compression is so essential for even a passing glance at the rich and varied materials which our dear friend's life so amply furnish.
My idea is that General Fitz Lee, by reason of his brilliant reputation as a soldier, both at home and abroad; his eclat as the representative of the United States in Cuba, when the hearts of the people went out to him with enthusiastic admiration and warmest approval; his widespread popularity, coextensive with the bounds of the country; his extraordinary personal magnetism, which drew all hearts to him; and the fact, perhaps the most important of all, that through his agency and the epoch-making events in our recent history with which he was so closely connected, and was so large a part, the relations between the sections became more cordial, and the people more united by the bonds of mutual respect and friendship than they had been for more than half a century.
These were the considerations and factors which made him "the man of the hour" for Jamestown. His bugle-call would have been heard along the mountain sides, through the valleys, across the vast plains, along the rivers and by the sounding sea. It would have been "as the shout of Achilles from the ramparts."
Fitz Lee was rather a lively youth he never was "good enough to go in the missionary box." While a cadet at West Point, unlike his distinguished uncle who never received a demerit, Fitz managed to get the maximum allowance just short of dismissal. His name was not very near the head of the list of graduates, but he was the most popular cadet at the Academy, and took first honors in horsemanship, which secured him a commission in the famous 2nd Cavalry, of which Albert Sidney Johnston was colonel, Robert E. Lee, lieutenant-colonel, and Hardee and George H. Thomas, majors nearly every one of the officers of that regiment became distinguished soldiers in the Confederate or Union Army.
He was quick and bright as a dollar, and while never what may be strictly termed a student, he absorbed information intuitively, and could read men and things "like a book." He became a captivating public speaker and lecturer, and his "Life and Campaigns of General Lee" is exceedingly interesting and valuable, not only to the student of military affairs, but to the general reader.
