General Lee was the very personification of Southern courtesy and chivalry, and he knew how to quietly and effectually administer a rebuke to those who did not come up to his standard in these respects. Once, during the war, he was travelling to Richmond in a railroad coach filled with officers and men.
City Point, Virginia, circa 1865. “Gen. J.C. Robinson” and other locomotives of the U.S. Military Railroad.
A poorly dressed old woman entered the coach and traversed it’s length in vain search for a seat. When she reached the end of the car, where General Lee was seated, he arose and gave her his seat. Instantly all the officers were on their feet offering their places to the Commander-in-Chief, but the General merely said quietly, “No, gentlemen; if there was no seat for that infirm woman, there can be none for me.” So uncomfortable did this make the men within hearing that one by one they slipped out of the car, and ere long the General and the old woman had the coach to themselves.
Published in The Pensacola Journal., January 15, 1907
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 553
