... The fierce light which beats upon the throne is as that of a rushlight in comparison with the electric glare which our newspapers now focus upon the public man in Lee’s position. His character has been subjected to that ordeal, and who can point to any spot upon it? His clear, sound judgment, personal courage, untiring activity, genius for war, and absolute devotion to his state mark him as a public man, as a patriot to be forever remembered by all Americans.... I have met many of the great men of my time, but Lee alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the presence of a man who was cast in a grander mould and made of finer metal than all other men. He is stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to all others in every way; a man with whom none I ever knew, a very few of whom I have read, are worthy to be classed. This was one of the popular songs current after the close of the war: I followed old Marse Robert For four years, near about; Got wounded in three places, And starved at P’int Lookout. Why Marse Robert? Major Stiles gives the reason[6]: The passion of soldiers for nicknaming their favorite leaders, rechristening them according to their own unfettered fancy, is well known.... There is something grotesque about most of them, and in many seemingly rank disrespect.... However this may be, “Marse Robert” is far above the rest of soldier nicknames in pathos and in power. In the first place, it is essentially _military_ ... it rings true upon the elemental basis of military life—unquestioning and unlimited _obedience_.... There never could have been a second “Marse Robert,” and but for the unparalleled elevation and majesty of his character and bearing, there would never have been the first. He was of all men most attractive to us, yet by no means most approachable. We loved him much, but we revered him more. We never criticised, never doubted him; never attributed to him either moral error or mental weakness; no, not even in our secret hearts or most audacious thoughts. I really believe it would have strained and blurred our strongest and clearest conceptions of the distinction between right and wrong to have entertained, even for a moment, the thought that he had ever acted from any other than the purest and loftiest motive.... The proviso with which a ragged rebel accepted the doctrine of evolution, that “the rest of us may have descended or ascended from monkeys, but it took a God to make ‘Marse Robert,’” had more than mere humor in it.... We never compared him with other men, either friend or foe. He was in a superlative and absolute class by himself. Beyond a vague suggestion, after the death of Jackson, as to what might have been if he had lived, I cannot recall even an approach to a comparative estimate of Lee.