Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/675

Rh position regarding his rights in procuring men-of-war was sustained by the English courts, but the subsequent shifting policy made his work one of great difficulty. In spite of all obstacles, however, he furnished the Confederacy the famous cruisers Florida, Alabama and Shenandoah, built or purchased in England, and the ram Stonewall, constructed in France.

Robert Edward Lee, general-in-chief of the Confederate States army, is placed by general fame as well as by the cordial suffrage of the South, first among all Southern military chieftains. By official rank he held that position in the Confederate States army, and his right to the primacy there is none to dispute. Considered as a true type of the American developed through the processes by which well-sustained free government proves and produces a high order of manly character, he fully and justly gained the distinguished esteem with which all America claims him as her own. Beyond the borders of this continent, which men of his caste long ago consecrated to freedom at altars that smoked^ with sacrifice, and extending over oceans east and west into the old world s realms, his name has gone to be honored, his character to be admired, and his military history to be studied alongside the work of the great masters of war. Happy, indeed, are the Southern people in knowing him to be their own, while they surrender his fame to become a part of their country s glory.

General Lee s lineage and collateral kindred constitute an array of illustrious characters, but certainly without dispraise of any, and without unduly exalting himself, it can be calmly written down that he was the greatest of all his race. Unaware he was of his own distinction. Unaware also of a common sentiment was each of his people who cherished an individual feeling in the years which followed his public service until the consensus came into open view, where all men saw that all true men honored his name and revered his memory.