long remembered and talked of in the life of each family. 
 Deference to his wishes and reverence for his character were 
 well-nigh universal. 
 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year; 
 
 Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 
 Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place. 
 
 Unskillful he to fawn, or seek for power, 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 
 Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, 
 More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. 
 
 H. Mis. 320 2 
 
18 Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, on the 
 
 Such was the atmosphere in which our deceased friend was 
 reared. He was a trustee in the venerable institution of Wash- 
 ington and Lee University at Lexington, Va. , founded by Gen. 
 Washington, and presided over by Gen. Robert E. Lee during 
 the last years of his life; he was faithful to the trust, and ever 
 watchful of the best interests of the school. The loss sustained 
 by this institution in his death has been most fittingly expressed 
 in the appended minute of the faculty of the university, adopted 
 on the 19th of October, 1891: 
 
 At a meeting of the faculty of Washington and Lee University, held October 19, 
 1 89 1, the following minute was adopted : 
 
 Upon the announcement of the death of Gen. W. H. F. Lee the faculty of Washing- 
 ton and Lee University unite in sorrowful sympathy with his family, bereaved of hus- 
 band, father, and brother; with the Commonwealth in the loss of a patriotic citizen; 
 and with the board of trustees of this university, of which he was an esteemed member. 
 
 He was graduated at Harvard for the life of a civilian, but took a commission in the 
 United States Army as lieutenant, and served with fidelity to duty under Gen. Albert 
 Sidney Johnston in the Utah expedition of 1858. 
 
 At its close he resigned and returned to his country home, where he continued to live 
 until 1 86 1, when he entered the Confederate army, and, rising by rapid promotion to 
 the rank of major-general of cavalry, closed his efficient and faithful military career in 
 1865, when he again returned to country life, and died at the seat of his ancestors, at 
 Ravensworth, in Fairfax County. 
 
 In the mean time his private life was interrupted by the voice of his people, which 
 called him to their service in the senate of Virginia and for three terms as their Rep- 
 resentative in Congress, two of which he completed, and left the vacancy in the third 
 by his untimely death. 
 
 Truth, honor, and courage to do good and to resist evil, sincerity in all relations 
 and fidelity to all duty, were heirlooms of his race and lineage, which he kept and left 
 untarnished to his posterity. 
 
 With a mind strong and vigorous, a judgment sound and well-poised, a calm and 
 self-contained temper, which impelled him to the right and restrained him from the 
 wrong, and a moral sense which guided and controlled his purposes and his actions 
 along the path of absolute rectitude, he lived a life adorned by noble virtues and filled 
 with noble deeds. Gentle but firm, decided, and fixed in his convictions, but respect- 
 ful and deferential to those of others, he was a model of all the splendid qualities 
 which make up the character of a courteous and Christian gentleman. 
 
 In addition to all these natural gifts his convictions led him to the profession and 
 practice of a simple and genuine faith in the religion of Christ. 
 
 After an honorable military and civil career, in the peace of God and in charity with 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 19 
 
 his fellow-men, this worthy son of an illustrious family died the death of the righteous 
 and in the hope of immortality through Him in whom he believed and trusted. 
 
 The faculty therefore declare — 
 
 That they have heard of the death of Gen. Lee with deep sorrow, and mourn it as a 
 calamity to his family, his friends, his country, and to this university 
 
 That they tender to his family these expressions of their affectionate esteem for him 
 as a personal friend as well as for his service as a public man, and their sincere sym- 
 pathy with them in their peculiar and irreparable bereavement. 
 
 A copy. Teste: Tn ,^ t „ 
 
 J no. L. Campbell, 
 
 Clerk of the Faculty. 
 
 An intimate association with Gen. LEE in the Fifty-first Con- 
 gress and as members of the board of trustees of Washington 
 and Lee University at Lexington, Va., and in private life, 
 enabled me to form a just estimate of his character and of those 
 personal qualities of head and heart that made him beloved by 
 all who really knew him. While they have been well expressed 
 in the foregoing minute, I may add from my own observations 
 a brief summary of his noble character. His mind was emi- 
 nently practical, and arrived at its conclusions more from an 
 unerring instinct of justice and common sense than through 
 the exacting processes of logic. His judgment was rarely at 
 fault, for his intellect was not swerved by passion or prejudice, 
 but was held in perfect equipoise to receive the truth on both 
 sides of every question. His deference to the opinions of others 
 and his caution in seeking the views of those on whose discre- 
 tion he relied suggested to some who did not know him that 
 he was hesitating in temperament. This was not true. He 
 sought all the light possible on every subject patiently and ear- 
 nestly, and when he arrived at his conclusion no man adhered 
 to it more tenaciously or enforced it more earnestly. 
 
 As a speaker, Gen. LEE possessed many of the attributes of 
 the orator, a gift inherited from his grandfather, Light-Horse 
 Harry Lee. He was graceful in delivery, persuasive in manner, 
 and forcible in argument. 
 
20 Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, on the 
 
 His diction was pure, unpretentious, and simple. His 
 speeches were often embellished with references to ancient and 
 modern history and mythology with which he seemed to be 
 very familiar. 
 
 Dutifulness, I believe, was the most prominent trait of his 
 character. It was the star by which his life was guided. Once 
 persuaded that a certain measure or a certain line of policy was 
 right, and he was unflinchingly firm in its support. No burden 
 was too heavy, no privation too severe, if only they were borne 
 along the path of duty. 
 
 He exemplified in his life the noble utterance of his distin- 
 guished father: "Duty is the sublimest word in the English 
 language. ' ' 
 
 In politics he was a Democrat, but not a partisan, and he 
 firmly believed that the supremacy of his party was necessary 
 for the good of the country and the welfare of the people. His 
 patriotism was exalted, and his faith in the ultimate triumph 
 of the right never wavered. 
 
 His manly appearance, his gracious but dignified manner, his 
 courtly bearing and pleasing conversation marked him as a gen- 
 tleman of the "old school," as one of nature's noblemen. 
 
 Any sketch of Gen. LEE would, indeed be imperfect that failed 
 to mention his love for little children, and his friends will never 
 fail to recall the tender interest he always manifested in the chil- 
 dren of their families, especially in the youngest. 
 
 His life, Mr. Speaker, was a truly noble one. It was on the 
 highest plane. His character had no spot or blemish upon it 
 that sweet charity would now consign to oblivion, but it was 
 robust, well-rounded, and symmetrical, open as day. His am- 
 bition was not to attain but to deserve the praise of the good, and 
 that higher benediction, to be pronounced by the final Judge of 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 21 
 
 the world: "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou 
 into the joys of thy Lord." 
 
 He was an earnest believer in the Christian faith. The ab- 
 struse doctrines of the church formed no part of his creed. His 
 faith was in the Christ the Saviour of mankind ; a faith which 
 illumined his pathway in life, lightening his burdens, exalting 
 his nature, and which sustained him without fear when he met 
 the last enemy of the race as he walked through "the valley of 
 the shadow of death." It was the faith of a little child — 
 
 An assured belief 
 That the procession of our fate, howe'er 
 Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being 
 Of infinite benevolence and power, 
 Whose everlasting purposes embrace 
 All accidents, converting them to good. 
 
 His funeral and burial, Mr. Speaker, will never be forgotten 
 by those who witnessed it. The autumn sun was fast sinking 
 behind the bright curtain of the west, bathing "the mellow au- 
 tumn fields ' ' of Old Virginia with its purple hues. Un trum- 
 peted by official authority, scores of friends from city, town, vil- 
 lage, farm, and cabin gathered at Ravensworth to pay the last 
 sad honor to their beloved friend. White and colored, rich and 
 poor, high and low, soldiers, citizens, and statesmen, all were 
 there. 
 
 His body was borne from the house to the ivy-clad family 
 graveyard by the sturdy yeomanry of the neighborhood. In 
 the presence of that vast throng, with uncovered heads, his 
 comrades, who had followed him on many a hard-fought battle- 
 field, performed the last sad rites, and with their own hands 
 filled his grave and planted upon it the "immortelles" of their 
 affection and devotion. Faces that never blanched amid the 
 storm of battle paled; hearts that never quailed in the presence 
 
22 Address of Mr, O' 1 Ferrall, of Virginia, on the 
 
 of an enemy broke in the presence of the last enemy of us all, 
 and the silent, pitiless tear which fell from the eye was hidden 
 by the lengthening shadows of the evening, which were fast 
 gathering round the scene. 
 
 Beloved friend, farewell and hail! 
 
 Removed from sight, yet not afar, 
 Still through this earthly twilight veil 
 
 Thou beamest down, a friendly star. 
 
 The prophet's blessing comes to thee, 
 
 The crown he holds to view is thine; 
 Forever more thy memory 
 
 In heaven and in our hearts shall shine. 
 
 Address of Mr. O'Ferrall, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: These occasions of tribute-offering in this 
 Hall never fail to impress me with extreme sadness, increase 
 my awe and reverence of Him who holds in the hollow of His 
 hand every moment we live and every breath we draw, and 
 teach me the lesson of our mortality. 
 
 These scenes have become very familiar to me, and their 
 frequency reminds me with terrible force that — 
 
 All that lives must die, 
 
 Passing through nature to eternity. 
 
 Most naturally am I more than usually touched and pained 
 by the death of him which now hangs its somber drapery 
 around the walls of our hearts and casts its pall over this Cham- 
 ber. It is a death within the representative circle of which I 
 am a member. It is the death of a colleague, a friend, whose 
 presence in that circle always brought sunshine and never 
 shadow. 
 
 Tributes to his memory, clothed in language of beauty and 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 23 
 
 breathing with love and burning with pathos, have already 
 been paid, and others will follow; and now, while I can not 
 hope to charm with the tongue of eloquence or touch the soul 
 with the figures of rhetoric, I come with my tribute. 
 
 It will be plain and unadorned, but it will at least have the 
 merit of sincerity, and, like the widow's mite, be all that I can 
 give. 
 
 William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, is no more. 
 
 How the name of Lee, whenever uttered, wherever chivalry 
 has erected her altar, sends a thrill like an electric current 
 through every fiber of the manly man. 
 
 How the name of Virginia has been upon every tongue since 
 Queen Elizabeth, nearly three centuries ago, gave that name 
 to that section around which to-day historic memories linger 
 and traditions and glories cluster as thick ' ' as the stars in the 
 crown of night, ' ' the section where Christopher Newport and 
 his devoted followers "builded an altar unto the Lord and in 
 the savage wilderness ' ' deposited the germ of this mighty na- 
 tion, ' ' and where God blessed them as He blessed Noah and his 
 sons, saying unto them, ' The fear of you and the dread of you 
 shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl 
 of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all 
 the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.' " 
 
 Virginia! The land of legends and lays — the land where the 
 cradle of republican liberty was rocked, and where, in 1765, the 
 first denial was heard of the right of the British Parliament to 
 levy taxes upon the Colonies which kindled the fire of patriotic 
 fervor and led to the ever-living, soul-inspiring words of her 
 Henry and the raising up of her Jefferson to heights of imper- 
 ishable fame and her Washington to the pinnacle of everlast- 
 ing- renown. 
 
24 Address of Mr. O^ Ferrall, of Virginia, on the 
 
 Virginia! The land of battlefields and battle gore, colonial 
 relics and Revolutionary monuments, spotless fame and unsul- 
 lied honor; the land of patriot soldiers and heroes, and of a 
 Yorktown, where the tyrant's head was bruised and the glorious 
 strife ended which struck from our fathers the fetters and gave 
 to them and their posterity a country gleaming in the golden 
 sunlight of republican liberty, and throwing wide open her 
 gates to the oppressed of every clime. 
 
 Virginia! The land of mountains, upon whose summits and 
 in whose gorges the spirit of freedom roams unfettered and 
 unconquerable; the land of valleys, which are hung like 
 alcoved aisles with scenes of heroism and pictures of daring, 
 self-sacrifice, and devotion to principle; the land of rivers and 
 rivulets, which reflect like mirrors the fields upon which her 
 blood has been poured out like water upon the ground; the 
 land of zephyrs and breezes, and where the storm king some- 
 times dwells, gently murmuring or in thunder tones proclaim- 
 ing her glories and her fame; the land of blue beautiful skies, 
 radiant with the virtues of her daughters and bespangled with 
 the deeds of her sons; the land of memorials of the past, that 
 inspire the Virginia youth, whether born in poverty or in 
 riches, reared in the cottage humble or in the mansion stately, 
 with a patriotism that knows not section and yet a State love 
 that knows not bounds. 
 
