A PROCLAMATION BY THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE OF PUTNAM COUNTY, TENNESSEE

WHEREAS, Robert E. Lee revealed the highest degree of loyalty and patriotism to one's own state; and

WHEREAS, all citizens should remember the selflessness and the achievements of Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson; and

WHEREAS, Woodrow Wilson said of Robert E. Lee, "This man was not great because he was born of a soldier and bred in a school of soldiers, but because of whosoever he may have been born and howsoever he was bred; he was a man who saw his duty, who conceived it in high terms and who spent himself, not upon his own ambitions, but in the duty that lay before him."

WHEREAS, Jackson served briefly in the United States Army before joining the Confederate Army to fight for his native Southland after nearly a decade of teaching philosophy and military tactics as a professor at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington; and

WHEREAS, Lee dedicated his life after the War of Northern Aggression to reforming higher education in the South by serving as President of Washington College, now Washington & Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, greatly expanding the school's curriculum and financial resources to create an atmosphere conducive to education for young men of both Southern and Northern heritage; and

WHEREAS, Jackson's courage and leadership inspired his troops to several unlikely victories against opposition forces that greatly outnumbered his own, and despite being fatally wounded on the second day of the Battle of Chancellorsville, Jackson's "Stonewall Brigade" teamed with General Lee's troops to realize victory once again; and

WHEREAS, it is fitting to recognize Generals Lee and Jackson as two of our nation's great military strategists, as beloved leaders among their men, as pioneers in the field of higher education, and as dutiful patriots;