General Lee is a superb horseman. He rode a splendid mare named Nellie. She had the form, the strength, the nimbleness of limb, the tapering neck, the alert poise of the head, the bright and intelligent eyes that made her a model worthy to bear any master. She was all grace and beauty. When the confederate columns were broken in the same battle and the rout began, for it was little less, General Lee was at a very exposed point. The fire of thirty pieces of artillery was directed against it. The air was full of exploding shells; horses were plunging about on three legs, neighing piteously for a place of refuge; others were disemboweled by the furious shot; others were loose, running to and fro, bewildered by the terrible havoc, while the mutilated bodies of men could be seen on every hand; numbers who were crippled were hobbling away, and all seemed doomed to death. It was here that the beautiful Nellie was gored by one fragment of shell and her master's leg torn by another.
He was noted for his geniality and jollity. He loved humor and fun, and got all there was to be had in those trying times. But his cheerfulness failed at Appomattox. There he cried.
After the war had ended, General Lee settled in Stafford County as a farmer and miller. His life was the quiet and uneventful one of a country gentleman, caring for nothing but his wife, whom he married in 1871, and his children. About 1875 he began to take an active part in politics, and he attended the national convention of 1876 as a delegate. In 1885 he was elected governor of Virginia. It was then that he again became conspicuous. General Lee headed the southern division of the inauguration parade, and his handsome presence and splendid horsemanship forced the men on the sidewalks to cheer him with more vim than they did anyone else. A similar demonstration occurred when, four years later, General Lee led the Virginia troops in the Washington centennial parade in New York to the stirring tune of "Dixie." On both of these occasions he sat in the identical saddle which his uncle, General Robert E. Lee, had used on his familiar gray war horse, Traveler. Who could occupy it more worthily? Any one who has seen "Fitz" Lee mounted like a centaur on a Virginia thoroughbred is certain to have in memory ever afterward an ideal figure of a knightly "man on horseback." Afoot he is not so imposing, being only of medium stature, and, of late years, quite portly. He has a fine head and face, with frank steel blue eyes and a ruddy complexion, set off by his now almost white hair, mustache and imperial. His bearing is alert and military. Altogether, he does not look, and probably does not feel, his sixty-two years.
During Mr. Cleveland's second term he was made collector of internal revenue at Lynchburg, Va.
THE MAN FOR THE PLACE AT HAVANA.
Once settled in his position in Havana, General Lee's fame began to multiply. The American opinion of him was voiced immediately after the destruction of the Maine, by L. P. Sigsbee, the brother of the commander of that ill-fated ship, when he said: "There's a man down there looking after the interests of this country who cannot be blinded. He has more sand than anybody I know of, and if there's anything treacherous in this explosion we'll know of it without delay. The man I mean is General Fitzhugh Lee."
The same thought occurred to every American who had watched his career. From first to last everybody had confidence in his Americanism, his bravery and his cool-headedness. He held his office through merit alone, no politician gaining any success in the effort to win from him that position of distinction and profit, after the change of administration when President McKinley assumed the executive chair. The nation recognized that he was first an American and an interference with him on partisan grounds would not have been tolerated.
Jealous of American honor, and firm in insisting upon the rights of his countrymen, he has always kept cool. Courteous and polite as well as courageous, he has never blustered and he has won the respect and admiration of the Spaniards as well as their fear.
Throughout his service in Cuba, General Lee's figure was a familiar one in Havana, and even by those most antagonistic to him because of their official position, he was heartily admired. No matter what the threat of violence from hot-headed Spaniards, when the relations were most strained between the two countries, General Lee never admitted the slightest danger to himself and refused to accept any guard except that which he himself was able to maintain for himself. Upon the streets and in the hotels and cafes he was exempt from disrespect by the sheer force of his splendid personality. And never until the last day of his stay in Havana when all diplomatic relations were severed, did the Spanish authorities in that city omit any of the forms of courtesy.