September 28, 1870 was a chill and rainy afternoon in Lexington, Virginia. Mr. Lee was not feeling well, and his wife thought he should stay home instead of going to the vestry meeting at the church. But it was an important meeting, and he was the senior warden. He put on his old military cloak and walked through the rain to the church. There was no heat in the building; he presided over the long meeting, wrapped in his cloak. The issue at hand was an attempt to supplement the rector’s income; the vestry determined to subscribe a fund for the purpose. The clerk totalled the figures, and they were $55 short of what they needed. “I will give that sum,” Lee said quietly.
He walked home in the rain, hung up his cloak, and joined his family at the dining room table, where the evening meal was ready. He stood at the chair to say grace, as always. But no words would come. He had suffered a stroke, and died on the morning of October 12.
(the above is adapted from Douglas Freeman’s biography of Lee: Book IV, chapter 27)
Robert E. Lee will never be on the Episcopal calendar as a saint. I consider him one, so I will say a few words here in his honor. He was faithful with daily Morning and Evening Prayer throughout his adult life. From his days at Christ Church, Alexandria to his connections with St. Paul’s Church, Richmond and his final years in Lexington at what is now the Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church, he was unfailingly faithful in his support of the church as layman, vestryman, and warden; the above sketch of the events of September 28 is entirely in character in this regard. He was a man of prayer and Christian virtues. He did all within his power to see to the welfare, both spiritual and physical, of those under his care as soldiers or as students.
There is in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond the cooking set that Lee used during the war: a soldier’s little tin pot and plate and cup, much like the Boy Scout set that I use when camping. Although he was the commanding general, Lee lived simply during the war, eating the same fare as his soldiers, fare that grew increasingly scanty as the war progressed. From time to time, admirers would send General Lee a fine Virginia ham, or some wine, or a blackberry pie. He would express his sincere thanks for the gifts, and quietly send them to the hospitals.
It is unpopular in the circles of Liberal Religion in which I find myself to contemplate the idea of a Christian soldier; this is one of several reasons that I suppose Lee would never be considered for the sanctoral calendar, even in the recent large expansion thereof. Christians are supposed to be opposed to war, so the Liberals would say. Indeed, most of them always have been, Lee among them -- but there have been those, like Mr. Lee, who have answered the call when it could not with integrity be avoided. Like everything else he undertook, Lee discharged his duties as soldier and commander to the best of his ability. After the war he commented that he never fought the Northerners with any bitterness or rancor, and prayed for them every day. Armchair generals can second-guess one or two of his decisions, and in the end his cause failed. But none of that dims the glory of his achievements, a glory that has little to do with victory or defeat.
As much as I admire his role as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, I equally admire his work as an educator and administrator before and after the war: Commandant of the Military Academy at West Point, president of Washington College. I wish I could do half as well with the young people in my care, and the matters which fall under my administration.
Mr. Lee stands as an example of how a Christian layman ought to live in the world: constant in prayer, devoted to family, doing the work that is before him with care, dispatch, and integrity, and always entrusting it to Divine Providence, in good times and bad.
From Lee’s papers: “There is a true glory and a true honor; the glory of duty done -- the honor of integrity of principle.”
----
From time to time, I make pilgrimage to the Lee Chapel on the campus of what is now Washington and Lee University. It is a holy place, one I enter with awe. Beside the statue of Lee in the front, reclining in uniform as if sleeping on the battleground, is an important portrait of George Washington, the only American public figure whom I would consider Lee's equal. After the completion of the chapel in 1868, Mr. Lee sat in the front pew for every chapel service. His office in the basement has been preserved as it was when he left it that rainy afternoon in September; he is buried just a few steps away.
Outside the door is the final resting place of Traveller. I always pay my respects to him, too. He was foaled not many miles away from my farm back in the Appalachians, a fact which pleases me. Lee had other horses, notably Lucy Long and Brown-Roan. But Traveller was his favorite, and the one with whom Lee is remembered. He did not long survive his master; he stepped on a nail, developed lockjaw, and had to be put down in 1871.
Stephen Vincent Benet, from his poem John Brown’s Body, with the first part of the description taken from one of Lee’s letters:
And now at last,
Comes Traveller and his master. Look at them well.
The horse is an iron-grey, sixteen hands high,
Short back, deep chest, strong haunch, flat legs, small head,
Delicate ear, quick eye, black mane and tail,
Wise brain, obedient mouth.
Such horses are
The jewels of the horseman's hands and thighs,
They go by the word and hardly need the rein.
They bred such horses in Virginia then,
Horses that were remembered after death
And buried not so far from Christian ground
That if their sleeping riders should arise
They could not witch them from the earth again
And ride a printless course along the grass
With the old manage and light ease of hand. . . .
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