By Kamron Spivey ‘24

This paper regards the Liberty Hall Volunteers memorial tablet once proudly displayed on the front wall in the vestibule of Lee Chapel—now referred to as University Chapel. Amid the haste of changes dealt to the Chapel’s interior since June, this 500-pound marble plaque has been torn down and hidden from public view. And while I passionately disapprove of the modifications to the Chapel (for both historical and practical reasons), this letter will only comment on the Liberty Hall Volunteers tablet and its current treatment: a treatment which I argue extremely disrespects the Washington College students and alumni engraved on it.

“Liberty Hall Volunteers” was the nickname given to Company I of the Fourth Virginia Infantry Regiment under General Thomas J. Jackson’s brigade in the Confederate States of America. The “Stonewall Brigade”, as it was more commonly known, gained international fame in the early months of the American Civil War. This brief paper cannot delve into the intricacies of such campaigns but will offer a short summary of the Liberty Hall Volunteers (LHV).[1]

Secessionist fervor imbued the young men attending Washington College leading up to the Civil War. By June 1861, the college had formed a military company of 72 men, Company I (18 of whom were not current Washington College students, but Rockbridge residents. Many would attend Washington College after the war).[2] Two other companies formed in Rockbridge: Company H, the Rockbridge Grays, and Company K, the Rockbridge Rifles.[3] Before Company I departed from Lexington to Staunton, the ladies of Falling Springs (Presbyterian) Church presented the boys with a company flag inscribed with Pro aris et focis (“For altar and home”). This motto rests at the bottom of the LHV memorial tablet.[4]

The tablet also succinctly summarizes that “They [the Liberty Hall Volunteers] fought in thirty two battles from Manassas to Appomattox, where the remnant surrendered with Lee.” Over the course of the war, Company I suffered many casualties and recruited soldiers from outside of Rockbridge (including at least five Washington College alumni).[5] These boys’ experiences provide a vital insight into the American Civil War and into the life of Washington College students both before and after the war. As W&L Professor Emeritus of History, W.G. Bean, clearly marks, the story of the Liberty Hall Volunteers “is a story of people.”[6] Those who commissioned the memorial plaque understood that camaraderie.

But what is the plaque’s origin story? The staff in Special Collections compiled an array of primary sources about a Liberty Hall Volunteers memorial.[7] The earliest reference goes back to the Trustees Minutes of June 1888, in which it was “Resolved_ That a committee be appointed to suggest some suitable memorial commemoration of the ‘Liberty Hall Volunteers’.” The Rector then appointed one of the LHV veterans, A.T. Barclay, to head the committee. This topic had surely been discussed in the decades prior, and it would continue to acquire university attention for a couple more. On June 15, 1892, the Trustees declared that the tablet would be placed in the Chapel, that designs and costs for a marble and bronze plaque be attained, and that these be submitted to President G.W.C. Lee and the Trustees before the next meeting.

The financial struggles of the college in the late Nineteenth Century likely resulted in the suspension of funding, but the project was not forgotten. On June 18, 1901, the Trustees Minutes discuss the collaboration of university professors and LHV veterans in recording the Company roll, “and that the Board, recognizing the facts to be correct, direct it to be filed in the records.” The university worked closely with LHV veterans, such as Alexander S. Paxton, who was authorized to publish his “memorial or history of the Liberty Hall Volunteers…as one of the historical publications of the University[.]”

Decades of collaboration between trustees, veterans, faculty, and students emphasize one thing: the unanimity of the project within the W&L community. Unlike many Civil War memorials, this veteran plaque has no affiliation with the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) or other outside organizations. The drive for this tablet was irrefutably championed by the firm admiration of those alumni who fought and died for their community and school. This bond certainly enhanced as most of the survivors returned to rebuild that desolate community and school after the war. The unveiling of a tablet in their honor in many ways expresses the success pioneered by those veterans in rebuilding what became Washington and Lee University.

The finished tablet, however, would not be dedicated until June 14, 1910. That Tuesday, nearly fifty years after Company I initially formed, fifteen LHV veterans assembled as guests of honor in the unveiling of the 52” x 52” marble memorial in Lee Chapel. The morning was filled with pomp as LHV veterans like Rev. Dr. Givens B. Strickler addressed his comrades and fellow W&L family. One portion of his speech, cited in various accounts, reads as follows:

Time will not suffice to tell in detail the story of the services bravely rendered, and sufferings cheerfully borne in battle, in bivouac, and upon the toilsome march in summer’s heat and dust, in winter’s cold, mud and snow. That story must some day be written by some pen inspired by truth and love. When it shall be truly written it will be a story of which any University or any land must be proud, for it will be a story of dauntless courage, of unselfish devotion to duty, of suffering endured without a murmur, and death encountered without a qualm.[8]

At the time of the tablet’s placement, and for over a century that followed, W&L was proud of their veterans. As a July 1910 Summer Bulletin declares, “The tablet…was that evening transferred to its permanent position in the chapel vestibule[,]” which “ended an occasion that will be cherished in the memory of many of those who were present.” The LHV veterans, naturally, cherished the plaque the most. In a letter of appreciation written to the Board of Trustees on June 15, 1910, the survivors “make our grateful acknowledgement to the…University, for the consideration and kindness manifested by them in the erection of this Memorial, …In token of our appreciation of the honor done us, and our absent comrades, dead and alive, we are, Most Respectful[.]”

