The system of river improvements devised by Lee at St. Louis are still followed there, and to his next work, at Fort Hamilton, the city of New York owes its perfect defenses to-day.
His campaign under General Scott, in Mexico, was his first taste of actual service, and history has recorded his zeal, valor and undaunted energy in that memorable conflict. He now entered upon his real career. He was breveted major at Cerro Gordo, lieutenant-colonel at Churubusco, and colonel at Chapultepec. General Scott testified his appreciation in every report he made to the War Department, and Lee repaid the regard of his beloved general with an extraordinary admiration and devotion.
He brought his son, Robert, a mustang pony from Mexico. “He was,” writes Captain Lee, in his “Recollections,” “for his inches, about as good a horse as I ever met with. While he lived ... he and Grace Darling, my father’s favorite mare, were members of our family. Grace Darling was a chestnut mare of fine size and great power. He bought her in Texas from the Arkansas cavalry on his way to Mexico, her owner having died on the march out. She was with him during all of the war, and was shot seven times. As a little fellow I used to brag of the number of bullets in her, and would place my finger on the scar made by each one.”
In 1852 he was appointed Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he remained for three years, when he was sent to Texas. His services on the frontier covered a period of five years, with one furlough home, during which he was sent, in October, 1859, to capture John Brown, at Harper’s Ferry. In February, 1861, he was recalled from Texas and ordered to report at Washington. He was not in favor of secession, for he loved the Union strongly, and he clung fondly to the hope that the breach might be closed, but he did not hesitate when he saw that his state would secede. A New York banker, an intimate friend of General Scott, asked him at this time, in the course of a conversation on the art of war: “General, whom do you regard as the greatest living soldier?” General Scott replied immediately: “Colonel Robert E. Lee is not only the greatest soldier in America, but the greatest now living in the world. This is my firm conviction from a full knowledge of his extraordinary abilities, and if the occasion ever arises, Lee will win this place in the estimation of the whole world.” Refusing the supreme command of the United States army, he cast in his lot with the Confederacy, and was placed in command of the troops of Virginia.
ARLINGTON, HOME OF THE LEES
Much discussion has been held concerning the occupation of Arlington by the Federal authorities, but it was claimed that this was a justifiable act, in view of the commanding position of the property. The White House and the department buildings near it were only two miles and a half from the highest point on the Arlington grounds; the Capitol only three and a half miles away, and Georgetown less than a mile. A battery established on the heights would have had the whole of Washington at its mercy. General Scott saw the importance of this position, and, reluctant as he was to turn Mrs. Lee from the lovely home where he had so often received her hospitality; deeply grieved as he must have been to humiliate by his first move one who had been his cherished friend and trusted aide, he sent General Mansfield to take it. “It is quite probable,” wrote the latter in his report, “that our troops assembled at Arlington will create much excitement in Virginia; yet, at the same time, if the enemy were to occupy the ground there a greater excitement would take place on our side.”
Without going into particular details of the four years of fighting, I wish to quote Lord Wolseley’s beautiful tribute to Lee:[5]
It is my wish to describe him as I saw him in the autumn of 1862, when, at the head of proud and victorious troops, he smiled at the notion of defeat by any army that could be sent against him. I desire to make known to the reader not only the renowned soldier, whom I believe to have been the greatest of his age, but to give some insight into the character of one whom I have always considered the most perfect man I ever met....
Outsiders can best weigh and determine the merits of the chief actors on both sides.... On one side I can see, in the dogged determination of the North, persevered in to the end through years of recurring failure, the spirit for which the men of Britain have always been remarkable. It is a virtue to which the United States owed its birth in the last century.... On the other hand, I can recognize the chivalrous valor of those gallant men whom Lee led to victory, who fought not only for fatherland and in defense of home, but for those rights most prized by free men. Washington’s stalwart soldiers were styled rebels by our king and his ministers, and in like manner the men who wore the gray uniform were denounced as rebels from the banks of the Potomac to the headwaters of the St. Lawrence.... As a looker-on, I feel that both parties in the war have so much to be proud of that both can afford to hear what impartial Englishmen or foreigners have to say about it.