“Students Would Rather Shoot Themselves Than Appear Before Lee In Disgrace”

"There are certain social principles in human nature, from which we may draw the most solid conclusions with respect to the conduct of individuals and of communities. We love our families more than our neighbors; we love our neighbors more than our countrymen in general. The human affections, like solar heat, lose their intensity as they depart from the centre... On these principles, the attachment of the individual will be first and for ever secured by the State governments. They will be a mutual protection and support."
--Alexander Hamilton, speech at the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788
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(I looked for years until I found one that I thought truly looked like General Lee and when I saw this one, I immediately bought it. I believe he used the picture Lee standing on the porch at his home in Richmond after his return for the likeness. Very similar.BT)

During his tour of the postwar South in 1867-68, Scottish missionary David MacRae visited with General Robert E. Lee in Lexington. He found a college president who was venerated throughout the South, and as one of the professor’s reported, “students would rather shoot themselves than appear before Lee in disgrace.”

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
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Lee’s Standard of a Man’s Worth:

“I knew from report that Lee was reticent on political subjects, and wisely so, his position in the country since the war was demanding the utmost prudence. I, therefore, made no attempts during the interviews I had with him to “draw him out”; at the same time I spoke freely on all subjects that came naturally in the way. Political topics were, therefore, referred to; but Lee was on his guard, and I could not but notice the admirable delicacy and tact with which, as often as the conversation threatened to become political, he contrived to turn it into another channel.

At his home I met some of the professors, and conversation went on briskly; but I noticed that whenever they introduced political topics, Lee became silent, and allowed the conversation to go on without him.

One of his sons told me that his father’s answer to direct inquiries on vexed questions was that he was a soldier, not a politician. In speaking of the war, reference was made to the odds against which the South had fought, and the want there was of accurate statistics. I told Lee it was understood he was preparing a history of the conflict himself. “I have that in view,” he said, “but the time is not come for impartial history. If the truth were told just now, it would not be credited.”

Speaking of Lexington and its neighbourhood, he said, -- “You will meet with many of your countrymen here. The valley of Virginia is peopled with Scotch-Irish…They are a fine race. They have the courage and determination of the Scotch, with the dash and intrepidity of the Irish. They make fine soldiers.”

He said it was an old wish of his to visit this country…Stonewall Jackson had been in Scotland before the war. He had heard him speak of it. When he spoke of Jackson I was struck with the emphasis he placed on his piety. One cannot indeed be long with Lee without finding his Christian character revealing itself almost unconsciously in his manners and conversation. I remember with peculiar distinctness the solemnity with which, at table, standing before his family, he asked God’s blessing on the food. Also, when he referred to a gentleman whom he wished me to see in Richmond, his saying that he had rarely met “with a nobler or more Christian man.” It was only a word, and yet it showed by what standard he gauged a man’s worth.”

(Robert E. Lee as College President, David MacRae, America Through British Eyes, Allan Nevins, editor, Oxford University Press, 1948, pp. 344-345)

“Try To Find A North Carolina Gentleman Without A Yankee Mark On Him"

British traveler and Scottish missionary David MacRae (1837-1907) toured the American South in 1867-68 to survey the postwar desolation and poverty. His most noteworthy meetings were with General Robert E. Lee and Admiral Raphael Semmes, and being struck by the former’s “Christian character revealing itself almost unconsciously in his manners and conversation.”

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
www.cfhi.net
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Two of Seven Wounds:

“I was struck with the remark made by a Southern gentleman in answer to the assertion that Jefferson Davis had culpably continued the war for six months after all hope had been abandoned. “Sir,” he said, “Mr. Davis knew the temper of the South as well as any man in it. He knew if there was to be anything worth calling peace, the South must win; or, if she couldn’t win, she wanted to be whipped – well whipped – thoroughly whipped.”

The further South I went, the oftener these remarks came back upon me. Evidence was everywhere that the South had maintained the desperate conflict until she was utterly exhausted. At its outbreak she had poured her best men into the field. Almost every man I met at the South, and especially in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, seemed to have been in the army; and it was painful to find how many even of those who had returned were mutilated, maimed or broken in health by exposure.

When I remarked this to a young Confederate officer in North Carolina, and said that I was glad to see that he had escaped unhurt, he said, “Wait ‘til we get to the office, sir, and I will tell you more about that.” When we got there, he pulled up one leg of his trousers, and showed me that he had an iron rod there to strengthen his limb, and enable him to walk without limping, half of his foot being off. He showed me on the other leg a deep scar made by the fragment of a shell; and these were but two of seven wounds which had left their marks upon his body. When he heard me speak of relics, he said, “Try to find a North Carolina gentleman without a Yankee mark on him”

In Mobile I met a brave little Southern girl who had gone barefooted the last year of the war, that the money intended for her shoes might go to the poor soldier. When medicines could no longer be sucked into the South through the rigorous blockade, the Confederate Government called upon the women and children, who went into the woods and swamps and gathered horehound, boneset, wild cherry bark, dogwood, and everything that could help supply the want. When there was a danger of any place falling into the hands of the enemy, the people with unflinching hand, dragged out their last stores of cotton, tobacco, and turpentine, and consigned them to the flames. The people said, “we did it all, thinking the South would win…”

(Exhaustion of the South, David MacRae, America Through British Eyes, Allan Nevins, editor, Oxford University Press, pp. 345-346)