Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by Captain Robert E. Lee (howl and other poems .txt) 📕
From that early time I began to be impressed with my father's character, as compared with other men. Every member of the household respected, revered and loved him as a matter of course, but it began to dawn on me that every one else with whom I was thrown held him high in their regard. At forty-five years of age he was active, strong, and as handsome as he had ever been. I never remember his being ill. I presume he was indisposed at times; but no impressions of that kind remain. He was always bright and gay with us little folk, romping, playing, and joking with us. With the older children, he was just as companionable, and the have seen him join my elder brothers and their friends when they would try their powers at a high jump put up in our yard. The two younger children he petted a great deal, and our greatest treat was to get into his bed in the morning and lie close to him, listening while he talked to us i
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“In his intercourse with his faculty he was courteous, kind, and often rather playful in manner. We all thought he deferred entirely too much to the expression of opinion on the part of the faculty, when we would have preferred that he should simply indicate his own views or desire. One characteristic of General Lee I noted then and have often recalled: I never saw him take an ungraceful posture. No matter how long or fatiguing a faculty meeting might be, he always preserved an attitude in which dignity, decorum, and grace were united. He was a very well built man, with rounded body and limbs, and seemed without the slightest affectation of effort to sit or stand or walk just as a gentleman should. He was never in a hurry, and all his gestures were easy and significant. He was always an agreeable companion.
There was a good deal of bonhomie and pleasantry in his conversation.
He was not exactly witty, nor was he very humorous, though he gave a light turn to table-talk and enjoyed exceedingly any pleasantry or fun, even. He often made a quaint or slightly caustic remark, but he took care that it should not be too trenchant. On reading his letters one discovers this playful spirit in many of them, as, for instance, in his letter to the spiritualist who asked his opinion of Von Moltke and the French war. He wrote in reply a most courteous letter in which he said that ‘the question was one about which military critics would differ, that his own judgement about such matters was poor at best, and that inasmuch as they had the power to consult (through their mediums) Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Wellington, and all of the other great captains who had ever lived, he could not think of obtruding his opinion in such company.’ General Lee did not talk politics, but he felt very deeply the condition of the country, and expressed to me several times in strong terms his disapproval of the course of the dominant party.”
There is a story told of my father which points to his playful manner here alluded to. At a certain faculty meeting they were joking Mr.
Harris, who so long and so ably filled the chair of Latin, about his walking up the aisle of the Presbyterian church with the stem of his pipe protruding from his pocket. Mr. Harris took out the offending stem and began cutting it shorter. My father, who had been enjoying the incident, said:
“No, Mr. Harris, don’t do that; next time leave it at home.”
Sometimes he deemed it advisable to be a little stern. One of the young professors went off for a few days without asking the president’s permission. On his return the General met him very stiffly, saying: “Mr. –, I congratulate you on your return to your friends and duties.
I was not aware of your absence until I heard it by chance.”
Mr. – told this on himself, and added that it was the last time he ever went away without a formal leave of absence. His particularity in little things has often been commented on. He applied it to all his affairs. Dr. Kirkpatrick, Professor of Moral Philosophy, came into the president’s office and asked for a certain paper. My father told him where it could be found. After a while, turning to the doctor he said:
“Did you find the paper?”
“Yes, General,” replied the Doctor.
“Did you return it to the place where you found it?”
“Yes, General.”
At another time he asked Professor Harris to look at a catalogue on the table. The Professor took up a new one, wrapped ready for the mail, and was about to tear the cover off, when my father, hastily handing him one already opened, said:
“Take this, if you please.”
My mother used to say that he could go, in the dar, and lay his hand on any article of his clothing, or upon any particular paper, after he had once arranged them, provided they had not been disturbed. One of his “quaint or slightly caustic remarks,” alluded to by Colonel Johnston, I recall as told to me. He met a lady friend down in the town, who bitterly complained that she could get nothing to eat in Lexington suitable for Lent—no fish, no oysters, etc.
“Mrs. –,” the General replied, “I would not trouble myself so much about special dishes; I suppose if we try to abstain from SPECIAL SINS
that is all that will be expected of us.”
Goes to Warm Springs for rheumatism—Her daughter Mildred takes typhoid there—Removes to Hot Springs—Her husband’s devotion—Visit of Fitzhugh and bride to Lexington—Miss Jones, a would-be benefactor of Washington College—Fate of Washington relics belonging to Mrs. Lee’s family
That summer my father determined to take my mother to the Warm Springs, in Bath County, Virginia, hoping that the baths there might be of service to her, and purposing, if she was not benefited, to go to the Hot Springs, five miles distant. He was most anxious that his new daughter should join her there and go with him to any place she might select and come back with them to Lexington. In the following letter to his son he tells of his plans for the summer: “Lexington, Virginia, July 1, 1868.
