surprise that the sons and daughters of Virginia should contend for that sweetest of all privileges now left us-to keep special watch over his grave.

But where his remains shall lie is not the subject we are here to consider. We are met to provide, as suggested by the resolutions, for the erection of a monument in honor of our great Captain. Honor, did I say? Honor General Lee! How vain, what utter mockery do these words seem. Honor Lee! Why, my friends, his deeds have honored him. The very trump of Fame is proud to honor him. Europe and the civilized world have honored him supremely, and history itself will catch the echo and make it immortal. Honor Lee! Why, sir, the sad news of his death, as it was borne to the world, carried a pang even to the hearts of marshals and of monarchs; and I can easily fancy that amidst the din and clash and carnage of battle, the cannon, in transient pause at the whispered news, briefly ceased its roar around the walls of Paris.

The brief time it would be proper for me to occupy to-night is altogether insufficient to analyze the elements which made him great. But I wish to say that it has been my fortuue in life to have come in contact with some whom the world pronounced great; but of no man whom it has ever been my fortune to meet can it be so truthfully said, as of Lee, that, grand as might be your conceptions of the man before, he arose in incomparable majesty on more familiar acquaintance. This can be affirmed of few men who have ever lived or died, and of no other man whom it has been my fortune to approach. Like Niagara, the more you gazed the more its grandeur grew upon you, the more its majesty expanded and filled your spirit with a full satisfaction, that left a perfect delight without the slightest feeling of oppression. Grandly majestic and dignified in all his deportment, he was genial as the sunlight of May, and not a ray of that cordial, social intercourse but brought warmth to the heart, as it did light to the understanding.

But as one of the great Captains of the word, he will first pass review and inspection before the criticism of history. We will not compare him with Washington. The mind revolts instinctively at the comparison and competition of two such men, so equally and gloriously great. But with modest, yet calm and unflinching confidence, we place him by the side of the Marlboroughs and Wellingtons, who fill such high niches in the pantheon of immortality.

Let us dwell for a moment, my friends, on this thought. Marlborough never met defeat, it is true. Victory marked every step of his triumphant march; but when, where and whom did

Marlborough fight? The ambitious and vain but able Louis XIV had already exhausted the resources of his Kingdom before Marlborough stepped upon the stage. The great Marshals Turenne and Condi were no more, and Luxemburg, we believe, had vanished from the scene. Marlborough, pre-eminently great, as he certainly was, nevertheless, led the combined forces of England and of Holland, in the freshness of their strength and the fulness of their financial ability, against prostate France, with a treasury depleted, a people worn out, discouraged and dejected. But let us turn to another comparison. The great Von Moltke, who now "rides upon the whirlwind and commands the storm" of Prussian invasion, has recently declared that General Lee, in all respects, was fully the equal of Wellington, and you may the better appreciate this admission when you remember that Wellington was the benefactor of Prussia, and probably Von Moltke's special idol. But let us examine the arguments ourselves. France was already prostrate when Wellington met Napoleon. That great Emperor had seemed to make war upon the very elements themselves, to have contended with nature, and to have almost defied Providence. The Nemesis of the North, more savage than Goth or Vandal, mounting the swift gales of a Russian winter, had carried death, desolation and ruin to the very gates of Paris. Wellington fought at Waterloo a bleeding and broken nation-a nation electrified, it is true, to almost superhuman energy, by the genius of Napoleon; but a nation prostrate and bleeding, nevertheless. Compare this, my friends, the condition of France with the condition of the United States, in the freshness of her strength, in the luxuriance of her resources, in the lustihood of her gigantic youth, and tell me where belongs the chaplet of military superiority, with Lee or with Marlborough or Wellington? Even that greatest of Captains, in his Italian campaigns, flashing his fame in lightning splendor over the world, even Bonaparte met and crushed in battle but three or four, I think, Austrian armies; while our Lee, with one army, badly equipped and in time incredibly short, met and hurled back, in broken and shattered fragments, five admirably prepared and most magnificently appointed invasions. Yes, more: he discrowned, in rapid succession, one after another, of the United States' most accomplished and admirable commanders.

Lee was never really beaten. Lee could not be beaten! Overpowered, foiled in his efforts, he might be; but never defeated until the props which supported him gave way. Never until the platform sank beneath him, did any enemy ever dare pursue. On that most melancholy of pages, the downfall of the Confederacy, no Leipsic, no Waterloo, no Sedan can ever be recorded.

General Lee is known to the world only as a military man, but it is easy to divine from his history how mindful of all just authority, how observant of all constitutional restrictions, would have been his career as a civilian. When, near the conclusion of the war, darkness was thickening about the falling fortunes of the Confederacy; when its very life was in the sword of Lee, it was my proud privilege to note, with special admiration, the modest demeanor, the manly decorum, and the respectful honiage which marked all his intercourse with the constituted authorities of his country. Clothed with all power, he hid its every symbol behind a genial modesty, and refused to exert it save in obedience to law. And even in his triumphant entry into the territory of the enemy, so regardful was he of civilized warfare, that the observance of his general orders as to private property and private rights left the line of his march marked and marred by no devastated fields, charred ruins or desolated homes.

