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Show M BLEXee Pglff V t.5 ' . ir , 'i ( V w i k Courtesy LfnteqJtitei Military Acacfsmy a -svV . By ELMO SCOTT WATSON 1 - 's' - el INE hundied ye t ago , July 1, 1S20 theie wr h?- " 's ' 1 A gtadmted fiom the Unit f l yl ed State Militiiy ac d I ,S1V " f r - emy at e t Point N Y , frS'fr HI I a cla of 46 The V I A man who stood fii t wt rj' I . Chiile Ma on of New f ' 4 ' i e) YOlli ne ,)ecairie a SPC fo'i tt&kJyQ) ond lieutenant m the en V" ''" ? gineei corp seived a fli' ''If f a i t nt piofe or at 5 K f the academy until 1S31 when he le V I ' M signed fiom the academy Then he ?"4 f"' practiced law in New Yoik Y 1 eon rt., Yf I y sin and Iowa, and his career as an at- J&1Laiirr" " t a North has joined South in paying him honor His memory is preserved in manv ways in the college at Lexington Lexing-ton Va which bears his name and of which he became president in .the later years of his life; in the marble figure which stands in Statuary hall in the National Capitol at Washington Washing-ton ; and in the preservation of his home "Arlington" as a national memorial and a last resting place for our soldier dead. Recently a new memorial has been added to the list and it is singularly appropriate that this should be done in thp centennial year of his entrance into the service of his country. For on January 19. the anniversary of his birth, this year the announcement, was made that William Alexander chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Connecticut had purchased Stratford hall and the plantation of 1.222 acres, where Lee was born, spent his boyhood years, to be preserved as a national memorial memo-rial and administered by the Robert E- Lee foundation, whose advisory board includes prominent men in the North as well as the South. That the movement to preserve Stratford hall as a Lee national memorial originated orig-inated in a New England state and that it has the backing of North as well as the South is significant of the fact that the partisanship of GO years a-"o no longer denies him the right to be recorded as a great American, nor denies the enshrining of his memory in the hearts of all his countrymen. The romantic interest attached to the establistiment of this latest memorial me-morial to Lee was told in the following follow-ing news item winch appeared at the time of the Stratford hall purchase last January :. Purchase ot the Lee estate marks the first step in the plan sponsored by the William Alexander Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy to make the place "not merely a shrine, but a living national educational memorial mem-orial and a center of historical research, re-search, "' according to Miss Ethel Armes, of the "Villiam Alexander chapter. Announcement of the sale, on the anniversary of General Lee's birth, anii the 20nth anniversary of the building o historic Stratford hall, marks the fulfillment of a determination born of a dramatic story starting in Greenwich, Green-wich, Conn., nearly a year ago. Mrs. ; Charles D. Lanier of Greenwich, head of the William Alexander chapter, while going through an old broken desk -of her mother-in-law, Mrs. Sidney Sid-ney Lanier, widow of the poet, came upon a penciled manuscript by Lanier, unpublished and until then not known to exist, which turned out to be a speech he made before citizens of Macon, Ma-con, Ga., in 170 upon the death of General Lee in which he urged the establishment es-tablishment of a memorial to honor Lee, to which every person who loved the southern leader could contribute. The following day Mrs. Lanier received re-ceived a letter from a friend visiting in "Virginia, -describing a trip to Stratford Strat-ford hall and asking why it could not be preserved. The same day Mrs. Lanier called a meeting of her chapter which resulted in the passage of resolutions looking to the purchase of the tract. The deed of purchase was signed at Stratford hall by the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Stuart, after seven months' negotiations. Miss Armes set forth the purposes of the Robert E. Lee memorial foundation, now being formed to operate similarly to the Mount Vernon Ver-non association, as being fourfold: To purchase, restore and furnish the home; to restore the famous old library, make of it a center of research and to establish es-tablish scholarships; to restore the colonial gardens, the Stratford wharf on the Potomac and reproduce some of the boats which two centuries ago were tied there; and to perpetuate th ideals and character of the Lees, chiefly chief-ly by historical studies. Stratford was the gift of Queen Caroline, wife of King George II, to members of the Lee family. It was the home of Richard Henry and Francis Fran-cis Lightfoot Lee, signers of the Declaration Dec-laration of Independence; of "Light Horse Harry" Lee and other generations genera-tions of the family. Prior to the Revolutionary Revo-lutionary war it was a gathering plnce for Virginia leaders and the origin of much of the sentiment for Independence. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON 1 hundred years ago Yv July x' 1S29 there '5vas R S B" graduated from the Units' Unit-s' S"'l e States Military acad-t.j acad-t.j Li J emy at West Point. N.Y., i a c,ass of Tne 0 man who stood first was . a Charles Mason of New luluib 01'k- e became a sec-fi,tt?fl sec-fi,tt?fl onl I'eutenant m the en-CgjgsSyQ1' en-CgjgsSyQ1' " gineers corps, served as assistant professor at the academy until 1S31 when he resigned re-signed from the academy. Then he practiced law in New York. Wisconsin Wiscon-sin and Iowa, ana nis career as an attorney at-torney ended in Washington in 1SS2. The man who stood second in the class of 1S29 was a young Virginian named Robert E. Lee. After his graduation he became assistant engineer engi-neer in the construction of what was known as Fortress Monroe in his native na-tive state. In 1S37 he was ordered to the western frontier and for many years he served his country far from the bsjiks of the Potomac, where stood his beloved "Arlington," the home of his childhood playmate, Mary Custis, and his own home after their marriage in 1831. During the Mexican Mexi-can war Capt. Robert E. Lee became successively Major Lee, Lieutenant Colonel Lee and Colonel Lee, and General Gen-eral Scott declared that he was the best soldier he had ever seen in the field. In 1S52 the "second man in his class" came back to West Point as its superintendent and that position he held until 1855. Visit the office of General Smith, the superintendent at West Point today, and among the soldiers 'who look down at you from their portraits on the walls is this handsome young Virginian. In 1S61 the guns of Fort Sumter shattered the hopes of a peaceful settlement set-tlement of the differences between the North and the South. Lee was recalled from Texas to Washington and General Scott offered the soldier he had praised so highly the command com-mand of the Union army that was about to be put into the field. And to Robert E. Lee, pacing back and forth on the veranda of historic Arlington as he s- ught to make his greatest decision, de-cision, must have come the words of hij father, the famous "Light Horse IL.x-ry" Lee of Revolutionary war fame: "Virginia is my country. Her will I obey, however lamentable the fate to which it may subject me." So this was Lee's answer to Scott, as he sent in his resignation from the army, "Save in defense of my native state, I never again desire to draw my sword." Then Virginia seceded from the Union and Robert E. Lee put on the Confederate gray. Within a year he proved that another name had been added to the list of great American -captains. A distinguished English general, Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, visited the Confederate army in 1862 and years afterward he wrote: Every incident of that visit is Indelibly In-delibly stamped on my memory. All he said to me then and during subsequent sub-sequent conversations is still fresh in my recollection. It is natural it should be so, for he was the ablest general, and seemed to me the greatest man I have ever conversed with, and yet 1 have had the privilege of meeting Von Moltke and Prince Bismarck. General Lee was one of the few men who ever seriously impressed and awed me with their inherent greatness. Forty years have come and gone since our meeting and yet the majesty of his manly bearing, bear-ing, the genial, winning grace, the sweetness of his smile, and the impressive im-pressive dignity of his old-fashioned style of dress, come back to me among my most cherished recollections. His greatness made me humble, and I never felt my own insignificance more keenly than I did in his presence. . . . He was, indeed, a beautiful character, and of him it might truthfully be written, "In righteousness did he judge and make war. . . ." Such was the leader of the "Lost Cause" whose military career came to an end in April, 18G5. Then (and this tribute is from an editorial in the New York Times) "General Lee, who hated war and opposed secession, and yet for reasons highly creditable to his character seceded with his state and led the Southern troops to battle, stated the Confederate cause with perfect per-fect truth and simplicity, saying: After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the army of northern Virginia Vir-ginia has been forced to yield to overwhelming over-whelming numbers and resources. No commander on the other side, no historian, whatever his prejudices, has ever disputed the accuracy of those statements. As time has cleared away the prejudices prej-udices and hatreds engendered by the Civil war, more and more have all Americans come to a realization of the greatness of Robert E. Lee and |