 It was in this land that Richard Henry Lee, the fire and 
 splendor of whose eloquence burned like a hot iron into the 
 soul of tyranny, and Francis Lightfoot Lee, both of them 
 signers of the Declaration of Independence, were born; it was 
 in this land that Arthur Lee, through whose instrumentality 
 the Colonies secured the friendship and support of France, and 
 "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, whose legion following his plume, 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 25 
 
 struck the enemy in the bivouac, on the march, in the lurid 
 glare of battle, on the flank, and in the front like a thunder- 
 bolt from the skies, were born. It was in this land that Rob- 
 ert Edward Lee, whose services on the fields of Mexico decked 
 his brow with the warrior's laurel, and whose leadership of 
 the Confederate armies in the unfortunate strife between the 
 States made his name immortal, and whose virtues shine with 
 the brilliancy of a polished diamond, wreath his character 
 in moral grandeur, and draw paeans and praises from friend 
 and foe and from every clime where exalted manhood and a 
 spotless life find devotees, was born ; and it was in this land 
 that William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, whose memory we are 
 here to perpetuate, was born — all, all of the same lineage and 
 blood. 
 
 What a line of illustrious and distinguished men of one 
 name for one State to produce. What a line of illustrious 
 men to spring from the old cavalier family that under the 
 reign of Charles I settled in the county of Northumberland, 
 between the waters of the Rappahannock and Potomac, since 
 glorified by the pen of the historian and the lyre of the poet. 
 
 William Henry Fitzhugh Lee ! How sweet does that 
 name sound to me. What recollections does it awaken. How 
 quickly do I find my heart throbbing; how rapidly my blood 
 rushes through its channels. 
 
 Less than a twelvemonth ago he sat in yon seat or moved 
 hither and thither about this Hall and along these passage- 
 ways, pausing here and there to speak a pleasant word or ex- 
 change a friendly greeting. His tall and commanding person, 
 his open, frank, and benevolent face and courtly bearing 
 marked him among the membership of this House, and would 
 have marked him in any assemblage, whether in the glitter- 
 
26 Address of Mr. 0' Ferrall, of Virginia, on the 
 
 ing splendor of royalty or in the plain dignity of our republi- 
 can institutions. To see him once was to remember him for- 
 ever. His image is as distinct before me this moment as if 
 he stood in the flesh with his eye beaming forth the goodness 
 of his nature and his hand outstretched, as was his wont, to 
 receive mine. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, his illustrious father, when the shadows of 
 Appomattox closed round him, when the darkness of defeat 
 enveloped him, when his soul was rent and torn and his mind 
 was filled with anguish and his ragged and tired and worn vet- 
 erans, reduced to a mere thin skirmish line, the remnant of an 
 army that had shed unfading luster upon the American arms 
 and the American soldier, gathered with tear-moistened cheeks 
 about him to bid him farewell and receive his blessing, gave 
 utterance to a sentiment just quoted by my colleague [Mr. 
 Tucker], a sentiment as grand and noble as was ever written 
 upon any Roman tablet or carved upon any column of enduring 
 marble that was ever reared in the flood light of glory: 
 
 Duty is the sublimest word in our language. 
 
 Yes, Mr. Speaker, thus spoke Robert Edward Lee, the soldier, 
 hero, Christian, and philanthropist; and when we come to study 
 the life and character of William Henry Fitzhugh I,EE we 
 are impressed with the fact that he took duty as his talismanic 
 word, that it was the star that guided him, and that he followed 
 it as faithfully as the "wise men " followed the Star from " the 
 East" to Jerusalem and thence to Bethlehem. 
 
 We believe that in his youth, on the heights of Arlington, 
 where his eyes first opened upon the light, he learned at his 
 father's knee and by his father's daily walk and conversation 
 the great lesson of duty which steered his course and pointed 
 out his pathway in life. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 27 
 
 He was born, as has been said, on the 31st day of May, 1837. 
 In 1857 he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Sixth Reg- 
 iment of United States Infantry, and served in 1858 in the then 
 far West under Albert Sidney Johnston, whose fame Shiloh 
 echoes and reechoes along the banks of the Tennessee. In 
 1859 he resigned his commission in the Army and returned to 
 Virginia and located on his estate in the county of New 
 Kent. In 1861, when the Southern tocsin sounded and Vir- 
 ginia's voice was heard calling for troops, he raised a cavalry 
 company and joined the Army of Northern Virginia. He rose 
 gradually from captain to major-general of cavalry ; was wounded 
 in the terrific engagement between the Confederate and Federal 
 cavalry at Brandy Station on the 9th day of June, 1863; was 
 captured at Hanover Court-House, and was confined at Fort 
 Monroe and Fort Lafayette until March, 1864, when he was 
 exchanged, and repaired to his command, and served until the 
 flag which he loved was furled forever at Appomattox. 
 
 From that time forward he cultivated his large estate with 
 much care, serving one term in the senate of his State, declin- 
 ing a renomination. In 1886 he was elected to the Fiftieth 
 Congress from the Eighth Congressional district of Virginia, 
 and again in 1888 to the Fifty-first Congress, and still again 
 in 1890 to the present Congress. 
 
 It was my privilege and pleasure to form his acquaintance in 
 the army and to watch his flashing blade amid the carnage of 
 battle, observe his cool courage and intrepid bearing and the 
 love and confidence of his men upon more than one sanguinary 
 field. He was as calm when the leaden hail was rattling- and 
 as cool when the shells were shrieking and bursting- as he was 
 upon this floor. He was a leader, not a follower of his men; 
 if they went into the jaws of death, he was at their head. He 
 
28 Address of Mr. O ' Ferrall, of Virginia, on the 
 
 fared as his men fared; if their haversacks were empty, his 
 was empty; if they laid down in the mnd, he laid there too; if 
 they sweltered in the summer heat or shivered in the winter 
 blast, he sweltered or shivered too; and thus it was he kindled 
 in the breasts of his men intense love for himself and secured 
 their implicit confidence in his leadership. 
 
 The promotions he received, rising from a captain to a major- 
 general, speak in terms stronger than any words of mine of his 
 courage and valor and his qualities as a soldier and military 
 chieftain. 
 
 As a civilian, pursuing the quiet walks of rural life and 
 devoting himself to agriculture, the noblest of all arts, he was 
 honored by all the people and drew to him his neighbors, bind- 
 ing them with the steely bands of constant friendship. His 
 word was as good as his bond, and the dusky son of toil as well 
 as the intelligent tenant on his wide possessions relied upon it 
 with absolute faith ; and the most beautiful tribute that could 
 be paid to his memory was the deep sorrow which manifested 
 itself in a meeting after his death of those whose brawny muscle 
 had held the plow-handles and whose toil had made the corn 
 and the wheat grow on his rich and fertile fields. 
 
 In politics he was a Democrat, and he was as pure in the 
 political arena as in private life. He scorned the ways of the 
 demagogue and the timeserver, and believed that "men should 
 be what they seem. ' ' In the councils of his State and in the 
 councils of the nation he was found at all times in full accord 
 with the principles and policy of his party. 
 
 As a Representative he was as true to his constituents as any 
 subject to his sovereign, laboring in season and out of season 
 to serve them, and even when his strong frame began to weaken 
 and the germs of disease had been planted in his system he dis- 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 29 
 
 regarded the warning calls for rest and continued to bend all 
 his energies in the discharge of his trust, and I but speak the 
 truth when I say that he fell a martyr to duty. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, while he was grand as a soldier, pure as a 
 man, exalted as a citizen, and faithful as a Representative, it 
 was in the home circle, as husband and father, and not on the 
 battlefield, in civil life, or in the halls of legislation, that the 
 beauty and loveliness of his character drew a halo around 
 him. 
 
 He loved home, and it had a charm for him which neither 
 pleasures, honors, nor fame could pluck from his bosom. 
 Blessed by the companionship of one worthy of all adoration, 
 and who presided like a queen over his household, entering 
 into all his joys, sharing all his sorrows, and encouraging all 
 his aspirations, he loved the breezes that kissed her cheeks, the 
 birds that made sweet music to her ear, the rivulets that gently 
 murmured her name, the flowers that shed their fragrance in 
 her bowers, and the stately oaks under which the children of 
 their union had prattled and the pebbled walks upon which 
 they had played and gamboled. 
 
 Yes, he loved home, and in its sacred circle his presence was 
 like a sunbeam, brightening every face and warming every 
 heart. He was all patience, gentleness, kindness, and love, and 
 if there ever was a home which was a fit emblem of heaven it 
 was Ravensworth, the home of this distinguished man. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, he is gone. He lives now only in memory. 
 In October last, when the frosts were blighting and the leaves 
 were falling and the autumnal winds were sighing, after patient 
 waiting for the fatal hour it came, and God's finger touched 
 him, and the brave soldier, honored citizen, faithful Repre- 
 sentative, devoted husband, and affectionate father was dead. 
 
30 Address of Air. Wise, of Virginia, on the 
 
 He passed away quietly, strong in Christian faith and in the 
 hope of a blissful eternity. 
 
 William Henry Fitzhugh LEE ! His State mourns his 
 death. Within the bosom of her soil he rests — peacefully 
 rests. In his ancestral land near by Arlington, historic, revered 
 Arlington, the scene of his childhood and early manhood, he 
 sleeps — sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. 
 
 Earth, that all too soon hath bound him, 
 
 Gently wrap his clay ! 
 Linger lovingly around him, 
 
 Light of dying day ! 
 
 And Virginia — 
 
 Bending lowly, 
 Still a ceaseless vigil holy 
 Keep above his dust. 
 
 Address of Mr. Wise, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: In accordance with a beautiful and impressive 
 custom we put aside for to-day our legislative duties to pay a 
 tribute of respect to the memory of Hon. William H. F. Lee, 
 of Virginia. In November, 1890, he was elected to serve as a 
 member of this Congress from the Eighth district of that State, 
 receiving in that action of his devoted constituents a merited 
 indorsement of his conduct and services as their Representative 
 for the two preceding terms. But when the day of our assem- 
 bling arrived my colleague was not present to answer to the call 
 of his name. He had passed over the river and was resting under 
 the shade of the trees on the other side. He was beloved and 
 honored by all the people of Virginia, and the announcement 
 of his death, which occurred on the 15th day of October, 1891, 
 was received everywhere within her borders with expressions of 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 31 
 
 the deepest sorrow. He was born at Arlington, on the Virginia 
 heights, opposite this beautiful city, on the 31st day of May, 
 1837, and at the time of his death was in the fifty-fifth year of 
 his age. 
 
 In 1857, when he was pursuing his studies in the University 
 of Harvard, in preparation for the active and serious duties of 
 life, he received from the then President of the United States 
 the appointment of brevet second lieutenant in the Sixth Infan- 
 try. At that time the spirit of resistance to the authority of the 
 National Government was being exhibited to such an extent in 
 Utah as to call for measures of repression. Assassinations and 
 outrages of all kinds were common, and the officers of the United 
 States were powerless either to prevent or punish their com- 
 mission. 
 
 When Mr. Buchanan became President the resolution was 
 formed that the insubordination and conflict of authority existing 
 in that Territory should cease, and the necessary executive and 
 judicial officers having been appointed for the enforcement of the 
 laws of the United States and the preservation of the public peace, 
 it was determined to send a detachment of the Army to protect 
 them against violence and to assist them as a posse comitatus, 
 when necessary, in the performance of their duties. Gen. Albert 
 Sidney Johnston became the commander of this military force, 
 and Lieut. LEE had his first experience of the service in this 
 expedition. As the occasion does not call for a recital of the 
 events of that period, I will content myself with the remark that 
 he was then, as on every occasion in after years, faithful to the 
 obligations of duty. His term of service in the Army was of 
 short duration, and from that fact we may infer that he was not 
 enamored with the life of a soldier in time of peace. 
 
