Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee

The labors, exposure, and responsibilities of his campaigns laid the foundation for bodily distress. Rheumatism of the heart sac and of other portions of his body was creeping by gradual approach to assault the vitals. He was reluctantly persuaded to go south in March, 1870, to look upon other scenes and enjoy the fragrant breezes in the “land of sun and flowers.” In Richmond, en route, in response to an invitation tendering the privileges of the legislative floor, he wrote:

His sweet daughter Agnes, who did not long survive her father, accompanied him. On the trip he embraced the opportunity to see once more his father's grave, on an island off the coast of Georgia. General Henry Lee (or “Light-horse Harry” ), in returning from the West Indies, where he had been, hoping to restore his health, was, it may be remembered, taken ill, and begged to be put ashore at General Greene's mansion, then occupied by his daughter, where he died, and where his remains now lie. From Savannah, Ga., April 18, 1870, the general wrote Mrs. Lee: “We visited Cumberland Island, and Agnes decorated my father's grave with beautiful fresh flowers. I presume it is the last time I shall be able to pay it my tribute of respect. The cemetery is unharmed and the graves are in good order, though the house of ‘Dungeness’ has been burned and the island devastated. I hope I am better. I know that I am stronger, but I still have the pain in my chest whenever I walk. I have felt it, too, occasionally recently, when quiescent.”

He returned benefited by the trip, but the steady progress of his disease had not been checked. While absent, the college trustees appropriated money to present