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NEW -JEUIES.i 1 VOL. 11. ] NO. U [From Blackwood's Magazine.] GENERAL LEE More than a year has passed away since the death of General Lee. In ordinary times such an event could hardly have happened without re viving, if only tor a moment, much of the reager interest with which, between 1861 and 1865, the Old World watched the Titgfiic Civil War of the New. But during the October of 1870, when General Lee breathed his last, the seige of Paris absorbed the thoughts and engrossed the attention of civilized mankind.— Little or no notice has therefore been taken in England of the death of one who, when his career, character, and military genius are better known and understood, will, in spite of his defeat, be pronounced the greatest soldier, with two exceptions, that any English speaking nation has ever produced.— Upon the other side of the Atlantic circumstances have conspired to ob scure the great deeds and spotless purity of the noblest son to whom the North American continent has hitherto g;v hi* birth. A 4 Honert E. Lee’ Has indeed appeared* from the pen of Mr. John Esten Cooke, upon which we propose to make a few comments, but it can in nfc sense be regarded as more than an adumbra tion of the man whom it professes to delineate. Public expectation on the other side of the Atlantic anticipates much from a biography, already too long delayed, of which Colonel Mar shall, who for four years served at Gen. Lee's right hand in the position which corresponds in European armies to our Chief of Stall', is to be the author.— But in both sections of the recon structed Union the passions and ani mosities of the American War are still so much alive that it is a political necessity for General Lee’s conquerors to darken his fame and sneer at his achievements. In most of the public papers and utterances which have issued from the victors in the fratriei- j dal strife, the writers and speakers i have thought it expedient to brand Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson • Davis as men worthy to be ranked 1 with Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Thus, for example, the Board of Visi tors, to whom was committed the annual supervision of the United! States Military Academy af West | Point—of which Board the present American Envoy to England, General Schenck, was President—employ the following language: “ Among many improvements"— such are the questionable wofds of this singular document—“made during the administration of the present su-, perintendent, is one of peculiar and! touching interest: it is the device of placing on'the walls of the chapel I neat marble tablets, or mural monu ments, inscribed with the names of those dead army officers who in the j past have buen made illustrious by! rank or gallant deeds of arms, or have fallen in battle. It was a happy; thought to be executed at this particu-1 lar place. It is most lilting that the ; United States Military Academy should be made to perpetuate such names and histories; thus, keeping before the eyes and present in the memories of young men educated here this noble! example of faithful service and devo-! tion to our common country. BY THE CHRONICLE PUBLISHING COMPANY, AUGUSTA, GA. FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1872. “The Board recommend that the | tasteful and enduring record thus be | gun shall V# continued, and that means ; be furnished to extend the same mark of Vespect to all the officers of our army, regulars and volunteers alike, who have suffered and fallen in the war just closed in a glorious and suc cessful struggle to vindicate the honor and maintain the life of the nation.— Happy for the recreants who fought to destroy their Government, if, in . tiie light shed from such a brilliant roll of i the faithful, - their names and treason able career could be thrown into deeper shadow of oblivion Let us compare with this unseemly and unnecessary passage the following ; extract from General Badeau’s excel ' lent ' Military History of General U. 'S. Grant.’ He tells us that— “ When the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter—the shot which inau ‘ gurated the American Civil War—the standing army of the United States numbered 15,433 men, or 10 regi ments of -infantry, 4 of artillery, and 5 of cavalry. It was officered by Southerners as well as by Northerners. !_Uut of 1074 officers 270 were of ! .. r..:.. pi,,,, jof the talent and distinction of the army. Two hundred and two espoused the Southern cause. When it became apparent that war was inevitable, they j resigned their commissions, and offered their swords to their own sections, ; holding the authority of a State para ! mount to that of the Union. They were followed into secession by fifty others from Northern or border States, ; most of whom had married Southern wives or acquired Southern property." Nothing can be fairer than therea j sons l>y which General Badeau explains the secession of General Lee and his Southern fellow-officers. To many of them the struggle to decide whether their State or the Union claimed j u iority or allegiance was no less pain ■ ful than the struggle—so beautifully described in Clarendon’s ‘ History of ! the English Rebellion’—which raged !in the breast of Falkland. “When there was any overture or hope of peace,” says Lord Clarendon, “ Falk 1 land would be exceedingly solicitous to press anything which lie thought j might promote it; and, sitting among j his friends, often, after a deep silence I and frequent