 In 1859 he resigned his commission, and soon thereafter was 
 
32 Address of Mr. Wise, of Virginia, on the 
 
 married to Miss Wickham, the daughter of a family distinguished 
 in the annals of Virginia. They went to reside at the White 
 House, on the Pamuukey River, in the county of New Kent. 
 It was at this old historic country home that the marriage of 
 George Washington with the Widow Custis was celebrated. It 
 descended to Gen. LEE from his mother, who was the great- 
 granddaughter of Washington's wife. 
 
 Here he devoted himself to the tillage of the soil and became 
 engrossed with the pursuits of a plain and unostentatious 
 farmer. His condition and surroundings at this time were 
 such as to invite contentment and encourage the cultivation 
 of those pure and lofty sentiments for which he was ever dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 Being in the flower and strength of his young manhood and 
 blessed with affluence and the love of an accomplished wife, 
 there seemed wanting nothing to make his home an earthly 
 paradise. 
 
 But the course of this peaceful and happy life was not to run 
 thus smoothly to the end. Dark and threatening clouds of war 
 soon lowered upon our land, and the political conflicts and an- 
 tagonisms, which had grown in intensity and bitterness with 
 the flight of years, ripened into civil war in 1861. The crisis 
 then arrived when the appeal to arms was inevitable, and with 
 it the necessity that all men should decide whether allegiance 
 was first due to the State or General Government. There were 
 honest differences of opinion on this question, which had ex- 
 isted from the very foundation of the Republic. 
 
 He was connected by blood with a long line of illustrious 
 men, who had borne a conspicuous part in the events which 
 led to the declaration of American independence and the estab- 
 lishment of this constitutional Government. It was Richard 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 33 
 
 Henry Lee who offered in the Continental Congress, in June, 
 1776, that stirring resolution which proclaimed to the world 
 "that these united Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
 and independent States; that they are absolved from all alle- 
 giance to the British Crown; and that all political connection 
 between them and Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 
 dissolved." 
 
 It was his own grandfather, known in history as "Light-Horse 
 Harry Lee," who, in the long struggle which followed this 
 bold declaration, struck such sturdy blows for the liberties and 
 rights of his countrymen as caused him to receive the special 
 commendation of George Washington, of whom in turn he 
 uttered those memorable words: " First in war, first in peace, 
 and first in the hearts of his countrymen. ' ' Bearing a name 
 thus associated with all the glorious achievements of the past, it 
 was but natural that he should have felt an ardent attachment 
 to the Union. But he was a son of Virginia, "where Amer- 
 ican liberty raised its first voice and where its youth was 
 nurtured and sustained." 
 
 There the doctrine of the sovereignty of the State was ac- 
 cepted as the true interpretation of the Constitution almost 
 without division of sentiment. Her people held that alle- 
 giance was first due to their State, and while all deplored the 
 necessity for, few, if any, doubted as to the right of separation. 
 When in April, 1861, a convention representing her people 
 passed the ordinance of secession, he felt no hesitation in adopt- 
 ing his course. He resolved at once to consecrate himself and 
 his sword to the sacred duty of defending her homes and fire- 
 sides. 
 
 Having raised a company of cavalry, he was made its captain, 
 and was rapidly promoted from rank to rank until he reached 
 H. Mis. 320 3 
 
34 Address of Mr. Wise, of Virginia, on the 
 
 that of major-general. Soon after his entry into the Confeder- 
 ate service he became associated with the command of Gen. J. 
 E. B. Stuart, and participated thereafter in nearly all the move- 
 ments of that fearless and dashing leader, whom the brave Gen. 
 Sedgwick, of the United States Army, pronounced "the best 
 cavalry officer ever foaled in North America. ' ' On June 3, 
 1862, Gen. Robert B. Lee, the father of my deceased colleague, 
 assumed the command of the Army of Northern Virginia three 
 days after the retiracy of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, caused by a 
 wound received in the battle of Seven Pines. 
 
 The plans of the Federal commander for the capture of the 
 capital of the Southern Confederacy had been well chosen. His 
 army, according to his own report, numbered 156,000, of whom 
 115,000 were ready for duty as fighting men. All the vast re- 
 sources of his Government were being employed to enable him 
 to prosecute his campaign with efficiency and vigor. His 
 troops had been furnished with artillery and small arms of the 
 most approved description and best pattern. They had abun- 
 dance of ammunition of the finest quality and ample supplies 
 of food and clothing. Gen. McDowell, then at Fredericksburg 
 with 40,000 men, and Gens. Banks and Fremont in the valley 
 of Virginia, were expected to cooperate in the movement. A 
 line of fire was slowly but steadily being drawn around Rich- 
 mond. These plans, as I have said, had been well conceived 
 and were being executed with great precision and skill. 
 
 To oppose this formidable advance there were less than 100,000 
 fighting men in Virginia, and they were greatly inferior to the 
 enemy in both equipments and supplies. Gen. Johnston, pene- 
 trating the designs of his adversary, commenced operations to 
 prevent their accomplishment. The bloody and stubbornly 
 contested battle of Seven Pines was fought in part execution 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 35 
 
 of his plans. When Gen. Robert E. Lee succeeded to the com- 
 mand it was apparent that some decisive blow must be struck 
 to save the Southern capital from a state of siege. Surveying 
 the whole field with a keen and practiced eye, he saw that the 
 left wing of the Union army, which had been thrown across the 
 Chickahominy and advanced to within four or five miles of Rich- 
 mond, occupied a strong and almost impregnable position. An 
 attack upon the center promised no better results. 
 
 Under these circumstances he turned his attention to the 
 right wing, and, in order to obtain the fullest and most accurate 
 information concerning McClellan's position and defenses on 
 that portion of his line, ordered Gen. Stuart to make a recon- 
 noissance in the direction of Old Church and Cold Harbor. 
 With 1,500 picked men that pink of Southern chivalry imme- 
 diately undertook the execution of the orders of the command- 
 ing general. This daring exploit was popularly known as 
 "Stuart's ride around McClellan." It is a fact that he did 
 pass entirely around the Union army, and, building a bridge 
 across the Chickahominy, reentered the Confederate lines in 
 safety. In this perilous expedition he was assisted by his brav- 
 est and best officers, among whom were Gens. William H. F. 
 LEE, and his cousin, the dashing Fitz Lee. 
 
 More was accomplished than had been anticipated, and it was 
 ascertained that the right and rear of McClellan were unpro- 
 tected by works of any strength. In consequence of the infor- 
 mation thus obtained the decision was formed to make the 
 attack in that direction, and on the 26th of June, 1862, began 
 that series of splendid battles which culminated in the retreat 
 of McClellan's army to Harrisons Landing, on the James 
 River, and the deliverance of Richmond from danger. On the 
 9th of June, 1863, there occurred near Brandy Station, in the 
 
36 Address of Mr. Wise, of Virginia, on tlie 
 
 county of Culpeper, Va., one of the most extensive and stub- 
 born cavalry fights of the whole war. Two divisions of Fed- 
 eral cavalry, commanded by Gens. Buford and Gregg, and sup- 
 ported by two brigades of ' ' picked infantry, ' ' fell upon Stuart 
 with such suddenness and fierceness that the attack was 
 almost crowned with victory. Nothing saved him from defeat, 
 if not from greater calamity, but his own coolness and that of 
 his lieutenants, coupled with the indomitable pluck and intre- 
 pidity of his troopers. 
 
 In this engagement that brave Georgian Gen. Young, for- 
 merly a member of this House, by a splendid charge with 
 sabers, without carbine or pistol, repulsed a dangerous and 
 gallant assault on the rear, while Gen. William H. F. LEE, 
 with equal courage and dash, protected the left of the Confed- 
 erate position. In this encounter Gen. LEE received a severe 
 wound, which necessitated his retirement from the field. He 
 was carried to Hickory Hill, in Hanover County, the home of 
 Gen. Wickham, a near relative of his wife, and here he was 
 captured and placed in solitary confinement in Fort Monroe 
 as a hostage, certain officers of the United States being then 
 held under sentence of death in Libby Prison in retaliation 
 for the execution of certain Confederate officers in the West. 
 
 Gen. Custis Lee, being then a young unmarried man, on the 
 staff of the Confederate President, met, under special flag of 
 truce, representatives of the Government at Washington, and 
 begged to be permitted to take the place of Gen. William H. 
 F. LEE, giving as a reason for the proposed exchange his 
 desire to save from punishment the innocent wife and children 
 of his wounded brother. The offer was declined, and he was 
 told that the burdens of war must fall where chance or for- 
 tune placed them. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 37 
 
 In this incident we have a beautiful and touching illustra- 
 tion of the strength and warmth of brotherly love and of the 
 knightly bearing of the Lees of Virginia. While thus de- 
 tained as a prisoner of war, racked with physical suffering 
 and those mental tortures which a sensitive and high-strung 
 man must feel under such circumstances, there came the sad 
 tidings of the death of his loved wife and two children ; and 
 thus was added another, the most poignant of all the griefs 
 with which he had been afflicted. His old Virginia home, 
 associated with so many sacred memories, had been reduced to 
 ashes, and now there remained of the once happy family which 
 formerly occupied it only the captive father. This weight of 
 woe would seem too much for human endurance, but he bore 
 it with the fortitude of a Christian soldier. He was exchanged 
 in the spring of 1864, and returning to his division, led it in 
 all the engagements, from the Rapidan to the Appomattox, 
 where the curtain fell upon the stirring and bloody scenes in 
 which he had been such an active participant. 
 
 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 stan- 
 dard 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 gen- 
 tle 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 im- 
 
38 Address of Mr. Wise, of Virginia, on the 
 
 possible. v They challenged the respect and admiration of the 
 world, and of their great captain it has been said that ' ' a coun- 
 try which has given birth to men like him and those who fol- 
 lowed him may look the chivalry of Europe in the face with- 
 out 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 per- 
 petuating sectional animosities. They have been related be- 
 cause 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, en- 
 durance, and dash of the American soldier. They were Amer- 
 icans 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 Re- 
 public is still full high advanced, its arms and trophies stream- 
 ing in their original luster, not a stripe polluted or erased, not a 
 single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable in- 
 terrogatory 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, blaz- 
 ing 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 39 
 
 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 occu- 
 pations 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 com- 
 menced the work of repairing the losses he had sustained. In 
 1868 he married Miss Mary Tabb Boiling, the daughter of Col. 
 George W. Boiling, of Petersburg, and they continued their resi- 
 dence 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 de- 
 voted 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 perform- 
 ance 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. 
 
40 Address of Mr. Wise, of Virginia, on the 
 
 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. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 41 
 
 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 what- 
 ever. ' ' 
 
 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 biog- 
 rapher 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 ' ' L,EE 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 
 
42 Address of Mr. Herbert, of Alabama, on the 
 
 by the generous and refining influences which surrounded him 
 from his cradle to hi« 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 rap- 
 idly 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 atten- 
 tion 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 ap- 
 parent 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 43 
 
 sense of obligation to his immediate constituency, and he was 
 patient to a remarkable degree. His district, you will remem- 
 ber, 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 mem- 
 ory 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 
 
44 Address of Mr. Hermann, of Oregon, on the 
 
 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 45 
 
 classic columns, where nearly fifty-five years ago was born our 
 departed friend and colleague, and one of the beloved Repre- 
 sentatives 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 bid- 
 ding adieu to his college studies at Harvard and uniting with 
 the Army in its expedition to Utah in 1858, where he first expe- 
 rienced 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 disappoint- 
 ment 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 delu- 
 sive, 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 re- 
 turned 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 
 
46 Address of Mr. Hermann, of Oregon, on the 
 
 in our intimate associations with him in this Hall, and espe- 
 cially in the committee rooms, as an intelligent and conscien- 
 tious legislator, a laborious servant of the people, a courtly gen- 
 tleman, 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 radi- 
 cally 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." Lit- 
 tle, however, did he think at the time that these beautiful roses 
 were especially speaking to him as emblems of a near immor- 
 tality. Awakening from their sleep of winter, they were also 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 47 
 
 harbingers of a brighter day to him and of the bloom of a glo- 
 rious 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 pio- 
 neer struggles of the peninsula and then through the plantation 
 and colonial period of entire Virginia, w-e 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 states- 
 men, 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 learn- 
 ing 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 
 
48 Address of Mr. Hermann, of Oregon, on the 
 
 them their intense loyalty to the Crown, as well as to the epis- 
 copal 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 faith- 
 ful 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 immor- 
 tal 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 illus- 
 trious 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. 
 
