Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by Captain Robert E. Lee (howl and other poems .txt) 📕

the YEARLINGS, which we cannot. Tell my daughter Tabb, her father is here, very well, and dined with us yesterday. Give my much love to grandson. He must not forget me. I have a puppy and a kitten for him to play with.

All send love.

 

“Truly your father,

 

“R. E. Lee.”

 

“General William H. Fitzhugh Lee.”

 

In a letter dated Lexington, Viriginia, July 9th, he gives a further account of his plans for the summer:

 

“…I have delivered your letter to Mildred, who has just returned from a visit to the University of Virginia, where she saw a great many persons and met with a great deal of pleasure. She ought to be, and I believe is, satisfied with commencements for this year, having participated in three. I am sorry to tell you that I cannot go down to the Pamunkey this summer as I had intended;… I had hoped to be able, after the conclusion of the commencement exercises of Washington College, to visit the Pamunkey, and to return by the 15th inst. so as to be present at the Convention of the Teachers of Virginia, which assembles here on that day; but I was detained here so long that I found I would be unable to accomplish what I desired. Custis, who was to have accompanied me, will go down in a day or two….

 

“About the 20th of this month I shall go to the Rockbridge Baths with Mrs. Lee, who wishes to try the waters again, and after seeing her comfortably located, if nothing prevents, I shall go with Mildred and Agnes to the White Sulphur for a few weeks…. It is delightfully quiet here now. Both institutions have closed, and all are off enjoying their holiday. I should like to remain, if I could. Colonels Shipp and Harding have gone to get married, report says. Colonel Lyle and Captain Henderson, it is said, will not return. Captain Preston having been appointed professor at William and Mary, we shall necessarily lose him, but Colonel Allen will be back, and all the rest.

We are as well as you left us. The girls had several friends at commencement. All have departed except Miss Fairfax and Miss Wickham.

The election is over and the town tranquil.”

 

The quiet and rest which he so much desired, and which he was enjoying when he wrote, did not long remain his. He had just gotten my mother comfortably settled at the Baths, when he received the news of the sudden death of his brother Smith. He went at once to Alexandria, hoping to be in time for the burial. From there he writes my mother: “Alexandria, July 25, 1869.

 

“My Dear Mary: I arrived here last evening, too late to attend the burial of my dear brother, an account of which I have clipped from the Alexandria Gazette and inclose to you. I wish you would preserve it. Fitz. and Mary went up to ‘Ravensworth’ the evening of the funeral services, Friday, 23d, so that I have not seen them, but my nephew Smith is here, and from him I have learned all particulars. The attack of his father was short, and his death apparently unexpected until a short time before it occurred. Mary [General Lee’s eldest daughter] was present, and I hope of some comfort to her uncle and assistance to her aunt. Fitz. came here the afternoon of his father’s death, Thursday, 22d, made all arrangements for the funeral, went out to ‘Ravensworth’ to announce the intelligence to our aunt. He carried down, Friday morning, on the steamer, Mrs. Cooper and Jennie, to stay with his mother, and returned that afternoon with his father’s remains, which were committed to earth as you will see described.

 

“John returned the next morning, yesterday, in the mail-boat, to his mother, with whom Dan stayed. Robert arrived this morning and has gone to ‘Ravensworth’ to announce my arrival. I shall remain here until I see or hear from Fitz., for, as you will see by the Gazette’s account, the last resting-place of the body has not been determined upon. Fitz., I understand, wishes it interred at Hollywood, Richmond; Nannie a the cemetery here, where her father, mother, and daughter are buried; and Mrs. Fitzhugh at ‘Ravensworth.’ I think Nannie’s wishes should be consulted. I shall probably leave to-day or to-morrow, and, after seeing all that remains to us of our dear brother deposited in its last earthly home, and mingling my sorrow for a brief season with that of his dear wife and children, I shall return to you.

Please send the letter after perusal to Agnes and Mildred, as I shall be unable to write to them. I am staying at the Mansion House. Our Aunt Maria did not come down to the funeral services, prevented, I fear, by her rheumatic attack. May God bless us all and preserve us for the time when we, too, must part, the one from the other, which is now close at hand, and may we all meet again at the foot-stool of our merciful God, to be joined by His eternal love never more to separate.

 

“Most truly and affectionately, “R. E. Lee.

 

“Mrs. M. C. Lee.”

 

The loss of his brother was a great sorrow to him. They were devoted to each other, having always kept warm their boyish love. Smith’s admiration for and trust in my father were unbounded, and it was delightful to see them together and listen to the stories of the happy long ago they would tell about each other. No one could be near my Uncle Smith without feeling his joyful influence. My sister Mary, who knew him long and well, and who was much attached to him, thus writes:

 

“No one who ever saw him can forget his beautiful face, charming personality, and grace of manner which, joined to a nobility of character and goodness of heart, attracted all who came in contact with him, and made him the most generally beloved and popular of men.

