Albert Sidney Johnston Camp #67

Sons of Confederate Veterans

GENERAL ROBERT EDWARD LEE, C.S.A.

January 19, 1807 - October 12, 1870

Robert E. Lee was born at Stratford, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1807, the son of "Lighthorse Harry Lee," the Revolutionary War hero. At the age of four, Robert and his family moved to Alexandria, Virginia. He was 12 when his father died, leaving Robert as the head of the household.

After graduating from West Point second in his class and without a single demerit, he married Mary Custis and started a family.

His military career began with the Mexican War, which gave him a promotion and early fame. He later became superintendent of West Point Academy. When the War Between the States began, he was unable to side against his native Virginia, and so resigned his U.S. Army commission and joined the Confederate Army, where his leadership became legend.

After Appomattox, because of all the suffering and so much that had been lost, Lee suffered a time of inner struggle. A new age was dawning, and he could see that much needed to be done to restore the South to its former glory. A new age of industry needed to be added to the old age of plantation and agricultural life, but, being a professional soldier, Lee wondered if he would be capable of bringing peace and harmony to his beloved Southland.

While the Union Army had ravished the land and a great deal had been laid to waste, there remained the greatest treasure of all-the minds of the young people of the South. While Lee was contemplating the task before him, the trustees of Washington college, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, borrowed $50, a horse, and a suit of clothes, and asked judge John Brockenbrough to use them to seek out Robert E. Lee and persuade him to accept the Presidency of Washington College.

Time and history had called a hasty conference, and Robert E. Lee stepped from the ranks of human­ity to set an example for thousands. On a September morning in 1865, Lee mounted his horse, Traveller, for a three-day ride to Lexington, where he devoted the last five years of his life to Washington College as its president. Lee had become, in the eyes of many Southerners, the Confederate Cause incarnate, and their champion of peace.

At Washington College, after the death of Lee, Senator McCreery, of Kentucky, said:

"Robert E. Lee's transition from the camp to the classroom was a rare occurrence. Lee's ambition was to make Washington College an institution of high scholastic standards, and the seats of science and of art as well as literature. Undismayed by the manifold problems at his college, through administration ability, zeal, and energy, he overcame them all to create a solid institution. "

The memory of Robert E. Lee, champion of war, champion of peace, will remain in the hearts of mankind for all time.

Mr. Jackson M. Richardson