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[380] to one sorely stricken. The Doctor raised the gray jacket and pointed to the ghastly wound which made life hopeless. General Lee bent tenderly over the wounded man and then in a voice tremulous with emotion, exclaimed: ‘Alas! poor soldier! may God make soft his dying pillow.’ Such were some of the many acts that made the men love Lee. And in the fight he was ever ready to be foremost. Lee the Soldier, over-rode Lee the General, and when the pinch and struggle came, there was he. ‘Lee to the rear’ became the soldiers' battle-cry; and oftentimes, when the long lines came gleaming on, and shot and shell in tempest ripped the earth, uptore the forest and filled the air with death, those soldiers in their rusty rags, paused as they saw his face amongst them; and then with manhood's imperious love, these sovereigns of the field commanded, ‘General Lee, go back,’ as their condition of advancing. And then forward to the death. Was ever such devotion? Yes, Lee loved his men ‘as a father pitieth his children,’ and they loved him with a love that ‘passeth the love of woman,’ for they saw in him the iron hero who could lead the brave with front as dauntless as a warrior's crest, and the gentle friend who comforted the stricken with soul as tender as a mother's prayer.
Richmond, VA. 1883.
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