sighs, would with a | shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word Peace , P> we ; and would pas sionately profess that the very agony j of,the war, and the view of the calam ities and desolation the kingdom did i and must endure, took his sleep from i him, and would shortly break his heart. No one who served by General j Lee's side during the war, or who ' had occasional opportunities of con versing with him during the five years | of’life which remained after his surren ! der at Appomattox Court House, can entertain any doubt that he suffered no less agony of the heart than the young and accomplished Royalist who died on the Held of Newbury. But to brand him with infamy, and call him a traitor and a recreant because he deem ed it his duty to fight for the State which sent him to West Point and paid for his education, is -unworthy of so brave and sensible a man as General Schenck. Even in the report of Lieu tenant-General U. S. Grant upon the armies of the United States in 1804 and 1565, he has but one faint word of approbation to bestow upoiLthe adver sary who, having foughtjj with un shaken fortitude ;ind Aelf-denial throughout the war, becaa# the • most patient and loyal of citizen/ when his sword was surrendered* “ General Lee’s great influence thrmjghout the whole South,” says hiftSoonqnerer, “caused his example! to flr followed, and to day the regnlt jB that the armies lately under his leadership are at their homes, desiring,--pence and quiet, and their arms areprthe hands of our ordnance officew.” The patience, humility, and modertUofy of General Lee during the five cloaWyears of his life extorted frequent ad ifp ration frpm his late antagonists, but have hitherto won from them no concerts fbns to' hi! crushed and oppressed brethren ami sisters in the South. Tim remnant of the armies over which ho was supreme “desired peace and quiet” as intensely as their Northern conquerors ; but after they had for three years been ruled by the sword, :uid despoiled by “ carpet baggers” and negroes, it was natural that the discontent of a brave and proud hwi* , there break JSbiLfuSWIW mi ffif' i . "1 . his speeches 0> liisf Grant Duff, himself ail an IfHW jVorth-- erner, told them that “Reconstruction is the readmission of the seceding States to political communion with the States which remained true to the Union, and the restoration to them of those powers of self-government which, forfeited by the war, had been replaced since their defeat by military rule. But how was this to be done 7 The majority of the United States Legislature decided that each of the States should choose anew constitution for itselt, and that in choosing it the old planters, the 'mean whites,’ and the ex slaves should all have an equal voice ; hut that all the principal rebels, and the whites who would not take a test-oath, should be excluded. The effect of this has been that the constitutions for the Southern States have been prepared in the North, and voted at the South over the heads of white men by negro majorities.” Mr. Anthony Trollope, whose North ern proclivities during the war, were not less pronounced than those of Mr. Grant Duff or Professor Goldwin Smith, call reconstruction, as under stood and practiced by the Republican party— “A provision for a war of races, with the express object of keeping down a people, in order that that people may be debarred from all political power in the empire. In Georgia, the black men, on those lines of reconstruction, would have the power of making all laws for the restraint of the white. But it has never been intended to intrust thin power to the negroes: the intention is that, through the negroes, all political power, both State and Federal, shall he /n the hands of members of Congress from the North—that the North shall I have its heel upon the South, and that the conquered shall be subject to the i conquerors. Never has there been a more terrible condition imposed upon a fallen people. For an Italian to feel an Austrian over him, for a Pole to feel a Russian over him, lias been bad indeed; but it has been left for the political animosity of a Republican from the North —a man who himself rejects all contact with the negro—to — ■ — y subject the late Southern slave-owner to dominion from the African who was yesterday his slave.” The oppression of the South, which is today far worse than when these words of Mr. Trollope were written, wrung General Lee’s affectionate heart as the loss of Calais weighed upon the spirits of Our own Queen Mary. Lord Macaulay tells us. that “ no ofifrature is so revengeful as a proud man who has humbled himself in vain ; but during the concluding years of General Lee's life* no symptoms of passion or vindic tiveness were discernable in his daily bearing.