Gorgeous Tragedy

Robert Edward Lee was an American hero who became anti-hero then hero again.
Five years post-war, his last seven months were marked with ill health and poor medical care. Washington College colleagues, where Lee served as president, prevailed upon him to take a vacation trip to the warmer South. With dreams of sun and citrus, Lee and his daughter Eleanor Agnes embarked on a less than soothing railroad journey to Florida, but the homeward return was an opposite story totally!
From the trip's first day in March 1870, R. E. Lee's passage was bracketed by blustery weather until the very end of his life seven months later. Perhaps aptly, the weather mirrored the torment festering in Lee's own soul. So many young lives lost. Why had he not argued more vehemently for the proposal of peace he'd so desired to present on the 4th of July, 1863, in York, Pennsylvania? Could not the epic bloodshed of Gettysburg have been prevented if his orders had been more explicit-not to fire first, not to bring battle unless attacked?
"A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance." Tears and laughter. Mourning and dancing. The book of life is never closed. Now at last, R.E. Lee was on his way to his Father's home repentant... "Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy . . . come sweeping by, where more is meant than meets the ear."