University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XLVII.

The large number of students,—seven hundred in the two
schools,—with their professors and the families attracted to Lexington
to educate their sons, gave wide scope to the rector's
activities.

Among the professors were not a few men of note. General
Robert E. Lee, president of Washington College, was assisted
by an able and distinguished faculty. Four of these—Judge John
W. Brockenbrough, head of the law department; Colonel William
Preston Johnston, now the accomplished president of Tulane
University, New Orleans; Colonel R. H. McCulloh, widely
known as a chemist and mathematician; and Professor Edwin S.
Joynes, the thorough and competent linguist-belonged to Dr.
Pendleton's congregation. At the Military Institute, General F.
H. Smith, the superintendent, collected an equally brilliant corps
of professors. Of these may be named Colonel Thomas Williamson,
of the original faculty; General Custis Lee, who succeeded
his father as president of Washington College; Commodore
Matthew F. Maury, the world-renowned pathfinder of the winds
and waves; Captain John M. Brooke, of the old United States,
and afterwards of the Confederate States, navy, whose successful
invention for telling the character of the ocean's bed had made
possible the laying of an Atlantic cable; and Colonel Marshall
McDonald, whose ardent love for natural history developed in
one direction has made him the great authority on fish-culture,
and placed him at the head of the United States Fish
Commission.

A military training seems to incline men's minds to the orderly
mode of worship of the Prayer-Book, and not only these professors,
but almost all of their coadjutors were Episcopalians.
With these gentlemen and their families, as with the Episcopalians
of the town proper, Dr. Pendleton's relations were of the

most intimate and affectionate character, while he was also on
terms of cordial friendliness with those members of both faculties,
and with the citizens, who belonged to other branches of the
Church catholic. The records of the vestry show that body to
have been of professors and private citizens in about equal
proportions.

The accommodations of the little church were too limited for
this increased number of Episcopalians, and so early as 1868 he
began his efforts to enlarge or rebuild it. Some of the old
church members were opposed to both schemes, and Dr. Pendleton
at first confined his endeavors to the raising a sufficient
sum for building a Sunday-school and lecture-room. From the
poverty of the South no aid could be expected; the congregation
could barely pay their current expenses, and he therefore addressed
himself to various churchmen in the Northern cities,
from some of whom he received considerable help. Writing to
Bishop Horatio Potter, of New York, on the subject, General
Pendleton said,—

". . . Your own friendly part in the public move some time
since in New York to aid the college here, presided over by General
Lee, furnishes the encouragement under which I write.

"The case is this: The church here, of which I am rector, is
at once very important and very poor. . . . It was not, like so
many other churches in Virginia and farther south, demolished
during the war, but it was somewhat defaced and otherwise injured.
Our people, however, are, as you doubtless know, crippled
in means and unable to do more than struggle for bare subsistence,
material and spiritual. Of their deep poverty the congregation
has, since the war, besides moderately contributing to my
support as their rector and providing for essential repairs, paid
an old debt of several hundred dollars, and raised between two
and three hundred dollars for our starving brethren in South
Carolina.

"But, bishop, much more needs to be done, and the good
people cannot do it. The church building requires considerable
outlay for its actual protection, and more sittings are needed for
the accommodation of the large number of students attending.
In addition, it is extremely important that we should have a plain

structure for Sunday-school purposes. My Bible-class instruction
to the young men of the college is greatly hindered by want
of a room in which to meet them. Such a room and two others for
Sunday-school children of medium and youngest age are almost
essential; they could be provided in a structure of the kind
proposed for twelve hundred dollars.

"The importance of these appliances may be in part estimated
from the fact that there are attending the two institutions here—
Washington College and the Virginia Military Institute—some
seven hundred young men, mainly from the South. Probably
more youths of intellect and culture attend my ministrations
from Sunday to Sunday than are instructed by any clergyman in
the city of New York. But we are utterly cramped and crippled
for want of means. The total ruin which has fallen upon Virginia
and her Southern sisters is not imagined by persons at the
North. . . . Multitudes can do nothing more than just subsist,
many are absolutely starving; and the limited number who,
through some special adjustments of Providence, are in a condition
rather better, have still to struggle very hard to maintain
Christian worship and ordinances, educate their children, etc. . . .
The actual state of affairs, bishop, could you see it, would send
a shudder through your soul. . . . Can you, will you, do anything
for us? No human soul knows of my writing. I have
conferred about it with none but our common Lord. Any sum
contributed will be thankfully received and faithfully applied.
Indeed, I should wish it sent to the vestry and not to myself."

To Mrs. Pendleton, who was absent from home, her husband
wrote in November,—

"I have been busy all day having the monument put up over
the graves of our dear son and grandson. It is very simple and
impressive.[1] In admirable taste, I think. The inscription for
the father on the face next the walk at the head, that for the infant
son opposite, against the heads of the graves.

