Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/72

 66 Southern Historical Society Papers.

aucjht but costume and surroundings. And this superb soldier, the glamour of the antique days about him, was Robert E. Lee."

If such was the Lee of fifty-six years, what must have been the splendid beauty of his youth ? The priceless jewel of his soul found fit setting in this grand physique, marked by a majestic bearing and easy grace and courtesy of gesture and movement, sprung from per- fect harmony and symmetry of limb and muscle, instinct with that vigorous health, the product of a sound mind in a sound body.

Such was the magnificent youth who graduated from West Point with the honors of his class, and dedicated himself to the service of his country. It was easy to see that " Fate reserved him for a bright manhood." Not his the task, by the eccentric flight of a soaring am- bition, to "pluck bright Honor from the pale-faced moon," or with desperate greed, to " dive into the bottom of the deep and drag up drowned Honor by the locks." This great engineer laid out the road of his life along the undeviating line of Duty, prepared to bridge seas and scale mountains ; to defy foes and to scorn temptations ; to strug- gle, to fight, to die, if need be, but never to swerve from his chosen path. Honor and Fame were not captives in his train. Free and bounteous, they ambuscaded his way and crowned him as he passed.

Needless to dwell upon the incidents of his life from his graduation to the Mexican war. This period of his early manhood was passed in the sludy of his profession ; in the cultivation of his mind; in the exercise of every virtue ; in the enjoyment of domestic life ; in the rearing of children who, in the fullness of time, were destined to re- pay his care by lives not unworthy of the paternal example.

At the opening of the Mexican war he was, perhaps, as perfectly equipped in the science of soldiership as any living man. Although but a captain of engineers and debarred from rapid promotion by the rules of the regular service, he achieved a distinction, if not so noisy, deeper than was gained by any subordinate in that war. No name figured so conspicuously in the reports of the general commanding for brilliant and important services. At its end, while the multitude was sounding the noisier fame of others, the judicious few, who were familiar with the interior of the campaigns, awarded the palm of sol- diership to the modest ofificer of engineers, and already fixed on him as the coming captain of America. The man most competent of all to judge, the hereof Lundy's Lane himself, did not hesitate to de- clare that " Lee was the greatest living soldier of America," and that " if a great battle was to be fought for the liberty or slavery of America, and I were asked my judgment as to the ability of a com-