Below is the full text, verbatim, of Gen. Stephen D. Lee's speech as
commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans at their
Sixteenth National Reunion, April 25-27, 1906 in New Orleans. The speech
was delivered that first day, Wednesday, April 25th. This was 41 years
after the War Between the States, eight years after the Spanish-American
War, and eight years before World War I. Teddy Roosevelt was president.
As stated on the Stephen D. Lee Institute website: "Stephen Dill Lee
was an exceptional soldier and important leader in the Confederate Army
and, after the war, a leading American educator, historian, and
commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans...". He was one of
the three Confederates who rowed over to Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861
in a futile effort to prevent the war. He was a West Point graduate and
became the Confederacy's youngest lieutenant general. In this speech, he
begins passing the baton from the UCV to the SCV. He died in 1908, two
years later.
