Pope, Burnside and Hooker; which twice invaded the enemy's country, and which, when at last against it was thrown all the resources of the United States, Grant in its front and Sherman in its rear, Europe for their recruiting ground, and a boundless credit for their military chest, still stood for eleven months defiantly at bay, concentrated on itself the whole resources of the United States, and surrendered at Appomattox eight thousand starving men to the combined force of two great armies whose chiefs had long despaired to conquer it by skill or daring, and had worn it away by weight of numbers and brutal exchange of many lives for one. We all know, too, how the famous soldier sheathed his sword, and without a word of repining, without a look to show the grief that was breaking his heart and sapping the springs of his noble life, accepted the duty that came to him, and bent to his new task, as guide and teacher of boys, the powers which had wielded the strength of armies and almost redressed the balances of unequal fate.
lee and washington.
Such are the leading facts, in barest outline, of the great life that began sixty-nine years ago to-day. Well known as they are, it is wise to recall them when we gather as we have gathered here. In these hurrying days men pass swiftly away from human sight, the multitude of smaller figures vanishing behind the curtain of forgetfulness, the few mighty ones soon wrapt in the hazy atmosphere of the heroic heights, enlarged, it may be, but oft-times dim and distorted, always afar off, unfamiliar, not human, but superhuman, demigods rather than men; our wonder and our despair, who should be our reverence and our inspiration.
Thus has it always been with him who lies at Mount Vernon. Let it be our care, men of this generation, that it be not so in our day with him who lies at Lexington; let it be our care to show him often to those who rise around us to take our place, to show him not only in his great deeds and his famous victories, but also as citizen and as man.
The task is hard to divide what is essentially one, and Lee so bore himself in his great office as that the man was never lost in the soldier. Never of him could it be said that he was like the dyer's hand, subdued to what he worked in: always the sweet, human quality tempered his stoic virtue, always beneath the soldier's breast beat the tender, loving heart.