Life and Character of William Jri. F. Lee. 49 
 
 Address of Mr. Washington, of Tennessee. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: On the 15th of last October death again in- 
 vaded the ranks of this House. The mysterious messenger laid 
 the summons of his cold silent hand upon one who had im- 
 measurably 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 col- 
 league, Gen. William H. F. LEE, is taken from our midst, a void 
 is made which can nevermore be filled. It is not his visible pres- 
 ence or his tangible body that we shall so much miss. It is the 
 magnetism of a pure mind, the silent, potent influence of a spot- 
 less character, the power of a great, good, and noble soul to ele- 
 vate 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 at- 
 mosphere 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 illus- 
 trious line of statesmen and patriots, who had left their impress 
 H. Mis. 320 4 
 
50 Address of Mr. Washington, of Tennessee, on tlie 
 
 -on every page of the history, civil and military, of this country 
 from the colonial days to the present; born on those beautiful 
 lieights 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 ex- 
 pect 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 irresist- 
 ible, because his judgment and integrity were above dispute. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 51 
 
 With him a public office was a public trust, which he accepted 
 and administered for his State and his constituents without re- 
 gard 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, claim- 
 ing 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 chil- 
 dren 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 aross 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 Vir- 
 ginia. 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 be- 
 tween the States summoned Virginia's sons to her defense he 
 again became a soldier. 
 
52 Address of Mr. Washington, of Tennessee, on the 
 
 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 des- 
 perately wounded, with the threat of a retaliatory death-sen- 
 tence suspended over his head, in hourly expectation of its exe- 
 cution — 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 i e- 
 proach 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 mem- 
 ber of Congress — Gen. William H. F. L,EE met every require- 
 ment, 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. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 53 
 
 Address of Mr. Henderson, of Illinois. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: It is not iny purpose at this time to make any 
 extended remarks upon the life and public services of the late 
 Gen. William H. F. Lee. Other gentlemen of the House, 
 more intimately acquainted with Gen. L,EE in his lifetime, are 
 better prepared to do justice to his memory than I am. But 
 having enjoyed a very pleasant acquaintance with the deceased 
 during his four years' service as a member of this body, I desire 
 to express the great respect which I entertained for him as a 
 gentleman of high character and of noble, manly qualities. 
 Descended from one of the most highly honored families in the 
 State in which he had his birth, he was liberally educated, and 
 at an early age entered the Army as a second lieutenant and 
 served as such until 1859, when he resigned his commission 
 and returned to the peaceful pursuits of civil life. In 1861 he 
 followed his illustrious father, and entered the service of the 
 Confederate States as a captain of cavalry. That he was a 
 brave and gallant soldier there can be no doubt, for his mil- 
 itary history shows that he rose step by step from the rank of a 
 captain to that of a major-general of cavalry. In 1865 he sur- 
 rendered with his father at Appomattox, and renewed his alle- 
 giance and devotion, as I am glad to believe, to the Govern- 
 ment of the United States. 
 
 I can but wish, Mr. Speaker, that such honored names as 
 those of Gen. William H. F. LEE and his distinguished father 
 had never been led into rebellion against the Government of 
 their country. But they felt it to be their duty to follow the 
 fortunes of their State, and let us to-day, while mourning the 
 
54 Address of Mr. Chip?nan, of Michigan, on the 
 
 departure of our deceased friend, rejoice that the surrender at 
 Appomattox has been followed by a restored Union, and that 
 our reunited, undivided country is now one of the strongest, 
 most powerful, and prosperous of all the nations of the earth. 
 As a Representative in this body, while he was not inclined 
 to participate actively in the discussion of public and political 
 questions, still Gen. L,EE took great interest in all that pertained 
 to the public welfare, and especially in that which, in his judg- 
 ment, was in the interest of his immediate constituents. He 
 was an able, faithful, and efficient Representative as well as a 
 noble, manly man, and in all my intercourse with men I never 
 met a more genial, warm-hearted, pleasant gentleman than the 
 distinguished citizen to whose memory we pay tribute to-day. 
 I well remember his kindly greetings, and I am sure all of us 
 who knew Gen. LEE deeply regret his loss as a member of this 
 body, to which he was for a third time elected by his confiding 
 constituents, and extend to his sorrowing bereaved family our 
 warm heartfelt sympathies. 
 
 Address of Mr. Chipman, of Michigan. 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I have not been in the habit of speaking 
 upon occasions of this kind, but it is one of the joys of my life, 
 a very great joy indeed, to feel that I had a place in the heart 
 of the gentleman whom we are now commemorating. I knew 
 him very well, and in many respects I regarded him as one of 
 the most fortunate men whom it was ever my pleasure to know. 
 While many men here are struggling for fame, while many of 
 them will leave the struggle heartsick, weary, defeated, he 
 had that power, that charm, so precious and so lovely, of at- 
 
Life aiid Character of William H. F. Lee. 55 
 
 taching men to him by the ties of affection. Little children 
 loved him. 
 
 There was a benignancy, a sweetness of demeanor, which 
 attracted them to him, and while his name may not be 
 sounded in the trump of fame, yet the subtile power of his gen- 
 tleness and goodness has permeated many lives, will shape 
 many destinies, and will have a force in the history of the 
 world greater than that which will be exerted by many who 
 will succeed him here. He was a soldier, yet he was gentle 
 and kind. He was a descendant of a long line of honored an- 
 cestry, yet he did not believe that mere wealth was necessary 
 either to respectability or to greatness. He was a farmer and 
 loved the soil. He looked upon the ripened grain as the 
 flower of human hope and as a minister to human needs. He 
 loved the breath of cattle, and he regarded the occupation of 
 an agriculturist as the noblest and the best in which a man 
 could be engaged. He was a true son of the soil — hearty, sim- 
 ple, gentle, true. 
 
 But, sir, the particulars of his career, both public and pri- 
 vate, have been recounted by those who knew him well ; have 
 been recounted with great force, with great eloquence and 
 propriety. There is, however, one part of that career to which 
 I wish to refer. He was engaged in the memorable struggle 
 which convulsed this nation from center to circumference and 
 which fastened the gaze of the civilized world. I wish upon 
 this occasion to say emphatically, that wherever we may have 
 stood in that struggle, whatever was good and great in any 
 man participating on either side of it is a precious heritage to 
 the entire American people to-day. We proved that, North, 
 South, East, West, we had not degenerated in the qualities 
 which make a nation great. 
 
56 Address of Mr. IVilson, of West Virginia, on the 
 
 Grant and Lee, Sherman, Sheridan, and the two Johnstons 
 have gone from us forever, and every day the green sward of 
 peace, the flowers of affection, are placed above the grave of 
 some hero of the blue or the gray. But I love to think that 
 above these graves stands the Genius of American freedom, 
 serene and grand, and bids the world behold how brave the 
 sons of the Republic were in the past; how united they are in 
 one purpose and one destiny in the present ; how certain they 
 are to be a people noted for reasonable liberty, for perfect 
 union, and for sufficient material power to be formidable and 
 just alike to the other nations of the earth. 
 
 And so, sir, I come and lay the flowers of my Northern 
 home upon the bier of this son of Virginia, this good citizen, 
 this patriot, this man who, I am proud to believe, held even 
 me in his affection. And when gentlemen here speak of the 
 terror and the mystery of death, I tell them that to such a man 
 death has no terrors, and that to the good man it has no 
 mystery ; for in that illimitable hereafter, which must be pop- 
 ulated by all the sons of men, it must be, it will be, well with 
 all of us. 
 
 Address of Mr. Wilson, of West Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The House has already heard from his friend 
 and successor the story of Gen. Lee's life. I shall not, there- 
 fore, repeat it even in briefest outline. Enough for me to say 
 that he was one in a long lineage of noted men, who by some 
 innate force and virtue had stood forth in three generations as 
 leaders of their fellow-men; that he was the son of the greatest 
 of all who have borne the name, and that in early manhood 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 57 
 
 he exhibited the soldierly instincts and the soldierly capacity 
 that seemed to be historically associated with it. 
 
 With such a lineage and with such a history he came to this 
 House, and I believe I can offer no higher tribute to his mem- 
 ory to-day than to say that in all his associations with us here 
 he was the embodiment of gentleness and modesty. Indeed, 
 Mr. Speaker, as I now recall Gen. LEE, and explore with ach- 
 ing heart the memory of a close and cordial friendship with 
 him, I can say with confidence that in the blending of these 
 rare traits I have never known his equal. They were a part 
 of his nature, not more illustrated in business and social inter- 
 course with fellow-members than in his relations with the page 
 who did him service and who learned to regard himself in some 
 way as the special friend and associate of Gen. LEE. 
 
 Many of us doubtless can recall the evident pride of the 
 little fellow who occasionally placed upon our desks the roses 
 which his kindly patron brought by the basketful in the spring 
 mornings from his Virginia home to brighten the sittings of 
 the House. And this gentleness and modesty were the more 
 attractive because they were the adornment of a sincere and 
 manly character. How much came to him as the rich legacy 
 of ancestral blood and how much was wrought into his nature 
 by the training of his youth it is idle to speculate. In both 
 respects he was lifted far above the common lot of men. Of 
 his mother it is said by those who knew her well that she was 
 one of the most accomplished and at the same time most 
 domestic, sensible, and practical of women. Of his father's 
 influence and teaching, to say nothing of his lofty example, 
 we have the striking proofs, if any were needed, in letters that 
 have been published. Let me cull but an occasional expression 
 from these unaffected outpourings of the heart of Robert E. 
 
58 Address of Mr. Wilson, of West Virginia, 011 the 
 
 Lee toward the son he loved so well. " My precious Roon," as 
 he was wont to call him. 
 
 When the boy was not yet ten years of age he closes a playful 
 letter, adapted to such tender years, with these earnest words: 
 
 Be true, kind, and generous, and pray earnestly to God to enable you to keep His 
 commandments and to walk in the same all the days of your life. 
 
 A year later, writing from the ship Massachusetts, off Lobos, 
 to his two sons, a letter full of interest to boys, he urges them 
 to diligence in study: 
 
 I shall not feel my long separation from you if I find that my absence has been ot 
 no injury to you, and that you have both grown in goodness and knowledge as well as 
 in stature; but how I shall suffer on my return if the reverse has occurred. You enter 
 into all my thoughts, into all my prayers, and on you in part will depend whether I 
 shall be happy or miserable, as you know how much I love you. 
 
 Ten years later, when the son had become a lieutenant in the 
 Army, he admonishes him : 
 
 I hope you will always be distinguished for your avoidance of the universal bane 
 whisky and every immorality. Nor need you fear to be ruled out of the society that 
 indulges in it, for you will acquire their esteem and respect, as all venerate, if they do 
 not practice, virtue. I hope you will make many friends, as you will be thrown with 
 those who deserve this feeling. But indiscriminate intimacies you will find annoying 
 and entangling, and they can be avoided by politeness and civility. When I think of 
 your youth, impulsiveness, and many temptations, your distance from me, and the ease 
 (and even innocence) with which you might commence an erroneous course, my heart 
 quails within me and my whole frame and being tremble at the possible results. May 
 Almighty God have you in His holy keeping. To His merciful providence I commit 
 you, and I will rely upon Him and the efficacy of the prayers that will be daily and 
 hourly offered up by those who love you. 
 
 A year or two later, on New Year's Day, 1859, he writes: 
 
 I always thought there was stuff in you for a good soldier and I trust you will prove 
 it. I can not express the gratification I felt, in meeting Col. May in New York, at the 
 encomium he passed upon your soldiership, your zeal, and your devotion to your duty. 
 But I was more pleased at the report of your conduct ; that went more to my heart and 
 was of infinite comfort to me. Hold on to your purity and virtue; they will proudly 
 sustain you in all trials and difficulties and cheer you in every calamity. 
 
