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Southern Historical Society Papers.

From the Times-Dispatch, January 5, 1908.

FITZHUGH LEE.


An Address Delivered on Fitzhugh Lee Day at the
Jamestown Exposition.


By Major ROBERT W. HUNTER.

On account of the insistent demand from people in the North, South, and abroad, The Times-Dispatch prints in full the speech delivered by Major R. W. Hunter at the Jamestown Exposition on General Fitzhugh Lee upon the occasion of the day set apart to honor the first president of the exposition. The address was received with the greatest enthusiasm by those who had the privilege of listening to it, competent critics have declared that nothing that has so far been written about General Lee approaches the masterly paper presented, as follows:

Gentlemen of the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

In an address at a memorial meeting when General Fitz Lee died, I said: "He fell with his harness on, overtaxed by the strenuous work he had done to make the coming Jamestown celebration a grand success.

"Ulysses has gone to the Hesperides and there is none left in Ithaca to bend his matchless bow."

There is reason to suppose if General Albert Sidney Johnston had not been mortally wounded as he was riding forward victoriously at Shiloh, that with the setting sun Grant would have been crushed before Buell's reinforcements could have saved him.

With a magnanimity unknown to smaller souls, General Robert E. Lee assumed the entire responsibility for the failure at Gettysburg, although he knew, and the records remain to prove it, that the fault was not his. Nothing that can fairly be construed as criticism of his subordinates ever escaped his noble