        I doubt the Liberty Hall Volunteers would share that same appreciation today. W&L claims to have removed the LHV tablet to secure an “unadorned design” in the interior of the Chapel. Clearly, however, the first items removed from the Chapel sanctuary were those affiliated with the Confederacy (“Lee” included); most of the plaques remained fixed to the wall until late 2021. When I inquired on the status of other plaques and their removal, I was informed that the process of unadornment would take time, and that the administration had hoped to remove as much as possible before classes resumed this Fall. Why, then, would the school remove the heaviest and largest plaque (the LHV tablet) before some of the smaller and easier ones? The veteran plaque has clearly been targeted for its relation to the Confederacy, getting purged in the first wave of our school’s anti-Civil War agenda.

         The removal from the Chapel, however, is not the most disrespectful action taken against the LHV memorial and its veterans. More disrespectful is that the administration has no plan or timeline for putting the plaque back up. I was told that the tablet is secured in someone’s office, but I have little assurance that it has not been discarded. At any rate, the memorial is hidden from view, and the descendants of those seventy-seven men listed as Liberty Hall Volunteers cannot pay respect to their ancestors. Likewise, neither the living descendants nor those groups entrusted with the preservation of this community’s historical events had any consultation about the removal of the LHV plaque. The removal of that plaque was not mentioned within the W&L community, and its 111-year presence in Lee Chapel will likely never be spoken of again by the Chapel’s curators.

         This complaint draws beyond the tablet’s relation with the Confederacy. If the school tore down any of the plaques honoring W&L alums who served in other American wars, equal outrage would be justified. Outside the Chapel Parking Lot, you will see seven plaques ranging from World War I to the War on Terror. This area reminds us of the students and alumni we lost in order to preserve what we have. It would not be fair to dishonor the Liberty Hall Volunteers simply because the current administration does not favor them. Washington College and Lexington especially struggled during the American Civil War. The school nearly closed, and a Union assault on the town in 1864 destroyed most of their prospects.[9] On a larger scale, the Civil War remains the deadliest event in American history, both by relative and absolute measures (recent studies indicate a death toll of 750,000 or more). If W&L discontinues its memorialization of the Liberty Hall Volunteers, they likewise disrespect the hundreds of thousands of men who served and died Pro aris et focis.

         I hope that this grievous consequence is not the intention of Washington and Lee University. The school can rectify this mistake by again fixing the tablet onto a permanent display. I propose that the ideal location remains in the vestibule of the Chapel, as intended by generations of W&L alumni and leaders. There is an undeniable connection between those Confederate veterans and the resting place of Robert E. Lee, under whom they served in the Army of Northern Virginia. However, another proper location for the plaque would be among the other seven war memorial tablets outside the Chapel Parking Lot. Whether our alumni served and died in 1861, 1917, 1941, 1950, 1965, 1991, 2001, or later, they bled so that our country and our campus could endure. We owe far more than a marble tablet to those individuals, and it would be a shame to deprive them of even that.

         Location of the LHV plaque aside, urgency is critical. The college boys in Company I spent every day reminded of their service and sacrifice; we have no excuse to not spend every day remembering that legacy. The Board of Trustees must determine where to place the Liberty Hall Volunteers tablet with haste and make the necessary arrangements to attach it immediately. I offer my assistance, along with that of Students for Historical Preservation, in restoring the memorial to its proper site. Likewise, I recognize that we owe the same respect to the few Washington College alumni who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. While they are not included in any W&L memorial—due in part to a lack of records—an adequate plaque ought to be devoted to them; I would love to assist in such a project. In the meantime, we can easily rectify the disrespect levied against our Liberty Hall Volunteers by giving their 1910 marble tablet a proper reception.

Kamron M. Spivey
Washington and Lee University ‘24
President – Students for Historical Preservation

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[1] For a thorough exploration of the Liberty Hall Volunteers and the Stonewall Brigade, please see W.G. Bean, The Liberty Hall Volunteers (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 2009). Bean, Professor of History at W&L, published the first edition in 1964. The version I reference includes additional commentary and graphics.

[2] Bean, 201-206. Many of the surviving students would also return to Washington College after the war.

[3] Ibid, 184-1. Seven other companies formed the 4th VA Regiment, primarily from Montgomery County.

[4] Ibid, 13, 24-2. This flag was returned to Washington College during “Stonewall” Jackson’s funeral and stolen from the college during Hunter’s 1864 Union Raid of Lexington. The flag was recently rediscovered in West Virginia.

[5] Ibid, 206-210. The memorial tablet lists five alumni recruits, though there appears to have been more.

[6] Ibid, viii.

[7] The evidence I cite, unless otherwise stated, comes from W&L Special Collections. I am working with extracted scans and thus cannot properly cite each source. For further research, please contact Special Collections directly.

[8] Bean, 200-33.

[9] Union General Hunter’s Raid on Lexington can be better understood through primary accounts of townsfolk, and through scholarly works such as Lexington, Virginia and the Civil War, by Richard William Jr.

[10] Bean, 68-2. Joe T. Chester’s death is especially tragic, as his parents were not alerted of his death until over a year later. That might explain why his name was initially excluded on the Liberty Hall Volunteers tablet.