3-017-023 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late General J. E. B. Stuart, of the Army of the Confederate States, 1864. Stuart '...received his mortal wound in a cavalry skirmish with the detachment under General Sheridan at Ashland...The doctor, knowing he did not desire to be buoyed by false hopes, told him frankly that death was rapidly approaching. The General nodded and said, 'I am resigned, if it be God's will; but I would like to live to see my wife. But God's will be done.' Several times he roused up and asked if she had come. To the doctor, who sat holding his wrist and counting the weakening pulse, he remarked, 'Doctor, I suppose I am going fast now. It will soon be over...I hope I have fulfilled my destiny to my country and my duty to my God.'...The General, with a mind perfectly clear and possessed then made disposition of his staff and personal effects. To Mrs. Lee the wife of General Lee, he directed that his golden spurs be given, as a dying memento of his love and esteem for her husband. To his Staff officers he gave his horses. So particular was he in small things, even in the dying hour, that he said to one of his Staff, who was a heavy-built man, 'You had better take the larger horse; he will carry you better.' To his young son he left his glorious sword'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.