in authority as a true king. He was gentle as a woman
in life, and modest and pure as a virgin in thought; watchful as a
Roman vestal in duty; submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle
as Achilles!"

Forty-four years ago last June, I found myself in the presence of
Colonel Lee, who was then Superintendent of the Military Academy at West
Point. I have never in all my life seen another form or face which so
impressed me, as embodying dignity, modesty, kindness, and all the
characteristics which indicate purity and nobility. While he was then
only a captain and brevet-colonel, he was so highly regarded by the Army
that it was generally conceded that he was the proper officer to succeed
General Scott.

His wonderful career as leader of the Army of Northern Virginia, as its
commander, is so familiar to all of you that any comment would seem to
be unnecessary. But to give some of the younger generation an idea of
the magnitude of the struggle in which General Lee was the central and
leading figure, I will call attention to the fact that in the battles of
the Wilderness and Spottsylvania (which really should be called one
battle), the killed and wounded in General Grant's army by the army
under General Lee, was far greater than the aggregate killed and wounded
in all the battles of all the wars fought by the English-speaking people
on this continent since the discovery of America by Columbus.

To be more explicit: take the killed and wounded in all the battles of
the French and Indian War, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the
Revolutionary War, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the War of
1812, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the Mexican War, take the
aggregate killed and wounded in all our wars with the Indians, and they
amount to less than the killed and wounded in Grant's army in the
struggle from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania.

In order further to appreciate the magnitude of the struggle, let us
make a comparison between the losses in some of the great battles of our
Civil War, and those of some of the most famous battles of modern
Europe. The official reports give the following as the losses in killed
and wounded of the Federal Army in seven, out of nearly a thousand
severely contested struggles during the four years' of war: Seven Days
fight, 9,291; Antietam, 11,426; Murfreesboro, 8,778; Gettysburg,
16,426; Chickamauga, 10,906; Wilderness and Spottsylvania, 24,481.

In the Battle