s eminent ancestry, he early aspired
to a career in the military service of his country, and at the
comparatively early age of twenty we find him bidding adieu to his
college studies at Harvard and uniting with the Army in its expedition
to Utah in 1858, where he first experienced the fatigues and hardships
incident to the life of the soldier in the long march over the arid
plains and through the mountain canyons into the Mormon territory. The
prospect of inaction, with a long period in garrison, proved a
disappointment to so ambitious a spirit, and he resigned his commission
and returned to the domestic welcome of his Virginia farm.

Soon, however, the indication of a long peace proved delusive, and the
scene shifted. This time it was decreed that he should behold the
terrible conflict in which one portion of his unhappy country was to
engage in deadly array with another portion. Obeying what he conceived
to be the mandate of his State, he followed the impulse of his feelings
and the example of his kindred and his friends, and periled all in that
belief. He participated at once, and most actively, in some of the most
sanguinary engagements of the civil war. Wounded at one place, taken
prisoner at another, then exchanged, and again in the van of battle, we
find him following the forlorn hope until the close of the struggle at
Appomattox, when he again returned to the old farm.

He possessed the undivided confidence of his constituents. He was
regarded by them, as he was so long observed by us in our intimate
associations with him in this Hall, and especially in the committee
rooms, as an intelligent and conscientious legislator, a laborious
servant of the people, a courtly gentleman, a generous and devoted
companion. Loyal as he was to his political convictions, he was yet the
most considerate and the most conservative in his relations with those
who radically differed with him. He admired frankness; he despised
duplicity. While he was obedient to the reasonable edicts of caucus and
party organization, we recall occasions when he was prompt to rise above
the partisan. He was as broad-gauge and comprehensive in the study and
performance of his duty toward all parts and all interests of his
reunited country as he was anxious for the obliteration of sectional
animosity and sincere and generous of heart in his social obligations to
all of his fellow-men.

The most touching remembrance we bear of Gen. LEE's goodness of hea