It was cold on the mountain in the winter, and a canvas was stretched over the work to break the wind. Huge pots of burning coals were placed on the platform and slung along the surface of the rock. The stoneworkers, for the first time in the lives of many of them, were dressed in heavy clothes. They wore what they could keep tied to them and swathed their feet in bulky wrappings of burlap and blankets. But the work was still cold and miserable, and only the calm presence of Borglum gave them any indication that it was ever going to be finished.

Borglum, however, was tired but satisfied. He had never carved a mountain before and in all truth he must have had his moments of misgiving. But Lee’s face, as it began to emerge human and understandable from the stone in those last weeks, must have answered all his queries. Nobody would ever tell him again that he didn’t know how to carve mountains. Here was the proof. He knew.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE EMERGENCE OF LEE

There have been few days in the history of Atlanta so festive as the one set for the dedication of the Confederate memorial. And, possibly, there will never be another. The progress of the carving against unspeakable odds had been such that visitors were pouring in from all over the United States. There were artists, engineers, dynamite salesmen, machinery designers, Civil War veterans, politicians and unaffiliated patriots.

When three governors—Brandon of Alabama, Neff of Texas and Trinkle of Virginia—had appeared two days before the unveiling, Gutzon decided that it would be proper to give them a luncheon on Lee’s shoulder. It would give them some idea of the size, he thought.

So, with the aid of Hetty McCurdy, who ran “The Golden Glow,” a Stone Mountain tearoom, Mrs. Borglum arranged the luncheon. The stoneworkers hung out a pulley, and hot fried chicken, hot biscuits, hot coffee and other things were served with very little trouble. Twenty leading citizens of Atlanta sat down with the governors on Lee’s shoulder. One of the governors turned pale when he descended the 400-foot stairway, and sat down to rest several times. At every move he seemed to be stepping off into the infinite.

Three more governors—Morrison of North Carolina, McLeod of South Carolina and Walker of Georgia—were present when Lee’s head was presented to the world, besides former governors, representatives of governors, two representatives of the President of the United States, and a long list of distinguished individuals appearing for the Daughters and Sons of the Confederacy and for Georgia and other states. The event was accompanied by all the pageantry and oratory that the South knows so well how to produce. There were pieces about it, too, in the Stone Mountain Magazine, published by the Confederate Memorial Association. Said one of these bits:

The dream of the world’s greatest memorial began to come true Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock. With a stately dignity that held something of a caress, a bright, broad national emblem was lifted and gathered as a flowing coronet on the majestic brow of Robert E. Lee, looking now and forever from the sheer wall of Stone Mountain....

And nobody knew—or had even a remote inkling—how wrong that was.

Mrs. Helen Plane, the Old South’s daughter, who had hoped for this great memorial, stood by the sculptor’s side and leaned on his arm as she gave the signal for the unveiling. Under the gray sky of a typical January afternoon the flag swept aside and the calm, sad eyes of Lee looked down upon ten thousand of his people. The crowd stood hushed in awe and admiration.