Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/185

 Major General George Washington Custis Lee. 173

Carolina, Brigadier, but already marked out for higher rank — who, ill, yet refusing- '"sick leave," stuck to his men and died of exposure at Port Hudson, at the close of "62, yet not before his sword had been forged to heroic temper by fire of battle at Fort .Pillow, at Corinth, at Shiloh, and elsewhere.

Of the two survivors of these ten, both were of the same name — allied, indeed, in spirit, but not by blood — Custis Lee and, his junior by a year, Stephen D. Lee, who, like "Edward Freer of the 43rd," "could count more combats than he could years," and who, "with all his honor-owing wounds in front," closed his brilliant military career as Lieutenant-General and Corps Commander.

Of Custis Lee's close kinsmen, his younger brother, William Henry Fitzhugh, became ]\[ajor-General of cavalry before he was twenty-seven, while his first cousin, gallant "Old Fitz," Stuart's "right-bower" (as the latter loved to call him), became Afajor-General before he was twenty-eight.

Such were the classmates and immediate kinsmen of Custis Lee, who assuredly, had fortune given him his "heart's desire," had proved himself the peer of any of them.

In June. 1863, Custis Lee himself consented to become Brig- adier, having been placed in command, in addition to his staff duties, of the troops garrisoning the "Defences of Richmond." These "Defences" he greatly strengethened with trained engineer- ing skill, and so improved the discipline and general efficiency of the "heavy artillery"' under his control, that, later on, in Oct. '64, he was raised to the rank of ^vlajor-General and as- signed active command of all the outlying troops about the city, including the forces at Drewry's and Chaffin's Bluff.

During the autumn and winter of that tragic time, when Lee, with his handful of veterans of confirmed hardihood, was still confronting the cruel odds of Grant with unabashed mien, Custis Lee was repeatedly under fire, and bore himself with the serene courage of his race. .

But the bitter end was fast approaching ; and when Rich- mond was evacuated on the 2nd of April, 1865, and her garrison