Representative of
the district which lies just across the river; but there were many
things in common between us which soon caused a kindliness of feeling
much warmer than the frequency of our association would indicate. It
happened that we were almost of the same age, born within a few weeks of
each other, and that on all great questions of the day we were
singularly alike in our opinions, and, if I may use such an expression,
even in our prejudices.

Amid all the trials of life we two found we had adhered to simple
beliefs of those Southern homes in which we were the reared; that no
advance in civilization, no pretense of progress, had ever obscured our
views as to the olden beliefs and the simpler truths which had been
inwrought into our being by the venerable fathers and beloved mothers
with whom we had been blessed. The substratum of our beliefs was
precisely the same. And we found that we were not ashamed of that
substratum, that we were not given to apologizing for adhering to
so-called "obsolete" traditions or to creeds "that were passing out of
fashion."

We also found that on the political questions of the day we were
similarly in accord. We believed in the same political principles. And
so it was a very rare occurrence that when the roll was called in this
House we were not found voting, even on what seemed to be trivial
matters, upon the same side. It was not strange that with these
coincidences of belief and with our having both served in the
Confederate army and the local accident of the nearness of our seats
which threw us together, there grew up a regard greater than was
indicated by our association outside of this Hall.

If I were to select in my acquaintance him who, as much as any other,
deserved the title, I would say of Gen. LEE that he was a gentleman. All
that had concurred in producing him was of the best. The blood which
gave him life, the soil out of which he grew, the kindly influences
which always surrounded him, the molding powers to which he had been
subjected--all were of the noblest. A son of such houses, reared at such
knees, influenced by such powers, he passed early under the influences
of Harvard. Later he took his young experience as a soldier under Albert
Sidney Johnston. He began his civil life in a delicious home, with the
love of an exquisite young wife. And in the Confederate service he was
associated with the best and the bravest volunteers of the Old Dominion
herself.