Unveiling

The Mayor-elect of Seattle went to Manhattan last week, arriving just too late to hear what the Mayor of San Francisco said to the Mayor of New York. Mayor-elect Edwards was there to inspect public utilities. Mayor Rolph of San Francisco was there on a holiday, with his high boots tucked under his trousers (as always) and wearing the first straw hat of the season. Just before Mayor-elect Edwards arrived, Mayor James J. Walker left town, as usual to make a speech.

Mayor Walker went to Atlanta and there met many other politicians--U. S. Senators and Representatives, the Governors of Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. A monster parade blared along Peachtree Street. Then there were special trains to take everyone out to the foot of Stone Mountain, 18 miles from town. It was the 63rd anniversary of General Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and part of the monster memorial sculptures to the Confederate Armies, carved first by Gutzon Borglum, later by Augustus Lukeman, were ready for unveiling.

Mayor Walker had been chosen to make the big speech and accept the memorial for the nation partly because he had helped raise the money, partly because friends of Governor Smith were influential in the memorial association, partly because James John Walker, regarded as a "wisecracker" at home, is accounted a popular orator in the South.

To draw away a Confederate and a Union flag from the towering figure of Lee on his favorite warhorse, "Traveler," another New Yorker had been taken to Atlanta. This was small, grave, smooth-cheeked Robert Edward Lee IV, aged 5, whom everyone asks if he is going to be a soldier like his great-grandfather when he grows up.

Gazing with wonder at the granite mountain in front of him, the boy did as he was told, and at the proper moment, gave a signal. Carrier-pigeons fluttered out of baskets to take the news to all the States. The flags on the mountain parted. Still veiled, but not obscured, by an April mist, the gigantic figure of a great soldier loomed, visible in detail to people on the plain 200 ft. below.

"Magnificent . . . the last of the Cavaliers," said the speaker (Judge Marcus W. Beck, of Georgia's Supreme Court), who accepted the statue for the South.

Mayor Walker, accepting for the nation, speaking extemporaneously, said: "Lee was the only man in whom God coupled the saint and the warrior. Long after the pyramids have crumbled, his figure, like his memory . . . still will be here."

"Swap generals with us and we'll lick the hell out of you." In this threat, shouted across trenches by boys in Blue to boys in Gray, lies perhaps the greatest tribute to General Robert Edward Lee of Virginia, the soldier who retreated his way to the forefront of military history.

His was a career of perpetual paradoxes. He was stoutly opposed to Secession. He freed his own slaves years before the Civil War. Yet he became the outstanding champion of the causes of Secession and Slavery. He was a mild-mannered Southern gentleman, so kind-hearted that he would stoop within battle-fire to restore a fledgling sparrow to its nest. But he achieved international fame in the profession of killing men. He attacked as he retreated, he retreated as he attacked. His strategy made of his opponents' successes Pyrrhic victories, brought him triumph by losing in the art which aims only to win.

Robert Edward Lee was the youngest son of "Light Horse Harry" Lee, Revolutionary hero who surprised Paulus Hook, N. J., and was awarded a gold medal. The blood of Lionel Lee who fought with Richard Coeur de Lion ran in his veins. He hankered early for a military life and was devoted to his mother, who raised her boy to be a soldier.

West Point training was followed by fire-baptism in the Mexican War, where heroic service at Cerro Gordo, Contreras-Churubusco and Chapultepec led General Scott to designate young Lee "the greatest living soldier in America." Engineer work in Washington and Baltimore taught him to construct defenses, a knowledge which was to serve him well. For three years he superintended West Point.

In 1859, while Lee was on leave at Arlington, a rabid Abolitionist named John Brown, with five Negroes and thirteen whites, stormed and captured Harper's Ferry Arsenal. Terror and violence were in the air. A small band of militia attacked; Brown held his own. The next day relief came, the U. S. Marines! At their head rode Colonel Robert E. Lee. The arsenal was recaptured. Brown, whose soul was to go marching on, was captured.

The Civil War began. With the first outbreak of hostilities Lee was offered command of the Federal forces about to invade the South. He refused, said he would never again bear arms except to defend Virginia. Therefore, he was soon commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, that "carried the rebellion on its bayonets."

His first success was in the Seven Days' battle. He stopped McClellan's advance at Mechanicsville, then cut Federal communication with the White House by cleverly passing his troops around to "Stonewall" Jackson's aid. Again the Union forces advanced, now under Pope. The bold strategy of ordering Jackson around Pope's wing to descend on his rear, and the lucky swelling of the Rappahannock River, combined to crush the invaders.

The Northern army twice repulsed, it was Lee's turn to advance. His offensive into Maryland ended with the indecisive shambles of Antietam. Thenceforward Lee was on the defensive, husbanding men and resources, retreating brilliantly, gallantly holding his own until there was no more to hold.

Burnside, McClellan's successor, stupidly massed an attack on Fredericksburg and was decisively beaten. At Chancellorsville, "esteemed among foreign critics the most brilliant action of the century," Lee, outmanoeuvered for once, literally led his men, who worshipped him, to defeat a force twice their size. But his final stab failed when a subordinate erred at Gettysburg.

Through the bloody Wilderness campaign, Lee's 70,000 men retreated gradually, slyly. They nipped the flanks, punished the weak spots in Grant's army of 120,000. Always Lee divined Grant's plans; always Grant's losses were heavier. The quiet man in gray who never touched tobacco, rarely tasted liquor and never used a curse-word, persistently outguessed the smoking, drinking, swearing leader from the North. All the next winter Grant was held to the line where he had vowed to "fight it out if it takes all summer."

At Spottsylvania Court House where trees were felled by steady musket-fire; at North Anna where Lee entrenched before Grant could arrive; at Cold Harbor where steady artillery hammering failed utterly against tall breastworks, Lee baited Grant, taunted him, hurt him. Petersburg saw Lee defending the Danville railway, source of Confederate supplies, and losing men. Grant lost more, but had more to lose. The pressure was beginning to tell on Lee. In the spring of 1865, a gallant remnant of Lee's army, to whose "tattered standards the fortunes of the Confederacy had been nailed," laid down its arms at Appomattox.

The great tactician, master of defensive warfare, Galahad of the South, glided out his life as president of Washington College, where he taught duty and planted trees. At his death, it reverently changed its name to Washington and Lee.