But I will keep your views and wishes in mind and do what I can to make them prevail.
Charley Rouss wrote to me. in the beginning' of his then pro posed donation of the $100,000, as he had done in all his benefactions. I replied, that I had nothing to say of his gift. It was exceeding beneficent, and I begged him to have nothing to do with its location and construction. He had already worn out his sight in building up an enterprise. He ought to risk no more in another.
He replied he would take my advice—he would give the money and leave to others its establishment. He has told me frequently that this he had consistently done. He was in town on the 4th of July and called to see me. In our conversation the Battle Abbey, of course, was talked of, and I told him I thought Richmond was its proper site.
I am unable to write more.
Most kindly yours,
Winchester, July 27, 1896.
Mrs. Green, whose effective agency in having the Battle Abbey placed in Virginia is justly established, in a communication published in the News-Leader of January 22d, 1908, urged that "the proper site for the Southern Mecca should be adjacent to the Confederate Museum, the home of the president of the Confederacy." However, after prolonged debate and voting down several substitutes, R. E. Lee Camp, Confederate Veterans, held the same night, adopted by a vote of 27 to 15, the resolution of Adjutant J. Taylor Stratton, recommending that the Confederate Memorial building or "Battle Abbey," be located at the intersection of Monument Avenue and the Boulevard, or at some point along the Boulevard in that general locality. A suggestion of Attorney General William A. Anderson, that the next legislature be petitioned for a part of the grounds of Lee Camp Soldiers' Home, as a Confederate Memorial Park, with the Abbey in the centre, brought down prolonged applause.
