not drink, though young gentlemen of that day thought the serving of wine necessary in polite society. He did not even smoke.
It was a wonder that the other cadets did not hate a young man who seemed to feel that he must behave better than the rest of them. What kept them all from calling him a “goody-goody boy,” a snob or a prig? It was the love of his kind heart, which they could see shining through his strange courage. Robert Lee fully realized that he had come to West Point to learn, at his country’s expense, how to be a soldier, and that the first duty of a soldier is to obey. If he had left his post and sneaked off the Academy grounds to drink, or gamble, or break some other rule, he would have been a deserter who, in real army life, would have deserved to be shot. But he never acted as if he felt above the rest, and so his fellow cadets did not sneer at Robert E. Lee. One of them said of him afterward:
“He was the only one of all the men I have known who could laugh at the faults and follies of others without losing their affection.”
At graduation, Lieutenant Lee was the most popular man at West Point; he ranked second in his class, and received the highest military honor in the course.
The physical courage of Robert E. Lee was put to the supreme test in the Mexican War. On a dark night he found the way across a dangerous lava field cracked in all directions by deep crevices—“without light, without a companion or guide, where scarcely a step could be taken without fear of death.” General Scott, then chief in command, reported this act to be “the greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any one in the campaign.” In his official statement about the whole war, this general stated that the United States’ “success in Mexico was largely due to the skill, valor, and courage of Robert E. Lee, the greatest military genius in America.”