 So, too, when the young lieutenant had married and settled 
 down a typical Virginian farmer upon the estate left him bv 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 59 
 
 his grandfather Custis, the well-known "White House" on 
 the Pamunkey, the home of Martha Washington : 
 
 I am glad to hear that your mechanics are all paid off and that you have managed 
 your funds so well as to have enough for your purposes. As you have commenced, I 
 hope you will continue never to exceed your means. It will save you much anxiety 
 and mortification and enable you to maintain your independence of character and feel- 
 ing. It is easier to make our wishes conform to our means than to make our means 
 conform to our wishes. In fact, we want but little. Our happiness depends upon our 
 independence, the success of our operations, prosperity of our plans, health, contentment, 
 and the esteem of our friends, all of which, my dear son, I hope you may enjoy to the 
 full. 
 
 With such counsels, glowing with a father's love and enforced 
 by the constant example of a father's life, it is no wonder that 
 the son grew into the manliness, the gentleness and modesty, 
 the charitableness of judgment, the unconspicuous and patient 
 devotion to duty, and the personal lovableness of Gen. LEE. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I might say much more from the promptings 
 of a strong and unfeigned affection and from a sense of the pub- 
 lic merits of our late colleague, but where there are so many to 
 speak, it is not necessary for one to attempt a catalogue of his 
 private virtues and of his public services. 
 
 Perhaps I may fitly add a word in closing as to Gen. Lee's 
 military career. From a captain of volunteer cavalry he rose 
 on his own merits at the age of twenty-six to the rank of major- 
 general. I have not searched the annals of war to recite his 
 military history, for it is not the soldier that I have been com- 
 memorating, but I may recall a testimony not improper to be 
 placed on record here to-day. I happened to be in company with 
 Gen. Joseph E. Johnston about the time that Gen. LEE was first 
 nominated for Congress. The old commander, who, as all 
 know, was not given to effusive speech, expressed to me his 
 hearty gratification at the event, and in doing so his high esti- 
 mate of Gen. LEE as a man and of his ability as a soldier. His 
 
60 Address of Mr. Ciunmiugs, of New York, on the 
 
 praise was strong and unstinted, and no one will question its 
 sincerity. Mr. Speaker, what more need I add than to say that 
 in all the acts and relations of life, as son and soldier, as hus- 
 band and father, as private citizen and as Representative of the 
 people, as friend and as Christian, our departed colleague left a 
 memory we may well cherish and an example we may well 
 follow. 
 
 Address of Mr. Cummings, of New York. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Great as is our country, its history is com 
 paratively brief. Though brief, it is exceedingly instructive. 
 So far as there can be an outcome in ever-recurring events, il 
 is the outcome of a tremendous social and political struggle. 
 Sir, it hardly suits the occasion to refer to the origin of this 
 struggle or to trace its progress, but the effort for popular gov- 
 ernment is discernible through many centuries. As we come 
 nearer to our time it becomes more intelligent and determined. 
 Our great Declaration was its best pronunciamento. Our writ- 
 ten Constitution was its most concise expression. The events 
 that produced them founded a normal school for patriotism. 
 In it was perfected a new departure. Fealty to lord and king 
 was supplanted by fealty to human rights. Proclaimed in 
 the council chamber, these rights had to be won in the field. 
 Yorktown completed our first endeavor at nation-making; 
 we graduated masters at Appomattox. The first proclaimed 
 the prowess of the Confederation, the second testified to the 
 strength of the Union. Both astonished the world. Both 
 transpired in Virginia. 
 
 Conspicuous in this analogue of our history were the Lees of 
 Virginia. They have a lineage too illustrious for praise. Its 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 61 
 
 escutcheons aie too bright for adornment. It reaches back for 
 centuries loyal to honor and to truth. Him we mourn to-day 
 was a gifted scion of that great name. His highest distinction 
 was won in Confederate arms. 
 
 Thank God, I can now speak of our civil war with satisfac- 
 tion and not with reluctance. I allude to it with a satisfaction 
 akin to that one feels in gazing upon a plain fertilized by an 
 inundation. Flowers spring up, birds sing, and golden grain 
 nods in the sunlight. But our civil war was more like an 
 upheaval than like a deluge. It shook every timber in the 
 grand structure with which we had surprised the world. Other 
 governments have fallen of their own weight; our matchless 
 edifice could not be shattered by an explosion. 
 
 Both contestants stood guard over the popular principle and 
 would not let it be mined. They were instructed in the same 
 school and by the same teacher. Local privilege was as strong 
 with the one as with the other. The dispute was whether the 
 Union should endure the strain of the race and slavery issue. 
 The long and vexing argument was adjourned to the battlefield. 
 In no other respect was our system even threatened. This 
 close connection at the root made the angry divergence begin 
 to assimilate at the very outset. 
 
 So kindred was it, that when Grant met his heroic opponent 
 at Appomattox he says that he fell into such a reunion with 
 him that he had twice to be reminded of the occasion that 
 brought them together. He then conformed to it, and treated 
 those who surrendered not as conquered, but as reclaimed. 
 Lincoln went further. He found a Confederate legislature 
 ready-made to his hand, and promptly permitted it to repair 
 the situation. In thus mingling the gray with the blue he 
 was neither color-blind nor purblind. He knew what he was 
 
62 Address of Mr. Ciimmings, of New York, on the 
 
 doing. He desired to blend them, as emblematic of a more 
 perfect Union. Possibly the Confederate legislature suited his 
 purpose best. 
 
 After this testimonial it looks to me something like treason 
 to that great name to try to exclude Confederate worth from 
 the annals of the strife or from the glory of its grand consum- 
 mation. Neither act nor actor can be profitably spared. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the other day in this very Hall I laid a chaplet 
 on the bier of a dead comrade. To-day I am trying to com- 
 memorate the virtues of a Confederate colleague. Both died 
 while members of this House. That both were my country- 
 men warms my heart. As my countrymen I can make no 
 invidious distinction. If living neither would permit it, and 
 he is more reckless than I who would profane the memory of 
 either. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have said that I could speak of the civil 
 war with satisfaction and not with reluctance. The occasion 
 prompted me to say so. The occasion requires that, as a Union 
 soldier, I should state my reasons. We learn from experience, 
 and war is the toughest kind of experience. When it raised 
 its horrid front and began its work of seeming devastation, we 
 shrank back from its terrible promise. The world looked to 
 see us dismembered; but the great Republic, like a daring 
 cruiser, emerged from the tempest sound from keel to truck. 
 Not a brace swung loose, not a plank was sprung, no spar was 
 shivered. Within there had to be readjustment. Aloft the 
 Stars and Stripes rose and fell in graceful recognition of the 
 trial. The thunder of her broadsides proclaimed the value of 
 this object-lesson in nation-making. 
 
 We had learned a juster appreciation of ourselves as a whole 
 people, and if this were all, it was worth the tuition. But we 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 6& 
 
 had besides garnered into our storehouse of knowledge vast 
 consignments for the use of liberal economic government. We 
 had infused into our laws, our language, and our institutions 
 new vigor for conquest and for human enlightenment. Venality, 
 that dogs great efforts, undoubtedly there was. But the high 
 tide of the conflict showed no mercenary taint. On both sides 
 it was urged from the highest motives of patriotism and of 
 honor and in defense of the popular principle. That princi- 
 ple with us means local self-government and representative 
 union. The rebel yell was because they thought local gov- 
 ernment in peril. The Federal huzza was for representative 
 union. Together they were cheering the same deeply embedded 
 
 sentiment. 
 
 Those who would study the phenomenon must remember 
 that where opinions approximate on parallel lines, but from 
 some interest or sentiment refuse to coalesce, the passions are 
 liable to ignite. Fusion then takes place in a terrible heat. 
 The heat must be sufficient to remove the obstacles that the 
 mass may become unified. We have as a result a firmly estab- 
 lished representative union of local self-governments. The 
 cooling and finishing process has left no flaw. Sir, what sort 
 of a soldier must he be who is not proud of having been tem- 
 pered in such a trial? If after the unmatched tournament this 
 is not the spirit of victor and vanquished, then the lights of 
 chivalry are burnt out and magnanimity is no more. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I know of no greater praise of a life than to 
 say it was one of honest endeavor. Whatever faculties com- 
 prise it, this is the scope of human duty. When to this is added 
 a conscience adequate to all the suggestions of a great and busy 
 career, the sum of human excellence has been reached. All 
 this I believe in my soul can be truthfully said of "Rooney" 
 
64 Address of Mr. dimming s, of New York, on the 
 
 LEE. "Rooney" was his father's term of endearment, which 
 all who knew him, without distinction of age, race, or sex, de- 
 lighted to apply to him when absent. When present, it was 
 always "general." A thorough soldier, there was an idyllic 
 strain in his nature. He was essentially rural in his tastes. 
 He loved the wheat fields and tobacco plantations of his native 
 State. Its very air seemed to inspire him. 
 
 The Blue Ridge was to him the perfection of natural beauty. 
 He was warm in his friendships and true to his kinships. Al- 
 ways dignified, there was a heartiness in his greetings that was 
 irresistible. He was as broad as his acres. Riding or driving 
 over his vast estate or in its vicinity, his cheerful halloo rang 
 in the ears of those who had not seen him, and the cheery swing 
 of his hat, though paid to all, was a cherished compliment. If 
 the spirit of mortal be proud, it was not his spirit. Courteous, 
 sympathetic, unobtrusive, patriotic, knightly, and beneficent, 
 he was a part of the soil of Virginia itself. He had the loving 
 hospitality that would take all into the march of progress. How 
 much of these qualities was innate, how much he drew from his 
 high lineage, how much from the teachings of his illustrious 
 father, can never be known, but he blended them in a halo that 
 will not soon fade from his memory. 
 
 Sir, others have spoken of the incidents of his life and of his 
 unabated fidelity to its claims. I can not add to his record. I 
 have met him in battle array; I have embraced him with a sol- 
 dier's warmth. We entered Congress together; we have fought 
 here side by side. It has fallen to my lot to eulogize him. This 
 I will venture: It would mar the catalogue of bright names of 
 which America is so proud if his were omitted from the roll. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 65 
 
 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 envel- 
 oped 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 in- 
 fluence 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 ex- 
 H. Mis. 320 5 
 
66 Address of Mr. Cowles, of North Carolina, on the 
 
 pect 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 com- 
 plaint 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 lau- 
 rels, 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 pres- 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 67 
 
 ence 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 can- 
 dor, 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 beauti- 
 ful 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 prop- 
 osition 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, 
 
68 Address of Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, on the 
 
 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 lesurrection, 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 hap- 
 pened 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 sab- 
 stratum, that we were not given to apologizing for adhering to 
 so-called ' ' obsolete ' ' traditions or to creeds ' ' that were passing 
 out of fashion. ' ' 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 69 
 
 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 sur- 
 rounded him, the molding powers to which he had been sub- 
 jected — all were of the noblest. A son of such houses, reared 
 at such knees, influenced by such powers, he passed early un- 
 der the influences of Harvard. Later he took his young ex- 
 perience 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 char- 
 
70 Address of Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, on the 
 
 acter of which it might be said that it was round, without an- 
 gles, 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 ; clec.ving 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 en- 
 deavors 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 will- 
 ingness to give all for the truth which have marked our gen- 
 eration — 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, pass- 
 ing in and out with a certain reticence of modesty, was him- 
 self but the type of the age in which he lived and of the peo- 
 ple 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 71 
 
 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 every- 
 day 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 deli- 
 cious 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, i8q2. 
 
 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 recog- 
 nition 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. 
 
 73 
 
74 Address of Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, on the 
 
 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 incum- 
 bent upon me, as one of the Senators from Virginia, as it is in 
 harmony with my own personal feelings, to submit some re- 
 marks 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 Rep- 
 resentatives, and served with ability and efficiency in both the 
 Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses. He was reelected 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 occa- 
 sion 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 Independ- 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 75 
 
 ence, and another was Attorney-General under Gen. Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 On the paternal side he could refer to his distinguished grand- 
 father, 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 Con- 
 queror 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 Gov- 
 ernment 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 qual- 
 ities 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 man- 
 ner and great amiability and kindness of heart, to which was 
 added a knightly bearing and cordiality of greeting which, 
 
76 Address of Mr. Pasco, of Florida, on the 
 
 combined, made Gen. LEE with all classes of society an impos- 
 ing and attractive figure. 
 
