and chatting with a comrade or a visitor with a simple courtesy which had in it no shade of condescension.  Only on one occasion does he seem to have, been accoutred with the slightest regard to military display or personal dignity; and that, characteristically, was the last occasion on which he wore the Confederate uniform—­the occasion of his interview with General Grant on April 9, 1865.  After the war he retired without a word into privacy and obscurity.  Ruined by the seizure and destruction of his property, which McClellan protected, and which his successors gave up to ravage and pillage, the late Commander-in-Chief of the Southern armies accepted the presidency of a Virginia college, and devoted himself as simply and earnestly to its duties as if he had never filled a higher station or performed more exciting functions.  Well aware of the jealous temper of the party dominant in the North, and anxious, above all things, to avoid exasperating that temper against his conquered countrymen, he carefully abstained from appearing in any public ceremony or taking any overt part in political questions.  His influence has been exerted, quietly but steadily, in one direction, with a single view to restore harmony and good-will between the two sections, and to reconcile the oppressed Southerners to the Union from which he fought so gallantly to free them.  He has discountenanced all regretful longings after the lost visions of Southern independence; all demonstrations in honor of the ‘conquered banner;’ and has encouraged the South to seek the restoration of her material prosperity and the satisfaction of her national feelings in a frank acceptance of the result of the war, and a loyal adhesion to the Federal bond.  It was characteristic and worthy of the man that he was among the first to sue for a formal pardon from President Johnson; not for any advantage which he personally could obtain thence, but to set the example of submission to his comrades-in-arms, and to reconcile them to a humiliation without which the conquerors refused them that restitution to civil rights necessary to any effort to retrieve their own or their country’s fortunes.  Truer greatness, a loftier nature, a spirit more unselfish, a character purer, more chivalrous, the world has rarely, if ever known.  Of stainless life and deep religious feeling, yet free from all taint of cant and fanaticism, and as dear and congenial to the Cavalier Stuart as to the Puritan Stonewall Jackson; unambitious, but ready to sacrifice all at the call of duty; devoted to his cause, yet never moved by his feelings beyond the line prescribed by his judgment; never provoked by just resentment to punish wanton cruelty by reprisals which would have given a character of needless savagery to the war—­both North and South owe a deep debt of gratitude to him, and the time will come when both will be equally proud of him.  And well they may, for his character and his life afford a complete answer to the reproaches commonly cast on money-grubbing, mechanical America.  A country which has given birth to men like him, and those who followed him, may look the chivalry of Europe in the face without shame; for the fatherlands of Sidney and of Bayard never produced a nobler soldier, gentleman, and Christian, than General Robert E. Lee.”