nconstitutional, that Virginia
withdrew from the United States.

"We discussed a variety of other topics, and, at eleven o'clock when I
rose to go, he begged me to stay on, as he found the nights full long.
His son, General Custis Lee, who had distinguished himself much during
the war, but whom I had not the good fortune of meeting, is the only
one of his family at present with him at Lexington, where he occupies
the position of a professor in the Military Institute of Virginia.
This college had 250 cadets in it when the war broke out, General
'Stonewall' Jackson being one of the professors. At one moment in the
war, when the Federals were advancing steadily up the Shenandoah
Valley, these youths (from 16 to 22 years of age) were marched to join
the Confederate Army, and did good service. In one battle at
Newmarket, of which I shall have occasion to speak later in my letters,
they distinguished themselves in a conspicuous way under the leadership
of Colonel Shipp, who is still their commandant. By a brilliant
charge, they contributed, in a great measure, to turn the tide of
affairs, losing nine of their number killed and more than forty
wounded. General Hunter, on a subsequent occasion, when occupying
Lexington with a body of Federal troops, quartered his men in the
Military Institute for several days, and, on leaving, had the
building--a very handsome and extensive one--fired in numerous places,
completely destroying all but the external walls, which now stand. The
professors' houses stood in detached positions, and these, too, with
the house of Mr. Letcher, a former governor of the State, he also burnt
to the ground. The Washington College, the presidency of which General
Lee now holds, they also ransacked, destroying everything it contained,
and were preparing it for the flames, to which they were with
difficulty restrained from devoting it by earnest representations of
its strictly educational nature."

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