07 50 49 this is a test caption from the national captioning institute. 07 50 53 this is a test caption from the national captioning institute. He gets back and steps inside. Depending on who you read, whatever mary was trying to say here, it is hard to read mary at times. Whether she was hard or nice or whatever. Anyway, lee is always chastising his family, his girls, for being late for dinner. He is a punctual man. So when he comes in, miss mary says, why are you late . You have kept us waiting. The dutiful husband, lee pulls off his overcoat, hangs it on the rack, steps to the table. He starts to say grace. And nothing comes out of his mouth. He just freezes. I cannot describe it i did not see it. The onlookers say that that pale came over him at that moment. Right there. Misses lee got up and walked over to him and patted him on the hand and says, oh dear, you look tired, let me get you a cup of tea. Lee sunk back into the chair. He had already been seeing doctors but they cannot do anything for him. Heart disease, if they even knew. They cannot do anything. So they sit down. They retrieve his old army cot from upstairs and they bring it down. The parlor next to the dining were becomes a sick room. Room becomes a sick room. He is going to lay there for a few days, until he is just going to run out of energy. And he will pass away. He was 63. How old are you . [laughter] 207. Are you all picking up what i am laboring under over here . That is his death mask right here, which is free of charge. Do you want to get my picture by it . [laughter] death mask. How far have we come . How many people have their picture with a 10foottall robert e. Lee death mask . This is his funeral. Notice the black crape paper around the columns of the chapel of washington university. The chapel was Robert E Lees favored accomplishment as his favorite accomplishment as his tenure as president of washington university. That chapel that he had built. His office was in the basement of the chapel. The president s house would be, if we were standing where this picture is taken, the president s house would be over here. The Episcopal Church would be over here. They had to have the funeral so fast. It is still full. But it was not the thousands on thousands that you would think. I would like to close with a quote by robert e. Lee. I could talk about his strength of character. I can talk about his patriotism. I could talk about his devotion to duty. We could talk about his accomplishments, from battlefields to education to reconciliation, which i hope i have driven home here today. And we could talk about the man himself, and the sterling character qualities which he had, which i still learn a lot from, even during this time. I choose to quote a letter from september, 1870, to Lieutenant Colonel charles marshall. His former staff officer. It shows lees realism and optimism. To set the stage, this is their recumbent statue of lee inside that chapel. This is not lee dead, this is supposed to represent lee sleeping on the battlefield. Until a few years ago, they actually had real confederate battle flag flying in there. And they always have, some docent setting there and she would have her back to you. And if you time it right, and nobody was looking, you could reach up and touch the actual confederate battle flag. Oh, my gosh. [laughter] that is great stuff right there. [laughter] but he said this to marshall. My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, nor indisposed me to serve them. Nor, in spite of failures which i lament, errors which i see and acknowledge, or of the present aspect of affairs, do i despair of the future. The truth is this, the march of providence is so slow, and our desire so impatient, the work of progress so immense, and our means of aiding it so feeble, the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ab of the advancing wave. And are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope. That is a great quote, isnt it . All right, that is robert e. Lee. [applause] thank you very much. This is American History tv on cspan three, where each weekend, we feature 48 hours exploring our nations past. At 9 00r today, live a. M. Eastern, American History tv looks back 50 years at the Kent State University extruding shooting. Kent state and the end of american innocence joins us to take your calls. Then, at 10 00 on real america, three films on the vietnam war. President nixons announcement of attacks on north vietnamese toces in cambodia, which led student protest on the kennedy campus. s effect on five american families. Thisstate, 50 years later, weekend on American History tv on cspan3. Next, on American History tv, Howard Ruffner talked about the photos he took on may 4, 1970 when National Guard troops shot and killed four students at Kent State University in ohio during an antivietnam war protest