 He has gone to his last resting place, mourned by his family 
 and friends and lamented by an extensive acquaintance through- 
 out 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 line- 
 age 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 influ- 
 ential 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 77 
 
 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 pur- 
 sued. Thus, from the first, he was prominent in the univer- 
 sity, 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 knowl- 
 edge at his command. He was of a friendly and companion- 
 able 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 cat- 
 alogue 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 
 
78 Address of Mr. Pasco, of Florida, on the 
 
 those who have developed a superiority in any mental or phys- 
 ical 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 asso- 
 ciates during the three years that he remained among us, and 
 though he contented himself with a medium standing in schol- 
 arship 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. L,EE 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 out- 
 stretched 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 79 
 
 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 dur- 
 ing the years we spent here together, and I shall always remem- 
 ber those occasions with satisfaction. Sometimes it was only a 
 word in passing, a shake of the hand, a brief conference on pub- 
 lic 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 evi- 
 dent 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 class- 
 mates 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 use- 
 ful and influential in various lines of duty in the wide field of 
 Congressional legislation. 
 
 During the intervening years the manly bearing, the phys- 
 
80 Address of Mr. Pasco, of Florida, on the 
 
 ical 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 B. 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 attrac- 
 tions for the young lieutenant, and there were other influences 
 drawing him towards his native State. He resigned his com- 
 mission, 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 Washing- 
 ton 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 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 81 
 
 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 Con- 
 federacy. 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 
 H. Mis. 320 6 
 
82 Address of Mr. Pasco, of Florida, on the 
 
 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 country- 
 men 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 find- 
 ing a solution, had been finally settled by the sword, and that 
 henceforth their duty was to the Union restored and indis- 
 soluble. 
 
 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 ship- 
 yard 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 disheart- 
 ened. 
 
 The history of other nations would have suggested to the 
 historian that the result must be open riots and secret assas- 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 83 
 
 sinations, a reign of violence and terror, years of turoulence 
 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 reconstruc- 
 tion immediately succeeded the war, and only those who were 
 actually under' its ban can realize the burdens and hardships it 
 
84 Address of Mr. Pasco, of Florida, on the 
 
 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. Boiling, of Petersburg. 
 In 1874 the family removed to Ravensworth, in Fairfax County. 
 
 At both these places he cultivated his broad acres and inter- 
 ested 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 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 wit- 
 ness the regard in which he was held by those among whom he 
 had lived and to whom he was best known. It was on Decora- 
 tion Day, in a section of country where he had seen service 
 as a soldier, not far from where he had lived in his early child- 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 85 
 
 hood. 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 surrouuded 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 counte- 
 nances 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 L,EE 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. 
 
86 Address of Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, on the 
 
 Address of Mr. Stewart, of Nevada. 
 
 Mr. President : The biography of William H. F. LEE has 
 been furnished by his colleagues and associates. I do not pro- 
 pose to dwell upon the details of his public or private career, 
 or that of his distinguished ancestors, who acted so conspicuous 
 a part in the history of the American Colonies and in the trying 
 times of the Revolution by which our independence was gained. 
 
 I had the good fortune to form the acquaintance of Gen. Lee 
 and his estimable wife at the beginning of the Fiftieth Congress. 
 I was strongly impressed with his noble presence, and his 
 genial, modest, and dignified bearing. He seemed to me an 
 ideal specimen of true American manhood. His wife was a 
 lady whose appearance at once attracted attention and whose 
 qualities of head and heart charmed and delighted friends and 
 associates. He was a devoted husband. His tender and gentle 
 bearing toward his wife were natural and unaffected. The 
 daily life and conduct of both were a conspicuous example of 
 the benign influence of a husband and wife who love, honor, 
 and respect each other. 
 
 My impressions of him were so favorable and agreeable as to 
 create a desire on my part to cultivate his acquaintance and 
 know more of his character. We met frequently, and dis- 
 cussed freely the social and political topics which engaged the 
 attention of members of Congress at the national capital. He 
 was modest and unobtrusive in the expression of his opinions; 
 but as I knew him better I was profoundly impressed with the 
 scope and breadth of his information. 
 
 His judgment of men and measures was as free from local 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 87 
 
 prejudice and partisan bias as any man's I ever met. He was 
 induced by his generous nature to attribute good rather than 
 unworthy motives to those with whom he differed. He was 
 honest, true, and unsuspicious. On all occasions he expressed 
 attachment to the Union of the States, and manifested a patri- 
 otic devotion to the Constitution as the charter of our liberties. 
 
 He was a brave soldier, and fought on the losing side in a 
 war that convulsed the continent and astonished the civilized 
 world; and as a brave soldier he accepted without reservation 
 the verdict of the war. It is to be regretted that his heroic 
 services were not on the side of the Union, but the conditions 
 which placed him in hostility to the flag of the United States 
 are forever removed. Every cause which produced that ter 
 rible conflict was eradicated and obliterated in carnage and 
 blood. The horrors of that fratricidal war are now history. 
 The glorious results achieved are being realized in the aboli- 
 tion of slavery; in the Union of the States restored, strength- 
 ened, and cemented; in the respect, confidence, and just esti- 
 mation of the people of all the sections for each other, and in 
 the establishment beyond question of the capacity of the citizens 
 of the Republic to dare and to do in great emergencies what to 
 all the world seemed impossible. 
 
 To-day the virtue, the patriotism, and the renown of the 
 fathers of the Revolution and the founders of our free institu- 
 tions are the common heritage of all the people, both North 
 and South. The gallant and daring exploits of Legion Harry 
 or Light-Horse Harry Lee, the grandsire of the deceased, in- 
 spire the same admiration and respect in the sons of the North 
 as in the sons of the South. It is most gratifying that the de- 
 scendants of the comrades in war and associates in council 
 who gained the independence and established the Government 
 
88 Address of Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, on the 
 
 of the United States are again united in stronger bonds of in- 
 terest, good fellowship, and respect than ever before existed. 
 
 Generations to come will enjoy not only the fruits of the Rev- 
 olutionary struggle and the establishment of constitutional lib- 
 erty, but they will be blessed with liberty that knows no slavery 
 and with a Union forever indivisible, and they will contemplate 
 with no partisan feeling the sacrifices which were necessary to 
 secure such results. The type of manly virtue of which our de- 
 ceased friend was a conspicuous example is one of the best fruits 
 of free institutions. His death in the prime of his manhood and 
 in the days of his usefulness was a great loss to the country and 
 a bereavement to his family for which there is no earthly com- 
 pensation. But he has left for them in his good name, his un- 
 impeachable character, and his many virtues an inheritance 
 more valuable than gold. 
 
 He has gone where all must soon follow. The wealth of his 
 example is an inspiration to the living to emulate his virtues, 
 enjoy a conscience void of offense, and leave to surviving rel- 
 atives the inheritance of an honored name. Such an ambition 
 is worthy of an American citizen, and the value to humanity 
 of such a life as that of Gen. L,e;e can hardly be overestimated. 
 
 Why should death be regarded as a calamity? It is the in- 
 evitable fate of all the living. May it not be a part of life? 
 The hope of immortality is the greatest boon conferred upon 
 the living. On an occasion like this words will not soothe the 
 grief of those who are near and dear to the deceased. Their 
 consolation must be in the hope of reunion beyond the grave. 
 
Life and Character of William H. R Lee. 89 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. COLQUITT, OF GEORGIA. 
 
 Mr. President: It is a difficult and delicate task to draw with 
 justice and propriety the character of a public man. Fulsome 
 panegyrics have often been pronounced upon the character of 
 the dead either out of flattery to the deceased or to gratify the 
 ambitious desires of the living. 
 
 In paving a tribute to William H. F. Lee I am not influ- 
 enced by any such questionable views. To do honor to his 
 memory I need only say what justice and truth dictate. There 
 is little danger, in speaking of him, of committing the offense 
 of exaggerated eulogy. There is more danger of doing the 
 injustice of understatement in commemorating a character so 
 rounded and symmetrical. 
 
 As a son, Gen. LEE'S filial piety was so marked as to make 
 him an example worthy of all imitation by the youth of his 
 country. In every post of honor or trust to which he was called — 
 and they were many and exalted ones — he met his engage- 
 ments with such fidelity and courage as never to incur censure 
 and seldom provoke criticism. 
 
 His bearing as a private citizen was of such dignity and be- 
 nevolence as to secure the love, while it evoked the admiration, 
 of all who knew him. 
 
 His character was made up of blended chivalry and courtesy 
 and adorned with the mild luster of a religious faith. 
 
 He was frank and open, plain and sincere, speaking only 
 what he thought without reserve, and promising only what he 
 designed to perform. 
 
 As he was plain and sincere, so he was firm and steady in 
 his purposes; courteous and affable, he was not influenced by 
 
DO Address of Mr. Colquitt, of Georgia, on the 
 
 servile compliance to his company, approving or condemning 
 as might be most agreeable to them. He was a man of courage 
 and constancy, qualities which, after all, are the ornaments and 
 defense of a man. 
 
 He had in the highest degree the air, manners, and address 
 of a man of quality; politeness with ease, dignity without 
 pride, and firmness without the least alloy of roughness. He 
 loved refined society, but he had great respect and sympathy for 
 those who had been reared in simple habits and the toils of life. 
 
 He possessed an even and equal temper of mind. Those 
 who best knew him can testify of him what has often been 
 asserted of his great father, that they never heard an acrimo- 
 nious speech fall from his lips; that his whole temper was so 
 controlled by justice and generosity that he was never known 
 to disparage with an envious breath the fame of another or to 
 withhold due praise of another's worth. 
 
 Mr. President, the friends of Gen. LEE do not claim for him 
 brilliant talents and the gifts of genius. It is doubtless a 
 beneficent ordination of Providence that the best interests of 
 society are not solely dependent on what in common parlance 
 is called genius. Fortunately for the good of mankind, great 
 gifts and powers of mind are not indispensable to our happiness 
 or to a safe and salutary development of social conditions. 
 
 Patient industry and impregnable virtue are the essential 
 cardinal qualities that make the man, in the vast majority of 
 cases, worthy of love and honor, and which conserve the best 
 interests of the world. 
 
 That man who in his career and relations to society has gone 
 on from day to day and from trust to trust, never disappointing 
 but always realizing every just expectation, it seems to me is 
 the character who deserves of his fellow-men the highest meed 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 91 
 
 of praise, and gives in his person and example the surest guar- 
 anty that the world will be all the better for his agency in 
 shaping its affairs. 
 
 The friends of Gen. LEE enjoy the perfect assurance that in 
 every walk of life, on every occasion when duty called him, 
 his responses were ever marked by a dignified and intelligent 
 performance of the tasks assigned him. 
 
 What higher honor can we ask for him than this : that weighty 
 as were the responsibilities that devolved upon him by inherit- 
 ance and high as the expectations which were the natural im- 
 plications of this inheritance, he fully and nobly met them. 
 Much as was expected of him, he more than realized the claims 
 and obligations of a noble lineage. His fellow-citizens and his 
 contemporaries regard his career as an honor and his compan- 
 ionship as a delight and a resource that adds poignancy to their 
 grief in the loss of so loved and valued a friend. 
 
 I might refer to the incidents of his military career to illus- 
 trate his courage and fidelity, but it may not be considered ap- 
 propriate to the time and the occasion. It is cheering, how- 
 ever, to believe that in this exalted body there is not to be found 
 that spirit of truculent uncharitableness which refuses any credit 
 to an honorable adversary. 
 
 Time, which touches all things with mellowing hand, has 
 softened the recollections of past contests, and they who looked 
 upon him as a foe now only remember the glory of the fight, 
 and would join hands with us to weave the garland of his fame. 
 Securely may the friends and admirers of this noble character 
 rest in the belief that his name for generations to come will be 
 enrolled in the glorious list of worthies that has for all time 
 made the name of Virginia illustrious and among the foremost 
 of all the commonwealths of the ages past. 
 
92 Address of Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. BUTLER, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 It was my good fortune, Mr. President, to know Gen. William 
 H. F. LEE with the intimacy of personal friendship for more 
 than a quarter of a century, and I can pass no higher encomium 
 upon him than by saying he had all the qualities that consti- 
 tute a true gentleman, a gentleman in the highest and best 
 sense. He inherited from a very illustrious and distinguished 
 ancestry a prestige rarely enjoyed in this country, and yet he 
 was as unpretending, unaffected, and modest as the humblest 
 man. His self-contained dignity of character never deserted 
 him. His placid, well-balanced, well-poised equanimity always 
 sustained him. 
 