* He mourned over the abject and oppressed condition of South Caro lina-until death freed his soul from the suffering which crushed him. Mr. John Esten Cooke makes it abundant ly evident that he died from a broken heart. But in order that the virtues of a singularly pure and noble charac ter tfiay not be unrecorded in England, we desire to foHow Mr. Cook through some of the most notable passages ’of his hero’s life, and to do what in Us tlieif tomaije Robert E- Lee's memory I* U' - eiS??MS“"po"iisi:slsbn *'if’liereVei' the English tongue is'Spdken. “The Lees of Virginia," says the in Kiiglatm,- „„ | to the fast anchored lsuPwiln vTaSBB the Conqueror. One member of tfiisi family, Lionel Lee, accompanied Richard Coeur de Lion to .the Holy Land, and displayed special gallantry at the seige of Acre. The first of the Virginia Lees, Richard by name, was an ardent monarchist, and left the old ♦As an evidence of the present state of affairs ia South Carolina, we quote the fol lowing passage from a letter written in November last by a resident of that State, whose character for truth and honor is un impeachable. He says: “ One of my brothers lias been arrested and thrown into the common jail of tlie United Stales soldier- without charge or accusation, without form or warrant of law, without tne shadow of right or justice. Before the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, profound quiet prevailed in this section of the country. Men were pursutng their avocations in the most peaceful man ner, and a season of prosperity was begin ning to dawn upon us; lmt now words are almost inadequate to describe the reign of terror existing among us. Bands of United States soldiers are riding the coun try, arresting citizens by wholesale, tearing them from their homes in the night-time, terrifying women and children, hurrying the prisoners off to jail, and cramming them in dungeons and filthy cells. These arrests are made without warrant. Men are ignorant of the offences for which they are thrown into jail. No explanation is given to the prisoner as to the cause of hits | arrest, no hearing is allowed him. The i innocent and guilty fare alike. The fury of j ! the Radicals is levelled against the best of ! our citizens. Old and young, grey-haired ! men incapable of committing outrages, 1 mere hoys innocent of crime, are arrested j indiscriminately. In a time of profound ; peace, when farmers are engagul in gath i ering in their corn and cotton, we are de clared to he in a state of war. We are suffering for crimes which have never been committed ; we are punished for offences of which we are not guilty ; we are warred upon by the United States Government on ac omit of a rebellion which has no exist ence but in the imagination of President Grant, and the vile politicians who have poisoned his ears with false and malicious re[iort?. There is no rebellion—there is no hostility to the United States Government— there is no resistance to lawful authority, either Slate or Federal ; the reports of col lisions between armed hands of Ku-Klux. and Federal troops are utterly base, false, and slanderous fabrications, invented for a pdrposc.” j (OLD SERIES,) l VOL. 111. / country in the troubled times of King Charles the First- “It is not certainly known,” says Mr. Cooke, “ whether he sought refuge in Virginia alter the failure of the King’s cause, or was tempted to- emigrate with a view to better his fortunes in the New World.” Whatever may have been his motive in repairing to Virginia, Richard Lee undoubtedly brought with him from England a number of followers and servants, and took up extensive tracts qf land in the Old Dominion. Among the manor-houses which be there built or commenced, was one at Stratford, in the Virginian county of Westmore land—within which county George Washington himself was born. This house having subsequently been de stroyed by fire, was rebuilt—Queen Anne herself having been a contribu tor to the fund subscribed in England and in the colony for its re-erection— aud became at a later date the birth place oviichard Henry Lee, and of his distinguished son, Robert Edward.— Richard Henry Lee, the father of the great Confederate General, was one of Wasmiigtoa'.s best subordinates; and under the sobriquet of “ Light Horae Harry,” gaiued couspfcubus>foute as m cavalry general in the rev&mtionarv -«*«■ of tho-Aim i.caa -okpie* agains: whose admirable ~T"V were always recapitulated with pride by his still greater roii. In 1869 General R. E, Lee published anew edition of his father’s ‘ Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department,’ to which he prefixed an unostentatious life of its ai/tl>or. Richard Henry Lee was twice married ; and by his second wife, Anne Hill Carter, lie had three sons and two daughters—Gluts. Carter, Robert Edwaid Smith, Anne, and Mildred. The old house at Stratford, wherein the great American soldier first saw the light, deserves a few pass ing words of comment. It is one of those Virginian manor-houses which so wanned the heart and kindled the fancy of .William Makepeace Thack eray ; for in one of these, he loved to say, that it would delight him to write the history, which he always contem plated but never executed, of the times of good Queen Anne. The bricks, paving-tiles, carvings, window sashes, furniture, and decorations of these stately old country houses, were all transported from England to the Old Dominion. English plasterers moulded and spread the ceilings; English masons upraised the Italian mantlepieces which they brought with them across the Atlantic; English car penters made fast the window-sashes, and set up the lintels of the doors.— Their book shelves were filled with the great English classics who flourish ed in the Augustan age of Queen Anne. Within the libraries of some ot these houses Thackeray passed many hours, enraptured to find himself surrounded by the works of all the English authors who were most to his taste. There he again familiarized himself with the tender grace of Ad dison, the- rugged force of Smollett; there he forgot the “wild relish and vicious exuberance of» the too copious present” by bending over the pages of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, Walsh, and Granville; and there for the first time lie became acquainted m. n