While we were together in Congress he often referred to our college life and its associations, and remembered them with evident satisfaction. He became a member of the Harvard Club here in Washington, and I recall a pleasant evening when he was one of the after-dinner speakers there. In the summer of 1888 he went to Cambridge, to revisit the old scenes and once more meet his friends and associates of the olden time. He attended the commencement exercises and spoke pleasantly at the class supper. His classmates who then met him will long cherish the remembrance of that last visit, his hearty greetings, his cordial manners, the interest he manifested.
The renewal of our acquaintance soon satisfied me that the experience of life had strengthened and developed all that was good and noble and manly in the young student. The same warmth and cordiality which had endeared him to his classmates won the regard and affection of his associates here. The same general ability and rotundity of character which had made him prominent in the little world of college life made him useful and influential in various lines of duty in the wide field of Congressional legislation.
During the intervening years the manly bearing, the physical superiority, the nobility of spirit which had characterized him in the earlier days had made him a leader among men when the storm of war raged over the land. Brief as were the days of the unacknowledged Southern Confederacy, his name was enrolled in bright letters upon the pages of its history, and his brave deeds will in future days be chronicled in song and story by those who admire true courage and recognize all that was gallant and noble and heroic in the lives of all those who fought on both sides of our great struggle as worthy of preservation and commemoration.
When Lee first left college his military duties, as has been already stated, carried him to the far West, and he there saw some rough service. The Utah expedition was a training school for soldiers and generals, and many who afterwards gained renown and fame, under the different standards were there associated together in a common duty. Besides the leader and commander, Col. Johnston, were Robert E. Lee, Hardee, Thomas, Kirby Smith, Palmer, Stoneman, Fitz Lee, and Hood. When the Army first entered upon this service there was a small cloud of war in the horizon, but it soon cleared away, and the company to which Lee was attached was assigned to a dull and monotonous routine of garrison life. This possessed no attractions for the young lieutenant, and there were other influences drawing him towards his native State. He resigned his commission, returned to Virginia, and settled at the White House, in New Kent County, where George Washington had married the widow Custis.
The plantation had descended to her son, George Washington Parke Custis, and from him through Lee's mother to the grandson. He soon established his cousin, Miss Wickham, as queen of this historic home, and he was here with his little family amid these surroundings, with everything to make life attractive, when Virginia and her sister States of the South passed their ordinances of secession and sent delegates to Montgomery to unite in the attempt to form a Southern Confederacy. Lee never doubted that allegiance was due first to his State, and when war followed he drew his sword in defense of Virginia.
As long as the strife continued he avoided no danger, he shunned no peril, he feared no adversary.
Now with a company, now a squadron, now a regiment, now a brigade, now a division of cavalry behind him, he went upon the march, formed the line of battle, or rode into the enemy's lines. Whatever duty was assigned to him, he entered upon its discharge with energy and vigor. In the varying fortunes of war he was wounded, captured, held as a hostage; but the day of recovery and exchange came, and he once more headed the brave followers who loved and honored and trusted him, and during the last year of the struggle he again shared their hardships and privations and dangers. But the end came at last, the issue was settled, the arbitrament of war was decided adversely, and he sheathed his sword and returned to the place where his home had been.
The year 1865 marked a low ebb in the fortunes of the Southern people, and perhaps it may not be unprofitable to dwell briefly upon their conduct when under the shadow of defeat and disaster. The distinguished father of him to whose memory we are this day paying tribute went from the head of a great army to train the new generation of young men of the South in the halls of a university to usefulness in the various walks of citizenship. The students who enjoyed the privilege of sitting at the feet of this grand college president there learned lessons of patriotism. They were advised to build up the places left waste and desolate, and to look hopefully forward to a reunited country and a more prosperous future.
Whatever public disappointment or private grief or loss he suffered was buried in his own breast. He advised his countrymen that the great questions which had long divided the country, and upon which opinions had been so diverse that legislative debate and administrative action had failed in finding a solution, had been finally settled by the sword, and that henceforth their duty was to the Union restored and indissoluble.
With so illustrious an example the immediate restoration of peace and good order all over the South is not to be wondered at. The annals of all nations may be searched in vain for a parallel. It is an easy task for men who have accomplished all they desired to lay down their arms and return to their homes and resume their former avocations.