 It would be extravagant to say he inherited the command- 
 ing abilities of his illustrious father, but it would be entirely 
 within the line of a just criticism to affirm that he did inherit 
 many of the highest characteristics and qualities of that great 
 man. In personal demeanor, in that suave, gracious, consider- 
 ate, self-respecting, and respectful bearing which give assur- 
 ance of the perfect gentleman he very much resembled his 
 father. He was always approachable and cordial, and yet I 
 doubt if any man ever attempted an improper liberty or ven- 
 tured undue familiarity with him. His high character and 
 affability of manner protected him against such relations. 
 
 In the late civil war we served side by side in the same cav- 
 alry corps in the same army almost continuously from the 
 beginning to the end. I therefore had the best opportunities 
 of forming a correct estimate of him as a soldier and man, and 
 it is within the bounds of just judgment to place him among 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 93 
 
 the most distinguished in that brilliant array of American sol- 
 diers and men of that eventful period. 
 
 I recall with vivid recollection my first association with him 
 at Ashland, Va., in June, 1861, where he was stationed as a 
 young captain of cavalry at a school of instruction. Thence he 
 rose by regular gradations to major-general of division, resign- 
 ing his sword with that rank. 
 
 Gen. LEE never aspired to be what is sometimes called a 
 41 dashing' 1 soldier. He was quite content with the serious, 
 earnest, steady performance of his duties. It would be no com- 
 pliment to say that a son of Robert E. Lee and grandson of 
 "Light-Horse" Harry Lee had courage. Such a quality is a 
 necessary ingredient of such a man's character. But his cour- 
 age was not of that frothy, noisy kind so often paraded to attract 
 attention. In battle he was as steady, firm, and immovable as 
 any soldier who ever wielded a sword or placed a squadron in 
 the field. In his relations to his subordinates he was the per- 
 fection of military propriety, always considerate and kindly, 
 but firm and impartial in the enforcement of discipline. 
 
 Towards his equals and superiors in rank he bore himself 
 with a knightly chivalry that at once commanded respect and 
 confidence. How could he have been otherwise, descended 
 from such a noble sire, with such an example of courtly dignity 
 and untarnished manhood ? 
 
 After the close of hostilities, having discharged his whole 
 duty as he understood it with fidelity and courage, he retired 
 to his native State, to his farm, and there, by the same quiet, 
 honorable, manly course of conduct devoted himself to the 
 duties of civil life, establishing by his example a standard of 
 citizenship worthy the great Republic to which he renewed his 
 allegiance. 
 
94 Address of Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, on the 
 
 The people of the Commonwealth of Virginia could not and 
 did not permit a man of his exalted character, sound intellectual 
 qualities, and safe, conservative judgment to remain in private 
 life. His services and example were too valuable to the public, 
 and he was called into the public service, first as senator in the 
 State legislature, later into the lower House of Congress. 
 
 There, as elsewhere, he soon took rank among the wisest 
 and safest legislators in the body pursuing the even, modest 
 tenor of his way with that faithful regard for his duty to his 
 constituents and his country that characterized every relation 
 and position of his life. 
 
 Those of us, Mr. President, who were favored with his 
 acquaintance recall with a respect bordering on reverence his 
 commanding figure as he came in this Chamber, his courtly 
 presence, his gentle bearing, persuasive conversation, amiable, 
 respectful manners. The consciousness that we shall never see 
 him again is a sad and depressing reflection, and a mournful 
 reminder that it is only a question of time — how long mortal 
 man can not foretell — when those of us who survive him must 
 obey a similar summons, and disappear, as he has done, from 
 the scenes of life forever. 
 
 In paying tributes of respect and affection to departed friends 
 I know how hard it is to impose restraint upon our partiality 
 for them and how strong the temptation to indulge in expres- 
 sions of exaggerated eulogy. Knowing Gen. LEE as I did, I 
 can say of him with absolute sincerity and truth that he was as 
 free from the small and petty faults of our nature as any man I 
 have ever known. In his private relations he was literally 
 without guile or deceit. Straightforward, honorable, just in all 
 his dealings, he was a model citizen and faithful friend. 
 
 In his public life he proved himself equal to every station. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 95 
 
 Zealous, attentive, conscientious, untiring, he met every re- 
 sponsibility with fidelity and confidence. He never disap- 
 pointed a friend, betrayed a trust, or took unfair advantage of 
 an opponent. In a word, Mr. President, he lived a perfect 
 gentleman, discharged faithfully every duty of life, and died 
 honored and beloved by his friends. 
 
 Others have spoken of the life and character of this distin- 
 guished man more in detail, more eloquently, with more fin- 
 ished oratory, but I yield to none in the sincerity of my humble 
 tribute to his memory. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. DOLPH, OF OREGON. 
 
 Mr. President: The echoes of the voices of those who> 
 pronounced eulogies upon the life and character of the late 
 distinguished Senator from Kansas have hardly died away in 
 this Chamber, and we have again laid business aside to pay our 
 tributes to the memory of a late honored member of the House 
 of Representatives and a distinguished son of Virginia. 
 
 These sorrowful occasions, which are deprecated by some 
 as involving a loss of the time of the Senate and needless 
 expense to the Government, I can not think are unprofitable to 
 us or to the country. Surely in the mad rush and hurry of 
 business we may be permitted to halt long enough to take 
 notice of the invasion of our ranks by death and to voice our 
 esteem for a departed member. The death of an eminent mem- 
 ber of the Senate or of the House is not only a loss to his 
 immediate constituency, but to the whole country, and, m 
 accordance with a long and honored usage, demands from his 
 former associates formal and appropriate action. 
 
96 Address of Mr. Dolph, of Oregon^ on the 
 
 After such an hour spent in the contemplation of the com- 
 mon end of all that live, in introspection and retrospection, 
 who of us does not again take up the burdens of life with 
 renewed resolutions to redouble our energies to faithfully 
 discharge every public and private duty. 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. L,EE was not intimate. I fre- 
 quently met him socially, but he did not belong to the party 
 with which I am affiliated, and no fortuitous circumstance oc- 
 curred to bring us together in the discharge of public duties. 
 The incidents of his life, his public services, and his domestic 
 relations have been fittingly alluded to by others, and it only 
 remains for me to cast an evergreen upon his grave, to add my 
 poor tribute to his memory, and give expression to the emo- 
 tions awakened by the occasion and the exercises of the hour. 
 Coming from a long line of distinguished ancestors, serving 
 with marked distinction in the Confederate army until the 
 cause he championed was hopelessly lost, honored by the peo- 
 ple of his State by election to high civil positions, in which he 
 did credit to himself and honored them with a rounded char- 
 acter and well-developed manhood, at once the incarnation of 
 gentleness, tenderness, and courage, it is not to be wondered 
 at that sorrow for his death hung over his State like a funeral 
 pall, and all parties vied with each other in giving expression 
 to the universal sense of private and public loss. 
 
 He was the son of a distinguished sire, who in life was the 
 idol of the people of Virginia; but he was held in the highest 
 esteem by the people of his State not so much on account of 
 his illustrious father as on account of his own ability and 
 worth. His public services and his blameless life, touching, 
 tender, and beautiful, won the tributes to his memory pro- 
 nounced by his colleagues at the other end of this Capitol. 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 97 
 
 Fortunate, indeed, is the man who can win such admiration 
 from his associates. 
 
 What higher eulogy can be pronounced on any man than 
 that in every station, public and private, he was true to him- 
 self and faithful to the people and was equal to the duties of 
 his station ? Not every man can become great ; genius is the 
 gift of the few, but goodness and fidelity to duty are within 
 the reach of all. He has gone the way of all the living. He 
 has found the level of the grave. Our words of eulogy can 
 not reach him there. 
 
 Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 Or flatt'ry soothe the dull, cold ear of death? 
 
 Solomon, summing up this question, said : 
 
 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither 
 have they any more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgotten. 
 
 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished ; neither have they 
 any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. 
 
 To human reason the death of him we mourn was untimely. 
 He was born May 31, 1837, and died October 15, 1891. He 
 was therefore in the prime of manhood, and apparently had 
 many years of useful life before him. But death sometimes 
 strangely selects his victims. No season, no station, no age is 
 exempt from his fatal shafts. When death comes to the aged 
 as the end of a fully completed life we regard it as natural. 
 But when death comes to the young, the gifted, and the prom- 
 ising, we with our finite vision look upon it as sad and myste- 
 rious. We are constantly reminded that — 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour. 
 
 The paths of glory lead bu : to the grave. 
 
 H. Mis. 320 7 
 
98 Address of Mr. Dolph, of Oregon, on the 
 
 It is creditable to our humanity that at the grave animosities 
 are buried, and those whb speak of the dead remember their 
 virtues and pass over their frailties. 
 
 Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are extinguished, hatred 
 is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace 
 over the funeral urn. 
 
 The reconciling grave swallows distinction first that made us foes; there all lie 
 down in peace together. 
 
 To the grave, "the world's sweet inn from pain and weari- 
 some turmoil," we are all hastening. Earth's highest station 
 and meanest place ends in the common receptacle to which we 
 shall all be taken. Dark and gloomy indeed would be the 
 grave without a hope in a personal immortality, a belief that 
 the soul survives the body, and that to this immortal part the 
 tomb is the gate to heaven. When one feels like Theodore 
 Parker when he said: 
 
 When this stiffened body goes down to the tomb, sad, silent, and remorseless, I feel 
 there is no death for the man. That clod which yonder dust shall cover is not my 
 brother. The dust goes to its place; man to his own. It is then I feel my immor- 
 tality. I look through the grave into heaven. I ask no miracle, no proof, no reason- 
 ing for me; I ask no risen dust to teach me immortality. I am conscious of eternal 
 life. 
 
 Or like Byron when he wrote: 
 
 I feel my immortality oversweep all pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal, 
 like the eternal thunders of the deep into my ears this truth — thou livest forever! 
 
 Death loses its terrors and the grave becomes a welcome goal 
 for weary and buffeted mariners on life's stormy sea — the gate 
 to endless life. 
 
 By these oft-repeated scenes in this Chamber; by the fre- 
 quent visits of the stern messenger to both Houses of Congress 
 to summon a member from his field of labor here to the bar 
 of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe above; by the constant 
 changes going on around us in obedience to the inevitable law 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 99 
 
 of nature, by which death everywhere succeeds to life, we are 
 reminded that we shall not long continue as we now are. It is 
 possible that as we are startled by the announcement of the 
 death of an associate we mentally ask ourselves, Who will be 
 called next? 
 
 So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan which moves 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. President: The late Gen. William H. F. Lee was con- 
 spicuously connected with the public affairs of his State for more 
 than thirty years. He was deservedly honored, loved, and 
 trusted by the people. For two terms he represented the Eighth 
 district of Virginia in Congress and he was elected for a third 
 term, but when Congress met in December last his chair was 
 vacant. Surrounded by his beloved family and bemoaned by 
 all who knew him he peacefully breathed his last at Ravens- 
 worth, his home, in Fairfax County, on the 15th day of Octo- 
 ber, 1891. 
 
 Thus, Mr. President, disappears one singularly endowed with 
 the qualities that win the confidence and affections of man- 
 kind. His noble, honest face, beaming with intelligence and 
 benevolence, was a true index to his nature. Strength of char- 
 acter and sweetness of disposition made him a man of mark 
 
100 Address of Air. Daniel, of Virginia, on the 
 
 and influence in all the relations of society. His life was full 
 of noble uses. Respect for the rights and tenderness for the 
 feelings of others stamped his conduct on every occasion. He 
 fulfilled Sidney's definition of a gentleman, "high thoughts 
 seated in a heart of courtesy, ' ' and I know of no better legacy 
 that a father could leave his household or a patriot leave his 
 country than such a record as he has left to attest his virtues. 
 
 I will not penetrate the sanctity of the home bereaved by 
 his death. The fond and noble wife and the sons who miss 
 the husband and father, who was representative to them of 
 life's dearest boons, have in his memory whatever earth can 
 give them of consolation, and they learned from none more 
 than from him to look above in sorrow and affliction. 
 
