GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE,
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
Judith Brockenbrough McGuire
Note: Judith White Brockenbrough McGuire (1813–1897) was the fifth child of Virginia Supreme Court Justice William Brockenbrough (1778–1838) and his wife, Judith Robinson White (1784–1854). In 1846 she married widower John Peyton McGuire (1800–1869), the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Tappahannock, Essex County. Known as the “Apostle to the Rapphannock,” and himself the son of a judge, Reverend McGuire in the 1850s founded a theological seminary in Alexandria. Judith McGuire not only acted as mother to her husband's children but assisted him in his church work. At the outbreak of the Civil War John McGuire served on the Virginia secession committee, and when Federal forces occupied Alexandria in May 1861 he fled with his family to Richmond. In the Confederate capital Judith McGuire found employment as a clerk in the Confederate Commissary Department, and throughout the war she kept a diary, an important chronicle of the family's wartime tribulations and a valuable first-hand account the sufferings of the Virginians that she encountered across the state. The Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War, by a Lady of Virginia was first published in New York in 1867 and subsequent editions appeared in 1868 and 1889. Lee biographer Douglas Southall Freeman called the Diary “one of the best and most familiar accounts of Richmond during the war.” Judith McGuire's Robert E. Lee, The Christian Soldier, was first published in 1873 and has never been reprinted.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE,
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
Yon path of greensward
Winds round by sparry grot and gay pavilion,
There is no flint to gall thy tender feet;
There's ready shelter from each breeze and shower,
But duty guides not that way. See her stand
With wind entwined with amaranth near yon cliffs.
Oft where she leads, thy head must bear the storm;
Oft where she leads, thy blood must mark thy footsteps;
And thy shrunk form endure heat, cold, and hunger,
But she will guide thee up to noble heights,
Which he who gains seems native of the sky
And earthly things stretched beneath his feet.
Diminished, shrunk, and valueless.
[—Anonymous, in Sir Walter Scott's Woodstock, or The Cavalier (1826)]
PUBLISHED FOR THE CITY MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION OF THE
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF RICHMOND, VA.
PHILADELPHIA.
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER.
RICHMOND: WOODHOUSE & PARHAM.
1873.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,
in the Office of the Libraries of Congress at Washington.
STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN & SON, PHILADELPHIA.
PREFACE
THIS little volume has been prepared by a lady of Virginia, at the request of a few Christian men who have deeply revered and heartily loved the character of General Robert E. Lee.
Looking upon him as a very high type of manhood, they have desired that his testimony to the truth of Christianity, and the example and teaching of his life, so, single-hearted, so clear, so eloquent in behalf of duty, of virtue, and of religion, should be as widely influential and as effective as possible.
Until, in the course of Providence, sectional animosity in this country culminated in fury, and great questions of state were referred to the arbitrament of the sword, there was no man who stood so fairly in the eyes of the whole American people, or who had so sure and unquestioned a title to their esteem and affection, as General Lee. That he deplored the separation he could not prevent, is clear enough. That his own determination and course were based upon a high sense of duty, none can doubt. In the great crisis that was upon us, wealth, honor, life to him were as nothing. The question of duty was all in all. Deciding that in favor of his native State, he abandoned everything, forsook the strong, and gave himself heart and soul to what, none better than he knew, was the weaker side. Whether he was right or wrong, God knows. The honesty of his purpose and his magnanimity the whole world has approved
The principles of his character, the motives of his actions, and his fidelity to Christian responsibilities, may be admired, regardless of politics and sectional differences. In these he glorified God; for these he will be admired and loved the world over; and for these he is commended to the young people of America.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE,
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
[CONTENTS]
[Note: Not contained in the original letterpress edition.]
