Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by Captain Robert E. Lee (classic novels for teens .TXT) 📖

“Very respectfully,

“R. E. Lee.”

This autumn my sister Mildred paid a visit to our cousins, Mr. and Mrs. George Golsborough, living at “Ashby,” near Easton, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She remained away there and elsewhere for several months. My father’s letters to her, many of which have been preserved, are most interesting. They show very plainly many beautiful phases of his noble character and disposition:

“Lexington, Virginia, December 21, 1866.

“My Precious Life: I was very glad to receive your letter of the 15th inst., and to learn that you were well and happy. May you be always as much so as is consistent with your welfare here and hereafter, is my daily prayer. I was much pleased, too, that, while enjoying the kindness of your friends, we were not forgotten. Experience will teach you that, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, you will never receive such a love as is felt for you by your father and mother.

That lives through absence, difficulties, and times. Your own feelings will teach you how it should be returned and appreciated. I want to see you very much, and miss you at every turn, yet am glad of this opportunity for you to be with those who, I know, will do all in their power to give you pleasure. I hope you will also find time to read and improve your mind. Read history, works of truth, not novels and romances. Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret. Your friends here inquire constantly after you, and wish for your return. Mrs. White and Mrs. McElwee particularly regret your absence, and the former sends especial thanks for your letter of remembrance. We get on in our usual way. Agnes takes good care of us, and is very thoughtful and attentive. She has not great velocity, but is systematic and quiet. After to-day, the mornings will begin to lengthen a little, and her trials to lessen. It is very cold, the ground is covered with six inches of snow, and the mountains, as far as the eye can reach in every direction, elevate their white crests as monuments of winter.

This is the night for the supper for the repairs to the Episcopal church. Your mother and sisters are busy with their contributions.

It is to take place at the hotel, and your brother, cousins, and father are to attend. On Monday night (24th), the supper for the Presbyterian church is to be held at their lecture-room. They are to have music and every attraction. I hope both may be productive of good. But you know the Episcopalians are few in numbers and light in purse, and must be resigned to small returns…. I must leave to your sisters a description of these feasts, and also an account of the operation of the Reading Club. As far as I can judge, it is a great institution for the discussion of apples and chestnuts, but is quite innocent of the pleasures of literature. It, however, brings the young people together, and promotes sociability and conversation. Our feline companions are flourishing. Young Baxter is growing in gracefulness and favour, and gives cat-like evidences of future worth. He possesses the fashionable colour of ‘moonlight on the water,’ apparently a dingy hue of the kitchen, and is strictly aristocratic in appearance and conduct. Tom, surnamed ‘The Nipper,’ from the manner in which he slaughters our enemies, the rats and the mice, is admired for his gravity and sobriety, as well as for his strict attention to the pursuits of his race. They both feel your absence sorely. Traveller and Custis are both well, and pursue their usual dignified gait and habits, and are not led away by the frivolous entertainments of lectures and concerts. All send united love, and all wish for your return.

Remember me most kindly to Cousins Eleanor and George, John, Mary, Ida, and all at ‘Myrtle Grove,’ and to other kind friends when you meet them. Mrs. Grady carried yesterday to Mr. Charles Kerr, in Baltimore, a small package for you. Be careful of your health, and do not eat more than half the plum-puddings Cousin Eleanor has prepared for Xmas. I am glad to hear that you are fattening, and I hope you will reach 125 lbs. Think always of your father, who loves you dearly.

“R. E. Lee.

“P.S., 22d.—Rob arrived last night with ‘Lucy Long.’ He thinks it too bad you are away. He has not seen you for two years.

“R. E. Lee.”

“Baxter” and “Tom, the Nipper” were Mildred’s pets. All of us had a fondness for cats, inherited from my mother and her father, Mr.

Custis. My father was very fond of them in his way and in their place, and was kind to them and considerate of their feelings. My father was very fond of them in his way and in their place, and was kind to them and considerate of their feelings. My mother told of his hearing one of the house-pets, possibly Baxter or the Nipper, crying and lamenting under his window one stormy night. The General got out of bed, opened the window, and called pussy to come in. The window was so high that the animal could not jump up to it. My father then stepped softly across the room, took one of my mother’s crutches, and held it so far out of the window that he became wet from falling rain; but he persuaded the cat to climb up along the crutch, and into the window, before he thought of dry clothing fo himself. “Lucy Long” was my father’s mare, which had been lost or stolen at the end of the war, and which I had just brought back to him. I will give in the following letter his account of her: “Lexington, Virginia, September 4, 1866.

“Dr. C. S. Garnett.

“Dear Sir: I am much obliged to you for your letter of the 23d ult.

and the information it contained. The mare about which my son wrote you was bred by Mr. Stephen Dandridge, of ‘The Bower,’ Berkeley County, Virginia, and was purchased from him for me by General J. E. B. Stuart in the fall of 1862—after the return of the army from Maryland. She is nine or ten years old, about fifteen hands high, square built, sorrel (not chestnut) colour, has a fast walk, easy pace, and short canter. When I parted with her she had a full long mane and tail. I rode her in conjunction with my gray horse from the fall of ‘62 to the spring of ‘64, when she was sent back for refreshment; and it was in recalling her in the spring of ‘65 from Mr. Hairston’s, in Henry County, that she got into Major Paxton’s stables of public horses and went to Danville with them. I think she might be recognised by any member of the Army of Northern Virginia, in Essex, unless much changed.

I now recollect no distinctive marks about her except a blaze in her forehead and white hind-legs. My son, General W. H. F. Lee, residing at the White House, in New Kent, might recognise her, and also my son Robert, who resides near West Point, in King William. Captain Hopkins, to whom you refer in your letter, is dead, but Major Paxton, who had general charge of the public stables, and to whom I referred you letter, has sent me the accompanying affidavits of two of the men employed by him. Should their evidence not be satisfactory, he will procure statements from some of the officers, which probably may be more definite. I should be obliged to you, if the mare in question is the one I am seeking for, that you would take steps to recover her, as I am desirous of reclaiming her in consideration of the donor, General Stuart.

“Your obedient servant, R. E. Lee.”

It was proved to the satisfaction of all parties that the mare in question was “Lucy Long,” and my father reimbursed the man who had bought her from some one who had no right to her. She was brought to my place and I recognised her at once. She stayed with me until I was ready to pay my Christmas visit to Lexington. She then was put on the train and sent to Staunton, where I met her. I found there Colonel William Allan, a professor of Washington College, who had a buggy and no horse, and as I had a horse and no buggy, we joined forces and I drove him over to Lexington, “Lucy Long” carrying us with great ease to herself and comfort to us. My father was glad to get her, as he was very fond of her. When he heard how she came over, he was really shocked, as he thought she had never been broken to harness.

She lived to be thirty-three years old, and was then chloroformed, because my brother thought she had ceased to enjoy life. For the last ten years of her life she was boarded out in the country, where she did nothing but rest, and until about a year before her death she seemed in good health and spirits.