"We are always anxious to hear of dear Aunt Judy. It will
be hard to give her up when at length she is taken to her reward,
happy as will be the change to her. It is a chief regret to me

that I cannot get to see her. She will accept my tender love by
proxy instead, as duty forbids my leaving home."

During this same November General R. E. Lee, as chairman
of a committee on the church finances, reported to the vestry
that of the rector's eight hundred dollars' salary two hundred
and thirty-one dollars for 1867 and 1868 was in arrears, and
urged that not only should this deficiency be at once made good,
but that, "in order to relieve him from the weight of pecuniary
embarrassment, and to enable him to perform his pastoral duties
with efficiency, his salary for 1869 be increased to at least one
thousand dollars, and if possible to twelve hundred dollars."
Very little over the one thousand dollars was raised, and the
obligations incurred in 1865 continued to harass him for years.

During all this time Dr. Pendleton was untiring in his efforts
to win the young men thrown under his influence to Christ. He
held service with the cadets on every Tuesday and Thursday
evening, and, in conjunction with the other ministers in the
town, conducted daily morning prayer at the college. These
labors and the prayers of the Christian people were rewarded in
the spring of 1869 by a wide outpouring of the spirit, and after
weeks filled with pastoral duties and the giving religious instruction,
in which he was assisted by Rev. Dr. Walker and others,
he had the happiness of presenting to Bishop Johns for confirmation
on the 17th of May a class of sixty-six. Four only of
this number were females, sixty-two were students and professors
in the two schools, and of these the Military Institute furnished
four professors and forty-nine cadets. Four other cadets were
admitted to communion a few weeks later.

His work and encouragement at home only increased his interest
in the cause of the Church in the diocese, and especially
within the bounds of his Convocation.

Bishop Whittle to Dr. Pendleton.

Rev. Dr. Andrews to Dr. Pendleton.

It having become evident that the Sunday-school room proposed
the year before would not meet the want for more accommodations
in the church itself, it was determined to make a
strenuous effort to enlarge or rebuild that; and, as heretofore,
the main work of raising the money devolved upon the rector.[2]
He therefore, with the approval of his vestry, left home in
October to visit the Northern cities again, and do his utmost to
obtain the needed funds. During his absence the Lexington
church was supplied by different clergymen, with an occasional
lay service. His daughters Mary and Rose accompanied him as
far as Baltimore to visit friends there, and being with them a
good deal rendered this sojourn from home less trying to him
than were most others. To them their mother wrote on Friday,
November 12,—

"My dear Children,—You may be surprised at the contents
of this letter.—came last Saturday with money to pay his

debts, and to my surprise he owed us two hundred and five
dollars. This was all down in a book. I demurred to it, but he
said 'yes,' and I didn't feel it right to say 'no.' I am truly
thankful for it to him and to the Giver of all good. It will pay
my debts, enable us to live, and I can send you this sum—ten
dollars—for each of you. To you it is not half as much as I owe
you. I only wish it were more."

General Pendleton raised during this tour several thousand
dollars,[3] and enlisted the sympathies of many who did not seem
at first likely to listen to his appeal. Among these Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher sent him a check for fifty dollars and two letters
for Mr. A. T. Stewart and Mr. Claflin, and expressed the hope
that he might "find raising money in New York much easier
than it usually is." His own account for personal expenses,
"eighty-six dollars," shows how little of self-seeking there was
mixed up with his errand.

The records of this year cannot be more fitly closed than by
an extract of a birthday letter written Dr. Pendleton.

Dr. Pendleton was not harassed alone by narrow means during
this period of his life; the usual trials of a parish minister fell
to him also. Choirs which produced other discords than those
of sound; an unavowed but very real jealousy between the
schools, which sometimes occasioned a factious spirit and encounters
of sharp words between their representatives; and,
above all, that heaviest of ministerial responsibilities, the necessity
for dealing out admonition and discipline to erring church
members, gave him bitter pain and anxiety, which only his devotion
to duty, and determination, by God's help, to discharge his
ordination vows with fidelity enabled him to endure with steady
patience and Christian cheerfulness. Only those nearest to him
knew how his soul was tortured when he felt that he must do
that which might seem to some unjust, to others unkind, and
which would surely cause sorrow and dislike in the case of the
parties immediately concerned, but which was realized by him as
a solemn obligation which he must fulfil. The courage which
faces death on the battle-field falls far short of that which thus
enables a loving, sensitive, Christ-like soul quietly to follow the
dictates of conscience, knowing well that disapprobation and hostility
and even contumely must ensue to itself as well as pain and
reproach to those dealt with. The tender sympathy with which
he welcomed back every erring brother brought to see the danger
of his course, and his loving joy over each evidence of true penitence,
not infrequently made earnest friends of those who at first
seemed likely to become inveterate enemies.

