The Abbeville Institute published a letter by L. Q. C. Lamar written on December 5, 1870, to commemorate Robert E. Lee’s death, which offers view of Lee very different from what we hear today. Lamar wrote:
The day of his death will be the
anniversary of the South’s great sorrow. But it was not his darkest day. I was
at Appomattox when the flag which had been borne in triumph upon his many
battlefields was torn from his loving and reluctant grasp. After the terms of
capitulation had been arranged, chance brought him to the spot where my tent
was pitched.
I had seen him often before. On one occasion, especially, I
remember how he appeared in a consultation of leading men, where, amid the
greatest perturbations, his mind seemed to repose in majestic poise and
serenity. Again, I saw him immediately after one of his grand battles, while
the light of victory shone upon his brow.
But never shall I forget how completely his wonted composure was
overthrown in this last sad interview. Every lineament of his grand face
writhed, and the big tears fell from his eyes as he spoke of the anguish of the
scene he had just witnessed. And yet his whole presence breathed the hero
still. A consciousness of a great calamity to be greatly endured gave to his
face the grandeur of victory as well as the mournfulness of death; and when he
exclaimed, “It is worse than death!” I could easily see how he would have
welcomed the grave for himself and all that he loved, could it have only averted
his country’s awful woe. Ah, my countrymen! well may you weep over his grave,
for there lies one whose heart broke in the very tension of its love for you
and your country….
To Lee
self-assertion was a thing unknown. His growth into universal favor and honor
was the result of a slowly dawning consciousness in the popular mind of his
retiring merit and transcendent excellence, of that affinity which silently
draws together great men and great places when a nation is convulsed.
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