This was especially so with women, to whom his conduct was that of a preux chevalier, the most chivalric and courteous; and, having no daughters of his own, he turned with the tenderest affection to the daughters of his brother Robert.”

 

After all the arrangements connected with this sad event had been completed, my father went up to “Ravensworth” to see “Aunt Maria,”

who had always been a second mother to his brother. There, amid the cool shades of this lovely old home, he rested for a day or two from the fatigues of travel and the intense heat. During this visit, as he passed the room in which his mother had died, he lingered near the door and said to one present:

 

“Forty years ago, I stood in this room by my mother’s death-bed! It seems now but yesterday!”

 

While here he determined to go back to Lexington via Richmond, and to run down thence to the “White House” to see his grandson. He arrived there on Friday, July 30th. On Sunday he wrote to my mother: “White House, New Kent, August 1, 1869.

 

“My Dear Mary: I arrived here on Friday last and found them all well.

Our daughter Tabb has not been altogether well, and shows its effects.

Her baby, I think, would also be improved by mountain air. I have therefore persuaded her to accompany me and join you at the Baths.

We shall leave Richmond, if nothing prevents, on Tuesday morning, 3d inst., and hope to reach the Baths that evening in the stage from Goshen. I have written to Mr. Peyton, requesting him to prepare a good room for Tabb and her little family as near you as convenient, and trust we may reach there in health and comfort at the time appointed. I hope I shall find you well and comfortable, and Markie in the enjoyment of every good. How are the poor little children?

My previous letters will have informed you of everything important.

I will supply all omissions when I see you. Custis is here, much improved. I have not yet seen Rob. Farmers here are threshing out their wheat, which occupies them closely. Fitzhugh’s is turning out well, and he hopes to gather a fair crop. Robert came up last Wednesday with his friend Mr. Dallam, and went down Thursday. He was very well. Custis arrived Saturday week. Mr. Kepler is here and will preach at St. Peter’s this morning. I hope to attend. Mr. Kepler says his health is much improved. Fitzhugh doses him with cholagogue.

Good-bye. Affectionately yours,

 

“R. E. Lee.”

 

St. Peter’s was the old Colonial church a few miles away, in which General Washington and Mrs. Custis were married about one hundred years prior to this time. Mr. Kepler, the pastor, preached there twice a month. He lived in Richmond, and, to keep him free from fever-and-ague, my brother dosed him freely with cholagogue whenever he came down into the malarial country. I came up from Romancoke Sunday morning, arriving in time to be present at the christening of my nephew, which ceremony was decided on rather hurriedly in order that the grandfather might stand as godfather. After returning from the morning service at St. Peter’s, where we all went, it was decided that the mother and child should go to the mountains with my father. As there were some preparations for the summer to be made, his daughter and her baby went to Petersburg that afternoon, agreeing to meet the General in Richmond Monday night and start for the Rockbridge Baths Tuesday morning. On Monday, he writes to a friend, with whom he had intended to stop for a day on his way back to Lexington: “White House, New Kent County, August 1, 1869.

 

“…I had promised myself the pleasure of seeing you on my way to Lexington, of spending with you one short day to cheer and refresh me; but I shall travel up in a capacity that I have not undertaken for many years—as escort to a young mother and her infant, and it will require the concentration of all my faculties to perform my duties even with tolerable comfort to my charge…. I go up with my daughter, I may say this time, too, my youngest daughter [his daughter-in-law, Mrs. W. H. F. Lee], to place her with her mama at the Rockbridge Baths, the waters of which I hope will invigorate both mother and child, who have been wearied and weakened by the long attack of whooping-cough from which the latter has suffered.

I came down from Richmond to spend Sunday and was fortunate enough to find here my three sons, but I am sorry to say but one daughter….

Most truly yours,

 

“R. E. Lee.”

 

Monday night was spent in Richmond. It was soon known that General Lee was at the Exchange Hotel, and great numbers came to call upon him, so that he was compelled to hold an informal reception in the large parlours. The next day, with his “new daughter” and her baby, he started for the Baths, where they arrived safely the same night.

Then he proceeded to carry out his original plan for the summer, and went with his two daughters to the White Sulphur Springs. From there he writes to his wife:

 

“White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, “August 10, 1869.

 

“My Dear Mary: I received this morning your addenda to Annie Wickham’s letter inclosing Custis’s. I also received by same mail a letter from Mr. Richardson, reiterating his request to insert my portrait in my father’s Memoirs, saying that it was by the desire ‘of many mutual friends’ on the ground of its ‘giving additional interest to the work, and increasing its sale.’ That may or may not be so;