Sickness and sorrow in his own family added to his anxieties.
To his wife, absent from home with an invalid daughter, he wrote
in the spring of 1870,—

"Your letter of yesterday saddened me by its tidings of
—'s suffering condition. I had not expected any great change
from the trip, but hoped she would experience some benefit.
Still, God knows better than we do, and His hand is in sickness
as in all other dispensations. . . . I can fancy you all in the
chamber and parlor, talking over matters since last you met.
Could I be there, too, it would be to me one of the choice treats
of my life. Among all the memories most precious in my mind,
those are perhaps dearest to me which cluster around those dear

places and people in Hanover, identified alike with my own parents
and home and with the great waking up of my soul when it was
inspired with soul-love for you.

"How sweet the recollections are of 'Springfield' and its recurring
visions, with sister Lucy and yourself as almost angels
to my boyish eye, with the venerable old lady of Revolutionary
honors, and sweet, sad, woe-stricken Aunt Judy Carter!

"Then the associated visions of 'Rugswamp' and 'Edgewood'
and 'Montair' and 'Oakland,'—the latter from my childhood,—
and all with the heyday of our happy young married life! Then
the sober scenes of later years,—the decline of our parents, the
departure of all that generation, the great change in all the conditions
of life; and now the dear ones at 'Oakland' left, and ourselves,
with a few others, the connecting links between those old
scenes and the hard practicalities of the new age! I am not much
given to romancing in this day of trial, but sometimes it is very
pleasant to indulge feeling in that way."

To his invalid daughter he also wrote,—

"My Dear,—Try to be a yielding invalid. A great deal of
discomfort you may avoid, or at any rate moderate, by learning
to manage yourself under sickness. Try, my daughter, to make
up your mind to it, and be passive, acquiescent, and cheerful, like
dear Mrs. Lee, in her helpless and hopeless pain and unmovableness.
Employ yourself in any pleasant way not too much taxing
your eyes and strength. And if the disease laid on you by the
Almighty prevents your sleeping, be as prayerful and patient
under it as you can, and make it a rule to speak in a cheerful
tone of voice, even though you may feel much more like crying."

In August of this year Dr. Pendleton's son-in-law, General
Edwin G. Lee, after years of failing health, died suddenly at the
Yellow Sulphur Springs, whither he had gone for a few weeks
with Dr. Pendleton and two of his daughters. Of this gifted
kinsman General Robert E. Lee wrote,—

General Lee himself died on October 12. So that in a few
weeks there was added to family affliction the sorrow, little less
poignant to Dr. Pendleton, of laying to rest the friend whom he
had loved from boyhood; who was to him the perfect pattern of
all that was to be loved and honored as a man, a patriot, and a
Christian; the commander whom he had trusted and followed
implicitly from Richmond, in 1862, to Appomattox, in 1865; and
upon whom for five years, in the cherished intercourse of daily life
as parishioner and vestryman, he had learned to depend for that
true sympathy and encouragement so dear to a pastor's heart.
But his grief for General Lee was not only that of a man for his
friend, a soldier for his beloved captain. He mourned for and with
the Southern people, that there should be taken from them, at the
time when they most greatly needed it, the influence and example
of the man who in his life so thoroughly combined a patient submission
to the authority of the United States government as
established by force of arms after a mighty struggle, and an unconquerable
devotion to the principles of State and individual
liberty for which he had fought and suffered, and a determination
to do his whole duty as a Christian man and a Virginian, though
debarred by Presidential proclamation from the free exercise of
his rights as an American citizen. Grief and sympathy for his
overpowered and oppressed country may truly be said to have
broken General Lee's heart. Sorrow for his friend and captain
and for his fellow-countrymen threw a shadow over General Pendleton's
later years. Fitly to commemorate General Lee's character
and to impress his example upon the Southern mind became
at once strong moving springs of his life.

A great rain which fell at the time of General Lee's death,—
October 12, 1870,—by destroying railroads and bridges, isolated
Lexington from the outside world, and gave cogency to the determination
of Mrs. Lee and his family that the little town should
be his last resting-place. Immediately after the funeral a memorial
association was formed, with General Pendleton as president,
having for its object the erection of a suitable monument to mark
General Lee's burial-place. In deference to Mrs. Lee's preferences

a marble sarcophagus, with a recumbent statue of the great
soldier, was decided upon, and Mr. Edward S. Valentine chosen
as the sculptor.

On the day after General Lee's interment Dr. Pendleton made
a call at Commodore M. F. Maury's. A little boy, two years
and a half old, ran before his nurse to the door, and on seeing
Dr. Pendleton drew back with astonishment, exclaiming, "Why,
I thought you was dead under the roses!" And it took some
persuasion to convince him that he was not talking to General
Lee.