Meanwhile he had undertaken various other duties in addition to his collegiate work and some two weeks after the reopening of the college he attended a vestry meeting of the Episcopal Church. At this meeting the subject of rebuilding the church and increasing the rector's salary was under discussion and the session lasted for three hours, at the close of which he volunteered to subscribe from his own meager funds the sum needed to complete the proposed increase of the clergyman's salary. By this time it was seven in the evening and he at once returned to his own house, and finding his family ready for tea, stood at the head of the table as he usually did to say grace. But no words came from his lips, and with an expression of resignation on his face he quietly slipped into his chair and sat there upright as though he had heard an order to which he was endeavoring to respond by remaining at "attention." Physicians were immediately called who diagnosed the trouble as hardening of the arteries combined with rheumatism of the heart, and though their patient never quite lost consciousness, he gradually fell asleep, and on October 12, 1870, passed quietly away. Three days later "Traveller," led by two old soldiers and followed by a small but distinguished assemblage, accompanied his master to the grave outside the little chapel which Lee had helped to build for the college which soon thereafter changed its name to Washington and Lee University. Nothing could have been more grateful to Lee then to have his name thus associated with that of the man whom he revered above all other men and upon whom he had patterned his whole life, and in this graceful tribute he had his heart's desire. Chapter XXXII. -- The Head of the Nation While Lee was passing the closing years of his life in tranquility, Grant was entering upon a stormy career in politics. But before he had any thought of the honors that lay before him he proved himself a good friend to the South and a really great American. Toward his late adversaries he maintained that the true policy was "to make friends of enemies," and by word and deed he earnestly strove to accomplish that result, never losing an opportunity to protect the people of the South from humiliation and injustice. Indeed, if he and some of the other Union commanders had been given complete authority directly after the war, the South would have been spared much suffering and the nation would have escaped some of the evils which inflict it to this day. But Grant's service to the country, as a whole, was far greater than that which he undertook on behalf of any particular section, for at a critical moment he held the destiny of the nation in the hollow of his hand and a word from him would have subjected the people to a military control from which they might never have recovered.