Oration of General Lee.
General Lee was given a cordial reception, and was loudly cheered throughout the delivery of his beautiful oration. General Lee said:We are here to-day to honor the memory of Jefferson Davis; to lay the corner-stone of a monument to one who needs no monument in our generation, beyond that in the hearts of his countrymen. But we think it due to erect one, that posterity may know the reverence felt for the great leader of a cause that failed.
It is fitting that he should rest here in Virginia—that greatest of all States, the battle-scarred producer of warriors and statesmen—fitting that he should rest here among her immortals. But for her generosity in ceding her vast territory to the Union, Kentucky would have still been hers, and he would have been born her son. Many presidents, statesmen, soldiers lie in Virginia soil—from Washington to the present time—none greater than Davis, but more fortunate.
