Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/93

 UNDER THE CONFEDERACY

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Harbor, in which Grant's army lost 16,000 men killed and wounded in a succession of assaults. In forcing Lee's army of 63,000 men seventy-five miles, Gen. Grant with 149,000 men lost 61,000. Then followed the investment of the Army of Northern Virginia within the lines of Richmond and Petersburg, where the armies of the Poto- mac and James slowly crushed out its life after a ten months' siege, ending with the evacuation of Richmond, April 2, and the surrender of its remnant of an army com- prising 10,000 of^cers and men at Appo- mattox, April 12, 1865.

Gen. Lee's last words to his army were : "Men, we have fought together for four years. I have tried to do the best I could for you."

On August 24, 1865, Gen. Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College, at Lexington, Virginia, at a salary of $1,500 per annum, declining several offers with much larger salaries. He was formally in- augurated, September 18, 1865, and under his administration the college greatly pros- pered. He received the honorary degree of LL. D., from Mercer University, Georgia, in 1866. In 1871 the general assembly of Virginia changed the name of the institu- tion to Washington and Lee University,- and as a further memorial a recumbent statue of Gen. Lee by Valentine was pre- sented to the university by the Lee Memor- ial Association and his remains placed in a \ ault under the statue. This statue was un- veiled by the association with appropriate ceremony in June, 1873. An equestrian statue by Mercie, surmounting a massive pedestal erected in Capitol Square, Rich- mond, Virginia, was unveiled and dedicated May 29, 1890. On June 19, 1901, bronze

busts of Washington and Lee were unveiled at the university ; the former being the gift of Oscar Straus, of New York, and the latter of Frank T. Howard, class of 1874, of New Orleans. The busts were placed^on either side of the archway leading to the rotunda. In 1869 Gen. Lee prepared a new edition of, and added a memoir to, his father's work, "War in the Southern De- partment of the United States" (2 vols.). See also biographies of John Esten Cooke (1871), Edward A. Pollard (1871), John W Jones (1874), and E. Lee Childe (London 1875) : "Four Years with General Lee," by Walter H. Taylor (1877); "Memoirs" by Gen. A. L. Long (1886), and "Robert E. Lee and the Southern Confederacy," by Henry .\. \\'hite (1899).

On June 30, 1831, he was married at "Ar- lington House," Virginia, by the Rev. Mr. Keith, to Mary Anne Randolph, only daugh- ter of George Washington Parke and Mary Lee (Fitzhugh) Custis, and a descendant of John Custis, who came to Virginia from England in the seventeenth century. This alliance subsequently made Lee master of Arlington estate, and of the White House estate on the Pamunky river. Gen. Lee died at Lexington, Virginia, October 12, 1870. -The estimate of his character and abilities has been continually rising. Lord Wolseley referred to him as "the greatest soldier of his age," and "the most perfect man I ever met."

Lee, Robert Edward, Jr., youngest son of Gen. Robert E. Lee (q. v.), and Mary Anne Randolph Custis. his wife, was born at "Arlington," Fairfax county, Virginia, Oc- tober 27, 1843. His early education was under the superintendence of his father, and

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