On the Trail of Grant and Lee

possible for some years. To his boys and girls he was both a companion and a friend and in their company he took the keenest delight. In fact, he and his wife mad

only a man whose splendid presence, magnificent physique and distinguished record were certain to win the admiration and respect of young men, but he combined in his character and temperament all the qualities of a tactful teacher and an inspiring leader. Quiet and dignified, but extremely sympathetic, he governed the cadets without seeming to command them and, as at his own h

was with keen regret that Lee received this assignment, for, though intended as a promotion, it removed him from the corps of engineers to which he had always been attached and obliged him to break all his home ties for what was practically police duty in the wilderness. Nevertheless, no thought of resigning from the ar

that his thoughts were constantly with his home and loved ones. "It has been said that our letters are good representations of our minds," he wrote his youngest daughter from Texas in 1857;

sm. His beauty could not save him.... But I saw 'cats as is cats' at Sarassa.... The entrance of Madame [his hostess] was foreshadowed by the coming in of her stately cats with visages grim and tails erect, who preceded, surrounded and followed her. They are of French breed and education, and when the claret and wate

of slavery was being fiercely discussed throughout the country, he expressed his views on

ted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are stronger for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa-morally, socially and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race and I hope it will prepare and le

he wrote the country was beginning to notice a country lawyer named Abraham Linco

r. Custis, his father-in-law, had died a few weeks previously, leaving him as the executor of his will, which provided, among other things, for the gradual emancipation of all his slaves. Lee had accordingly obtained leave of absence to make a flying trip to Virginia for the purpose of undertaking this duty, and he was actually making arrangements to carry out Mr. Custis's wishes in respect to his slaves when the news of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry reached Arlington. Word of this reckless attempt to free the slaves by force reached him in the form of a dispatch

ern States were rapidly forming the Confederacy, the whole country was in w