Historical Highlight:

“[T]he victories won by [Lee] in the classic shades of Washington College”

Sponsored by Students for Historical Preservation (SHP)

On October 15, 1870, the Board of Trustees of Washington College called an emergency meeting in response to President Robert E. Lee’s death three days prior. The following excerpts come from the Trustees Minutes, and a full transcription can be provided by SHP upon request. Some minor reformatting has been made below for readability.

“Resolved. That in the midst of the deep calamity which has befallen us, in the death of our beloved President, we experience a profound pleasure and pride in recognizing the fact that the fame of General Lee, while it belongs to the whole country, is in a peculiar sense the heritage of Washington College; and that it is our duty, as it is our privilege, to provide suitable memorials whereby this precious possession shall be acknowledged and his name publickly [sic] held in grateful remembrance of this College in all future time.

“Resolved – That a Committee be appointed to confer with a like Committee appointed by the Board of Trustees to report measures and plans for the erection of a suitable monument to Gen. Lee in the room in which his remains are to be interred & further to consider & recommend such other monuments and memorials as may be deemed suitable in the College.

“Resolved That this Committee be requested to make arrangements for the delivery of a Eulogy on the life & character of General Lee in the College Chapel on the 19th day of January: and we further express, the hope that this anniversary like the birthday of Washington, will be hereafter always celebrated in this College.

“Resolved, That the said Committee be requested also to confer & report to their respective bodies on the subject of so amending the present charter of Washington College that the name of this Institution may hereafter ever express in fit conjunction the immortal names of Washington and Lee, whose lives were so similar in their perfect renown, and with both of whom equally by singular good fortune it is entitled to be associated in its future history.

…

The event just officially announced, has awakened in our bosoms emotions of unutterable sadness. General Robert Edward Lee is dead! The peerless soldier and patriot, wise as Nestor in counsel, brave as Achilles in the field, has gently, uncomplainingly, breathed out his heroic spirit to the God who gave it.

No “Storied urn or animated bust” is needed to perpetuate such a fame as his. The story of his noble life, and calm & peaceful death is the heritage of his country and the muse of History will preserve it forever on her imperishable tablets. When that record is made up, there will be none more beautiful, none more faultless, than that of Robert Edward Lee.

We admired his chivalric gallantry in the field, attested by an hundred well fought fields, — for his singularly modest military reports to the Secretary of War, of numerous victories won, for which he claimed no merit for himself but gave all the glory to God — for his affectionate devotion to his brave & suffering rank & file of the army, —for his rigid adherence to the rules of civilized warfare, from which no bad example of a less scrupulous enemy could even tempt him to severe a single hair’s breadth.     For such gallantry as Gen. Lee displayed as Commander in Chief of the Army of Northern Virginia we extolled him deservedly and without stint. But there is more true heroism in pursuing the unambitious paths of peace than in the clangor and the red artillery of war: And we love Gen. Lee chiefly for the victories won by him in the classic shades of Washington College and, to our seeming, the lowliest but loveliest leaf in the thickly garlanded chaplet of his Fame is that which records his heroic devotion to Duty.

But though it be true as we have said that the fame of our beloved President needs no “Storied urn or animated bust” to perpetuate it, yet it is unquestionably true that it is due to ourselves and the precious trust committed to us, that a monument shall be erected on the grounds of Washington College, to record through the coming centuries the unsurpassed glories of Lee, not as much for his sake, as for that of the youth of our country, who may be stimulated by his great example to emulate his virtues. Such incentives are of exquisite use to the living & the noblest use to which the excellent of earth can be dedicated, after death, is as a monument to the illustrious dead, to elevate, refine & ennoble the living.

The most munificent patron of our College was George Washington: he who reanimated and infused into it new and vigorous life, after its prostration by war was Robert Edward Lee. How fit it is that two of the most renowned names of their respective centuries as Washington and Lee be forever hereafter associated indissoluble, as Founder and Restorer of our beloved College! Like Saul and Jonathan they were beautiful in life and in death should not be divided.