 As a Representative in Congress Gen. LEE was diligent in 
 the service of his constituents and in behalf of policies which 
 commended themselves to his favor. He seldom spoke, but it 
 was not because he could not speak weli and forcibly. He was 
 not noted as the peculiar champion of any of the great measures 
 before Congress, but it was not because he did not comprehend 
 them nor take great interest in them, and I doubt if there be 
 many Representatives who have had a more wholesome or fur- 
 ther-reaching influence. 
 
 His fine character and engaging manner made friends for him 
 and for his people. His excellent judgment had great weight 
 in council, his political ideas were eminently liberal, and his 
 tact and attention reached results where perhaps more aggres- 
 sive qualities would have been ineffectual. On one occasion 
 that I recall he was urging the passage of the bill to pay for 
 use and occupation of the Theological Seminary near Alexan- 
 dria during the war. He became the mark, in doing so, of 
 inquiry and badinage, and some one, meaning to disparage the 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 101 
 
 claim by intimation that the clerical professors of the institu- 
 tion had been enemies of the Government, called out to him, 
 "How did they pray?" He answered instantly, " For all sin- 
 ners. " His ready pleasantry put everybody in good humor 
 and the bill was passed. 
 
 Gen. LEE was a representative man in a larger sense than 
 that of official designation. He was a representative country 
 gentleman, and the flavor of his native soil was in his character. 
 He was born in the country, at beautiful Arlington, with the 
 woods and fields and streams and mountain vistas around him. 
 He lived in the country all his life, and died in the country, at 
 his home in Fairfax County, an owner of land, loving the land; 
 his home, a fine old country seat of colonial pattern, the scene 
 of domestic peace and love and hospitality; his voice, that of 
 the good people of his vicinage; his life, daily tasks, intermin- 
 gled with daily studies and contemplation; his aims, those of 
 the patriot and Christian, his country, God, and truth. 
 
 Gen. LEE was a representative American of broad gauge and 
 vision. Many of us — and I have felt myself amongst them — are 
 quite provincial. We know our own neighborhoods and their 
 people, and we grow slowly into knowledge of other sections 
 and their people. Local caste, prejudice, interest, and bias warp 
 us and minify our usefulness. Gen. LEE was not of this kind. 
 There was no sectionalism in his caste, no bigotry in his creeds. 
 His strong local attachments, natural to a true nature, neither 
 dwarfed his opinions, soured his reflections, nor darkened his 
 vision. His was a ripe mind and his a generous nature. He 
 understood men, because he understood mankind. He had re- 
 spect for all men, because he respected manhood. He dealt con- 
 siderately and justly with all men of all races, creeds, opinions, 
 and aspirations, because he respected men and because he had a 
 
102 Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia, on the 
 
 good man's sympathy, with the hopes of his race, his country, 
 and humanity. 
 
 I would not speak of him as a brilliant man. He was more. 
 He was a wise and good and true man. Gen. LEE was a repre- 
 sentative of our racial history. The story of his family began 
 when his remote ancestor rode with the Norman knights at 
 Hastings. Another led a company of English volunteers with 
 Cceur de Lion on # the third crusade to the Holy Land, and was 
 made the Earl of Litchfield. Still another was that Richard 
 Lee who, intense loyalist as he was, became a commissioner 
 from Virginia and urged Charles II to fly for refuge to the Old 
 Dominion when his throne was trembling under him. Quarrel 
 and fight as we may and as our fathers did before us, the con- 
 tinuity of race achievement is unbroken. 
 
 The growth of race ascendency and the expanse of race domi- 
 nation are unceasing. The picture is unique and the nation one, 
 however the theater enlarges, however the scenes shift, how- 
 ever the actors differ in the drama. Gen. LEE was a represent- 
 ative democrat or republican, for I use the words in their generic 
 sense. His grandfather was that young American Capt. Henry 
 Lee, the ardent youth of nineteen, who at the head of his com- 
 pany of Virginia horse reported to Washington for duty when 
 the first arm}' of Continentals were ranging themselves upon 
 the plains of Boston. He was the first to break the record of 
 his line for loyalty to the Crown of England in espousing the 
 cause of American independence, the first to draw his sword 
 for the new king proclaimed at Philadelphia — the sovereign 
 people. 
 
 As "Light-Horse Harry" Lee he goes down to history and 
 renown; distinguished in general orders of the army and in 
 promotion from Congress for one exploit, and for another with 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 103 
 
 the thanks of Congress and a gold medal. In statesmanship as 
 in soldiership, he was the friend and follower of Washington. 
 In the Virginia legislature, when the resolutions of 1798 were 
 debated, he took sides against them, and in his speech you may 
 find nearly all the arguments which are used in favor of the 
 Federal construction of the Constitution. When Washington 
 died he was a member of Congress, and pronounced upon him 
 the memorable words, "First in war, first in peace, and first in 
 the hearts of his fellow-citizens." He was one of those virile 
 men who could write, speak, and fight. 
 
 When Gen. Winfield Scott led the American Army to Mex- 
 ico there rode by his side Capt. Robert E. Lee, the son of 
 Henry Lee, an officer of engineers upon his staff. He was four 
 times brevetted for gallant conduct and came back famous. 
 When Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston led the Utah expedition in 
 1858 there marched on foot in his columns Lieut. William 
 Henry Fitzhugh Lee, the son of Robert E. Lee. He was 
 not a soldier by education, but by instinct. A graduate of 
 Harvard College and the stroke oar of his class, he was well 
 prepared for military life, and the third of his line to bear arms 
 for the United States. But no war ensued ; the canker of a long 
 peace was settling on military aspirations. 
 
 Lieut. LEE resigned, married, and settled on his farm, the 
 White House, on the Pamunkey. With the prattle of little 
 children around his knees and pastoral scenes before him, his 
 prospects were those of domestic tranquillity and joy. 
 
 What a rush was there to the standards when war broke out in 
 1861! Americans acted like Americans. They divided in con- 
 viction. They did not differ as to the method of dealing with 
 conviction. To divide was the propulsion of conditions, to fight 
 the law of blood. Not one of the Lees had provoked war, but 
 
104 Address of Mr. Daniel, vf Virginia, on the 
 
 not one stood back. The whole family of Lees became repre- 
 sentative soldiers of their people; Gen. Robert E. Lee com- 
 manded the greatest of the Southern armies and his brother 
 became an admiral of the Southern navy. His sons and 
 nephews were soldiers and sailors. 
 
 The nephew of Northern identity kept place with the North. 
 The more numerous class of Southern identity kept place with 
 the South ; the boy, a private in the ranks or cadet on ship- 
 board, the young men leading companies and regiments and 
 winning brigades and divisions, the sire and chief commanding 
 all. Their names are interwoven with war's dread story and 
 splendid deed. Not one had any reproach ; not one struck a 
 blow below the belt. The woman, the child, the captive found 
 a fortress in the hand of Lee, the foeman met his peer. The 
 history of two continents and many centuries was written over 
 again on fields of blood. 
 
 William H. F. LEE raised a company of cavalry at the begin- 
 ning of the war and surrendered as a major-general of cavalry at 
 (\ppomattox. He fought his way to his rank and suffered all 
 ii war's vicissitudes save death. His men believed in him and 
 followed him. He was wounded; he was twice a prisoner; he 
 was held as a hostage in solitary confinement with death im- 
 pending. His wife and his children died while he lay wounded 
 and in prison. Whatever man may suffer he suffered to the 
 uttermost. Amongst his first acts when he emerged from 
 prison was to visit, shake hands with and congratulate the 
 Federal officer for whom he had been held as hostage. He was 
 a representative Christian, void of vindictiveness and uncom- 
 plaining; he made no outcry of pain; he sealed his lips to 
 reproach. 
 
 I knew him well, respected him profoundly, and loved him 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 105 
 
 dearly. I have often heard him speak at gatherings of old 
 soldiers and on a variety of occasions; sometimes those of tur- 
 bulence. I have marveled at his self-poise and reserved 
 power. Never once did I hear him say ill of any man, nor 
 allude to his own sufferings or deeds, nor utter words of bitter- 
 ness. He took his lot as it came to him, as a man who does 
 the best he can and leaves the rest to the Disposer of events. 
 His conscience and his human sympathy, like his soldiership, 
 were instincts, and his Christian creed was the sum of his 
 intuitions. Gen. IyEE was a representative of the times in 
 which he lived, eccentric in no opinion, even-tempered, wise, 
 cautious, prudent, steadfast, and gentle; he sought to be useful 
 rather than to shine. He took deep and active interest in all 
 that concerned his State. 
 
 As a State senator he could be relied upon to support liberal 
 and progressive measures; as president of the State Agricultural 
 Society he did much to excite interest and develop improve- 
 ments; as a trustee or visitor to educational institutions he 
 rendered valuable practical service to the cause of popular 
 enlightenment. In political life he had sharp contests; friend 
 was surprised and opponent discouraged when emergency 
 brought forth the reserve forces of his character and ability. 
 If modesty cloaked his powers in retirement, opposition elic- 
 ited them; and the fluency, tact, and ability with which he 
 discussed issues and met exigencies were remarkable in one 
 whose experiences of early life had separated him from civil 
 pursuits and training. 
 
 If I have spoken of Gen. Lee's ancestral distinctions, it was 
 not because either he or his people have ever presumed upon 
 them. On the contrary, no people whom I have ever known 
 have rested less of claim upon their antecedents or less sought 
 
106 Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia, on the 
 
 to substitute reminiscences for achievements. The independent, 
 honest, and simple Republicans and Democrats of our country 
 justly despise a pretender who boasts the shadow of a name; 
 but that of which the individual may not boast becomes his 
 country's pride; and I count it great glory to our country that 
 its institutions have nourished and the highest characteristic 
 of our race that it has produced successive generations of men 
 who preserve the continuity of sterling virtues. I count also 
 as the star of hope for this grand Republic that a distin- 
 guished soldier of a lost cause becomes the beloved statesman 
 of the cause that won, and finds around him the old-time 
 comrades and old-time foes, all his friends and each other's 
 friends united in the service of our common country. 
 
 No nobler words have been spoken of the late Gen. LEE than 
 by soldiers who fought against him, and I respond to them with 
 honor and praise. The production of men who may maintain 
 the rights their fathers won, and ever grow in liberal thought, 
 noble character, and worthy achievement is the highest mis- 
 sion of republican institutions. From Hastings, A. D. 1066, to 
 Boston in 1776, the name of Lee was blended with the glories 
 of our fatherland. But from Boston to Appomattox it grew 
 the more illustrious with grander opportunities. Victorious 
 through a track of eight hundred years to the 9th of April, 1865, 
 it has been still more victorious since — rising to the height of 
 harder trials and sterner tasks and grander duties than those of 
 leading embattled lines. The glorious nation of which he was 
 a type and the glorious band of which he was the son come 
 forth from ruin and desolation on one side, moved by gracious 
 institutions and magnanimous sentiments upon the other, tak- 
 ing their place in the reunited columns of parted friendship, 
 cementing anew by adaptive virtues the broken ties, marching 
 
Life and Character of William H. F. Lee. 107 
 
 again with the mutual magnanimities of companionship at the 
 head of column. 
 
 If a race that has won liberty and made it a birthright lets it 
 slip away through hands of weakness or deeds of folly, and if 
 the self-made man of to-day loses the vantage ground of his 
 life work with his fleeting breath, the careers of nations would 
 be brief, the story of liberty would be a nurse's tale, and the 
 careers of individuals would be vanity of vanities. The pre- 
 potent blood that made an empire of an insignificant island 
 and stamped its language and its laws upon it made also here 
 the most splendid Republic of the earth out of a savage wilder- 
 ness and assimilated to itself all tributaries. That Republic 
 delegates its unfinished tasks to a posterity that will lift higher 
 the monuments of its greatness and strengthen the foundations 
 of its endurance; and in the lives of Gen. L,EE and those of his 
 worthy compatriots of all sections who unite as friends the 
 moment conditions cease that made them foes, I see exempli- 
 fied the noblest qualities of our kind and read the auguries of 
 prolonged peace, progress, happiness, and stability. 
 
 The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to the 
 resolutions submitted by the Senator from Virginia. 
 
 The resolutions were agreed to unanimously, and under the 
 last resolution the Senate (at 4 o'clock and 20 minutes p. m.) 
 adjourned until Monday, March 7, 1892, at 12 o'clock m. 
 
/A 
 
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