DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - NEWSPAPERS - The Washington Post, January 21, 1896, pg. 8 ----¤¤¤---- This file is part of the DCGenWeb Archives Project: http://www.usgwarchives.net/dc/dcfiles.htm ********************************************* http://www.usgwarchives.net/dc/dcfiles.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ********************************************* Contributed to The USGenWeb Archives Project by: Jamie M. Perez (jamiemac@flash.net) --------------------------------------------------- The Washington Post, January 21, 1896, pg. 8 LEADER OF THE LOST CAUSE Robert E. Lee’s Memory Is Still Lovingly Revered. Confederate Veterans of Alexandria Celebrate His Birthday with a Banquet and Eloquent Speeches Eulogistic of His Life. R. E. Lee Camp, Confederate Veterans, of Alexandria, celebrated Gen. Lee’s birthday by a banquet last night in the parlors of the of opera house café. The banquet room was tastefully decorated, and covers were laid for 100 guests. Toasts were responded to as follows: “The Day We Celebrate,” by Dr. W. S. Christian; “The Cavalry,” Judge John Crichter; “The Infantry,” Representative Smith Turner; “The Artillery,” Mr. Frank Hume; “The Confederate Soldier,” Capt. F. B. Davis. Adjt. Edgar Warfield, sr., read Gen. Lee’s farewell address to his army at Appomattox, while all assembled stood. C. F. Beasley, of North Carolina, made a humorous address, as did Maj. R. W. Hunter. Inspector General Morton, in a few remarks, paid some eloquent tributes to Southern women. Following are portions of Col. Christian’s eloquent address: “The veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia, especially the infantry, remember well the difference in the greeting which the troops accorded Gen. Lee and ‘Stonewall’ Jackson. When along the march on the line, Jackson, on his nimble sorrel, appeared among them, the very welkin would ring with the finest edition of ‘the rebel yell.’ When this wave of wonderful sound would start up in the distance and would roll nearer and nearer in its mighty volume, you might hear the word passing down the line ‘Jackson is coming, boys; give him a good one,’ and ‘the boys’ would clear their throats and pitch the keynote of their yell an octave or two higher, and as he came into fuller view, such a peal of vociferated thunder would roll along that the very skies quivered and the earth almost quaked. But when Lee was announced as coming, the scene was different. Every soldier, however footsore or weary, would spring to his feet and stand with uncovered head, generally in silence, and on every face, however weather-beaten or war-stained, were unmistakably stamped the sentiments of faith, confidence, veneration, and boundless affection for their adored leader, ‘Uncle Robert.’ “Comrades, this is a strange spectacle that is presented in our land to-night. More than thirty years have passed since you heard the sound of the last gun that was fired in the war between the States; since the war-torn and tattered battle-flags of the ill-starred Confederacy, emblems of courage as heroic of a contest as grand as ever the world saw, were folded forever. Yet in every city, town, and hamlet in the South, even in cities of the North, battle- scarred veterans of the lost cause, with their sons and fellow citizens, are assembled to do homage to the memory of the leader of that cause. This is the anniversary of the birth of that hero among heroes, the most conspicuous figure before the eyes of the civilized world during those four momentous years, when the sections of our country were wrestling in mortal combat. “As the rule is to applaud success, it may seem to many strange that many millions to-day bring tributes of reverence to Robert E. Lee. The sun of the short-lived Confederacy has indeed set forever, and behind dark clouds of irretrievable disaster; but, comrades, you know and the world knows that when it sunk in ineffable and effulgent splendor, behind the hills of Appomattox, it threw back upon the clouds of Time an imperishable halo, and in that halo, shining with increasing luster as the years go by, touched with an immortal radiance, stands that name, the best, the fairest, the noblest, the grandest of all the sons of earth, our peerless chieftain, Robert E. Lee. “It were glory enough for an empire to furnish two such men as Washington and Lee, and yet Virginia furnished both. Macedon furnished to the world Alexander, who was renowned through more than twenty centuries as the greatest conqueror of his race, but for him to attain the object of his ambition millions of human hearts were crushed beneath the iron wheels of his triumphant chariots. At last he died in a miserable debauch in the proud capital of the Assyrian empire, surrounded by the splendid trophies of his victories. Rome gave to the world a Caesar, whose conquering legions bore victorious eagles beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees, and even to the distant shores; but he crossed the Rubicon and turned his arms against his own countrymen. The great Julius died by the hands of assassins, and poured out his blood at the foot of the statue of his rival in the very senate chamber where he had hoped to be crowned King. France gave to the world a Bonaparte, the star of whose destiny dazzled the world with its luster, and the power of whose genius shook every throne in Europe to its foundation. But the meteor of conquest lured him too far, and he perished, a miserable exile, on the rock-bound island of St. Helena, after having deluged a continent in blood and bequeathed a legacy of sorrow and mourning to every hearthstone in his land. It was left to Virginia alone, our proud Commonwealth, to furnish Washington and Lee, whose names associated will go down the high road of history without spot or blemish, and will endure, as has already been said of one of them at least, “wherever human hearts shall beat or human tongues shall anywhere plead, those hearts shall enshrine the memory and those tongues shall speak the praises of George Washington and Robert E. Lee.” The Washington Post, January 21, 1896, pg. 8 Flowers Strewn Upon Lee’s Tomb. Special to The Post. Lexington, Va., Jan. 20.-The eighty-ninth birthday of Gen. Robert Edward Lee, which is a State holiday in Virginia, was observed here to-day by suspension of all lectures at Washington and Lee University, the closing of all banks, and a special session of Lee-Jackson Camp Confederate Veterans, No. 22, at which appropriate addresses were delivered by prominent Confederate officers, and privates, who followed the fortunes of Lee and Jackson. The anniversary falling on Sunday, to-day was observed in its stead. The Virginia Military Institution, however, suspended all duties on Saturday, in honor of the day. The tomb of Gen. Lee, in the mausoleum of the chapel of Washington and Lee University, and the sarcophagus was appreciately [sic] strewn with flowers. Gen. Lee was President of Lexington University from the close of the war, until his death, and his name linked with that of Washington in the university name, and his memory is particularly dear to “the Virginia Athens.”