During his tour of the postwar South in 1867-68, Scottish missionary David MacRae visited with General Robert E. Lee in Lexington. He found a college president who was venerated throughout the South, and as one of the professor’s reported, “students would rather shoot themselves than appear before Lee in disgrace.”
“I knew from report that Lee was reticent on political subjects, and wisely so, his position in the country since the war was demanding the utmost prudence. I, therefore, made no attempts during the interviews I had with him to “draw him out”; at the same time I spoke freely on all subjects that came naturally in the way. Political topics were, therefore, referred to; but Lee was on his guard, and I could not but notice the admirable delicacy and tact with which, as often as the conversation threatened to become political, he contrived to turn it into another channel.
At his home I met some of the professors, and conversation went on briskly; but I noticed that whenever they introduced political topics, Lee became silent, and allowed the conversation to go on without him.
One of his sons told me that his father’s answer to direct inquiries on vexed questions was that he was a soldier, not a politician. In speaking of the war, reference was made to the odds against which the South had fought, and the want there was of accurate statistics. I told Lee it was understood he was preparing a history of the conflict himself. “I have that in view,” he said, “but the time is not come for impartial history. If the truth were told just now, it would not be credited.”
Speaking of Lexington and its neighbourhood, he said, -- “You will meet with many of your countrymen here. The valley of Virginia is peopled with Scotch-Irish…They are a fine race. They have the courage and determination of the Scotch, with the dash and intrepidity of the Irish. They make fine soldiers.”
He said it was an old wish of his to visit this country…Stonewall Jackson had been in Scotland before the war. He had heard him speak of it. When he spoke of Jackson I was struck with the emphasis he placed on his piety. One cannot indeed be long with Lee without finding his Christian character revealing itself almost unconsciously in his manners and conversation. I remember with peculiar distinctness the solemnity with which, at table, standing before his family, he asked God’s blessing on the food. Also, when he referred to a gentleman whom he wished me to see in Richmond, his saying that he had rarely met “with a nobler or more Christian man.” It was only a word, and yet it showed by what standard he gauged a man’s worth.”
(Robert E. Lee as College President, David MacRae, America Through British Eyes, Allan Nevins, editor, Oxford University Press, 1948, pp. 344-345)
