Stephen D. Lee it was who, as a young artillery officer attached to the
staff of General Beauregard, transmitted the actual order to fire on
Fort Sumter, the shot which began the war. Two years later, having been
promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, the same Stephen D. Lee
participated in the defense of Vicksburg against the assaults of
Porter's gunboats from the river and of Grant's armies, which hemmed in
the hilled city on landward side, until at last, on the 4th of July,
1863, the place was surrendered, making Grant's fame secure.
Years after, when the Government of the United States accepted a statue
of General Stephen D. Lee, to be placed upon the battle ground of
Vicksburg--now a national park--it was the late General Frederick Dent
Grant, son of the capturer of the city, who journeyed thither to unveil
the memorial to his father's former foe. And by a peculiarly gracious
and fitting set of circumstances it came about that when, in April last,
the ninety-fifth anniversary of the birth of U.S. Grant was celebrated
in his native city, Galena, Illinois, it was Blewett Lee, only son of
the general taken by Grant at Vicksburg, who journeyed to Galena and
there in a memorial address, returned the earlier compliment paid to the
memory of his own father by Grant's son.
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