his time Fairfax had drawn his pistol and covered the body of Lee, as
he was raising his sword for a third thrust. Lee, seeing the pistol,
stepped back and threw up his arms exclaiming, "I am unarmed"--though
he had only that moment withdrawn his sword from the body of Fairfax,
and it was then dripping with blood. "Shoot the damned scoundrel,"
cried the latter's friend, Samuel B. Smith, then standing by his side.
But Fairfax did not shoot. Looking at Lee, whose body was covered
with his pistol, while the blood was trickling from his own person,
he said, "You are an assassin! you have murdered me! I have you in my
power! your life is in my hands!" And gazing on him, he added, "But
for the sake of your poor sick wife and children I will spare you." He
thereupon uncocked his pistol and handed it to his friend, into whose
arms he fell fainting. He had known the wife of Lee when a young girl;
and, afterwards, in speaking of the affair to a friend, he said, "I
thought my wife would be a widow before sundown, and I did not wish to
leave the world making another." All California rang with the story
of this heroic act. It has its parallel only in the self-abnegation of
the dying hero on the battle-field, who put away from his parched lips
the cup of water tendered to him, and directed that it be given to a
wounded soldier suffering in agony by his side, saying, "His need is
greater than mine."

During the war his sympathies, as was the case with most Southerners
in California, were with his people in Virginia. He told me on one
occasion that he could not but wish they would succeed; but, he said;
"Though I am a Virginian by birth, I have adopted California, and
whilst I live in a State which has taken her stand with the Northern
people, I cannot in honor do anything, and I will not, to weaken her
attachment to the Union. If my health were good I should leave the
State and return to Virginia and give my services to her; but, as that
is impossible, I shall remain in California, and, whilst here, will
not be false to her by anything I do or say."

These incidents, better than any elaborate description, illustrate the
character of the man. He was a lineal descendant of the great Fairfax
family which has figured so conspicuously in the history of England
and of Virginia. He was its tenth Baron in a direct line. But
notwithstanding the rank of his family he was a republican in his
convictions. He loved his country and its institution