Lee Quotes

“Death seemed to lose its terrors and to borrow a grace and dignity in sublime keeping with the life that was ebbing away.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“His special gift was the ability to see the essence of a worthwhile suggestion and to relate it to what was already in existence or planned. Then he would encourage and shape the new project, repeatedly redesigning the curriculum so that a new department or course could have a comfortable place in which to grow and offer it benefits.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“The war had made some into libertines and some into serious, sober men.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“In rural and struggling Lexington, Virginia, Lee's new postwar home, one writer joked darkly dollars were so scarce that they had to be introduced to one another when they met on Main Street.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“Gen. Robert E. Lee was present, and, ignoring the action and presence of the negro, arose in his usual dignified and self-possessed manner, walked up the aisle to the chancel rail, and reverently knelt down to partake of the communion, and not far from the negro.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“Lee had a low opinion of black abilities, and thought that Virginia would be better off it its freed black population now migrated south into the Cotton States. On the other hand, four years before the war he had written, “Slavery as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any country,” and in a postwar conversation he was to say, “I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“In a few minutes, Lee and Grant reached across to each other from their horses and shook hands. When they met again, Grant would be President of the United States, and Lee, in the great forgotten chapter of his life, would be doing more than any other American to heal the wounds of war.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years

“Lee crushed this idea in a few words. “If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from.” Although Lee meant “the South” when he said “the country,” he was doing something for which the North as well as the South had reason to thank him, even before he went to see Grant.”
― Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years