“My Dear Fitzhugh: I received yesterday your letter of the 28th ultimo, and regret very much to learn of Tabb’s indisposition. I hope that she will soon be well, and I wish very much she would join us in the mountains and return here with us. In my letter to her about the time when she went to her sister’s wedding, which I hope she got, I told her of my wishes on the subject, and believe gave her our general plans. I can now say with more distinctness that, unless something now unforeseen should prevent, I will take your mother to the Warm Sprints, from the 10th to the 15th inst., and after trying the water there about two weeks, if not favourable, will take her over to the Hot. After seeing her comfortably established, I will then go anywhere Tabb desires—to the Healing or the White Sulphur or Sweet. I intend to go myself to the White Sulphur for about a fortnight, to drink the water, and will take Mildred with me. Agnes, having gone last summer, will not care to go, I presume, and can remain with her mother. Mildred has been quite sick for the past week, but is now much better, and in a week will be strong enough for the journey, I think. If not, we shall have to delay our departure a little.
Agnes was also sick on the Eastern Shore of Maryland about three weeks, and, I am told, looks badly. She is now at the University of Virginia, and will be home in a few days and go with us to the Springs. You must arrange your plans to suit your interests and convenience, coming to us when you can and staying as long as you can. You know the interest I take in your prosperity and advancement, which cannot be assured without earnest attention to your business on your part, and therefore I never urge you to act contrary to your own judgement in reference to them. As to my daughter, Tabb, tell her if she will trust herself to her papa she shall never want anything he can do for her, and I think she will find the prediction in my letter to her verified. She might join us at Goshen and go with us, or come here. Why did she not come up with her father? I went to see him last evening, but he was out. Your mother, I presume, has told you of home affairs. She has become nervous of late, and broods over her troubles so much that I fear it increases her sufferings. I am therefore the more anxious to give her new scenes and new thoughts.
It is the principal good I anticipate. Love to Rob. Custis still talks of visiting you, but I have not heard of his having fixed the day of his departure. He is quite well. With my best love to my daughter T– and the same to yourself, I am, “Most affectionately your father, “R. E. Lee.”
The morning he left Lexington he, while waiting for the stage, writes as follows to a great favourite of his, a friend of Mildred’s, who had been on a visit to her that summer:
“Lexington, Virginia, July 14, 1868.
“…The stage is at the door to carry us to Goshen, and if Mrs. Lee’s strength permits, we hope to reach the Warm Springs to-night. After two or three week’s trial of its waters we shall go to the Hot, where, leaving Agnes to take care of her mother, I shall take Mildred to the White Sulphur, and hope to meet you at Covington and carry you along.
Will you not come?… Mildred is quite well again and is flying about this morning with great activity. Agnes is following with slower steps, Mrs. Lee is giving her last injunctions to Sam and Eliza. Letitia [my mother’s maid] is looking on with wonder at the preparations, and trying to get a right conception of the place to which she is going, which she seems to think is something between a steel-trap and a spring-gun. Custis is waiting to help his mother into the stage, and you see how patient I am. To add interest to the scene, Dr. Barton has arrived to bid adieu and to give Mildred an opportunity of looking her best. I believe he is the last rose of summer. The others, with their fragrance and thorns, have all departed….”
A few days after their arrival at the Warm Springs Mildred was taken ill with typhoid fever, and during many anxious weeks my father and Agnes were her only nurses. My mother’s room was on the first floor of the “Brockenborough Cottage,” my sister’s in the second, so she could not get upstairs to her room. Mildred was very fanciful—would not have no one but my father to nurse her, and could not sleep unless she had his hand in hers. Night after night he sat by her side, watching over her and attending to every want with gentleness and patience. He writes to the same young lady, at Mildred’s request: “Warm Springs, Virginia, July 30, 1868.
“…She [Mildred] has been so anxious to write to you, and so uneasy at her inability to do so, that I hope you will permit me to tell you the reason. She has been quite sick and is so still—confined to her bed with low fever, which retains its hold very pertinaciously.
she took cold a few days after our arrival, from some imprudence, and she is very much enfeebled. She has been more comfortable the last day or two, and I hope is better, but I presume he recovery will necessarily be slow. You know she is very fanciful, and as she seems to be more accessible to reason from me, I have come be her chief nurse and am now writing in her room, while she is sleeping…. This is a beautiful valley, and we have quite a pleasant company—Mr. and Mrs. Chapman and their three daughters from Alabama; Mrs. Coleman and her two daughters from Baltimore; some ladies from Richmond, Washington, Kentucky, Iowa, etc., and an ever-changing scene of faces.
As soon as Mildred is strong enough, we will go to the Hot, after which, if she desires it, I will take her to the White. Mrs.
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