But it is his private character, or rather, I should say, his personal emotion and virtues, which his countrymen will most delight to consider and dwell upon. His magnanimity, transcending all historic precedents, seemed to form a new chapter in the book of humanity. Witness that letter to Jackson, after his wounds at Chancellorsville, in which he said: "I am praying for you with more fervor than I ever prayed for myself"; and that other more disinterested and pathetic: "I could, for the good of my country, wish that the wounds which you have received, had been inflicted upon my own body"; or that of the later message: "Say to General Jackson that his wounds are not so severe as mine, for he loses but his left arm, while I, in him, lose my right"; or that other expression of unequalled magnanimity in which he ascribed the glory of their joint victory to the sole credit of the dying hero. Did I say unequalled? Yes, that was an avowal of unequalled magnanimity, until it met its parallel in his own grander self-negation, in assuming the sole responsibility for the failure at Gettysburg. Aye, my countrymen, Alexander had his Arbela, Cæsar his Pharsalia, Napoleon his Austerlitz, but it was reserved for Lee to grow grander and more illustrious in defeat than ever in victory-grander, because in defeat he showed a spirit grander than victory, the heroism of battles, or all the achievements of the war-a spirit which crowns him with a chaplet greener far than ever mighty conqueror wore.

I turn me now to that last closing scene at Appomattox, and draw thence a picture of this man as he laid aside the sword of the unrivaled soldier, to become the most exemplary of citizens. I can never forget the deferential homage paid this great Captain by even the Federal soldiery, as with uncovered heads they

contemplated in mute admiration this now captive hero, as he rode through their ranks. Impressed forever, daguereotyped on my heart, is that last parting scene with the handful of heroes still crowding around him. Few, indeed, were the words then. spoken; but the quivering lip and the tearful eye told of the love they bore him, in symphonies more eloquent than any language can describe. Can I ever forget? No, never, never, can I forget the words which fell from his lips as I rode beside him amidst the dejected and weeping soldiery, when, turning to me, he said: "I could wish that I were numbered among the fallen in the last battle"; and oh! as he thought of the loss of the cause of the many dead, scattered over so many fields, who sleeping neglected, with no governmental arms to gather up their remains, sleeping isolated and alone beneath the tearful stars, with naught but their soldier blankets about them-oh! as these emotions swept over his great soul, he felt that he would fain have laid him down to rest in the same grave where lies buried the common hope of his people. But Providence willed it otherwise. He rests now forever, my countrymen, his spirit in the bosom of that Father whom he so faithfully served, his body in the Valley, surrounded by the mountains of his native State-mountains, the autumnal glories of whose magnificent forests now seem but habiliments of mourning-in the Valley, the pearly dewdrops on whose grass and flowers seem but tears of sadness.

No sound shall ever wake him to martial glory again. No more shall he lead his invincible lines to victory. No more shall we gaze upon him and draw from his quiet demeanor lessons of life. But oh! it is a sweet consolation to us who loved him that no more shall his bright spirit be bowed down to the earth with the burden of his people's wrongs. It is sweet consolation to us that this last victory, through faith in his crucified Redeemer, is the most transcendently glorious of all his triumphs.

It is meet that we should build to his memory a monument here-here in this devoted city-here on these classic hills-a monument as enduring as their granite foundations-here beside the river whose banks are ever memorable and whose waters are vocal with the glories of his triumphs.

Here let the monument stand as a testimonial to all peoples and countries and ages of our appreciation of the man who, in all the aspects of his career and character and attainments—as a great Captain, ranking among the first of any age-as a patriot, whose self-sacrificing devotion to his country renders him the peer of Washington-as a Christian like Havelock, recognizing his duty to his God above every other consideration-with a native modesty which refused to appropriate a glory all his own,

and which surrounds with a halo of light his whole career and character-with a fidelity to principle which no misfortunes could shake-with an integrity of life and sacred reverence for truth which no man can dare to assail-must ever stand peerless among men in the estimation of Cristendom.

Mr. Davis then requested Colonel Charles Marshall, of Baltimore, to address the meeting. Colonel Marshall replied that he felt unworthy to stand upon ground which had been occupied by the eminent speakers who had preceded him, and therefore preferred remaining on the floor. The Chair at once replied, The friend and military secretary of Lee is worthy to occupy any ground, sir," and insisted that Colonel Marshall should come upon the stand, which he then did amid great applause, and spoke as follows:

ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL.

Nothing but an earnest desire to do all in my power to promote the object of our meeting to-night induces me to occupy this stand. I feel my unfitness to address those who have listened to men whose names, I may say, without flattery, are historic-whose valor and constancy deserved and enjoyed the confidence of our great leader. More especially am I unworthy to stand where just now he stood who, amidst all the cares and trials of the eventful period during which he guided the destinies of the Confederacy, amidst all the dangers and difficulties that surrounded him, amidst all the vicissitudes of victory and, disaster, always and on all occasions, gave the aid of his eminent abilities, his unfaltering courage and his pure patriotism, to our illustrious chief.

But on behalf of those who are with me to-night from Maryland, I desire to say a few words in support of the resolutions of the Committee.

These resolutions require that a monument shall be erected, and that it shall be erected in Richmond.

In both propositions we most heartily concur.

We are assembled not to provide for the erection of a tombstone on which to write, "Here lies Robert E. Lee," but to rear a cloud-piercing monument which shall tell to coming generations,

"Here lived Robert E. Lee."

We desire something worthy to transmit the lesson of his example, and of our undying love, to posterity, and to this end we invoke the aid not only of those who followed the flashing