Lee Chapel is Mecca for Many Pilgrims

Shrine at Lexington Attracting Increased Number
of Tourists, Custodian Reports

By Rouse

Men in grey will continue to honor the memory of the great commander, Robert E. Lee, for many a year to come, for the grey-clad cadets of Virginia Military Instutute never pass Lee Chapel in Lexington where General Lee is buried, without a reverential salute.

Not only "Marse Robert" but 15 other members of the great Lee clan are interred in the mausoleum of the famous chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee University, "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, father of General Lee; Anne Carter Lee, his mother; Mary Custis Lee, his wife; George Washington Custis Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, and Robert E. Lee, Jr. his sons, and Misses Mildred and Mary Custis Lee, his daughters--all are buried in the crypt of the mausoleum, in addition to other members of the famous Virginia family.

In a marble-walled sepulchre above the tombs rests the recumbent statue of Lee, almost lifelike in the dim shadows of the chapel. Thousands of tourists from all over the world annually visit this Lee shrine and treasure-spot of Southern history.

Not only is Lee buried in the chapel but it was he who planned and supervised its building. As president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, from 1865 to his death in 1870, he obtained funds and drew up plans for the building, which was to serve as the religious and adminstrative center of the college. In its auditorium students met every morning for devotionals led by ministers of Lexington. College functions, speeches, entertainments, and graduation exercises were held there. In the basement, now a museum, were the offices of the president, the college library, Y. M. C. A., and several classrooms. The mausoleum was not added to the chapel until 1883.

Today Lee Chapel with its seating capacity of 600 can no longer accommodate Washington and Lee's 850 students at one time, but it is still widely used for meetings of the various departments of the university. Its basement classrooms have been converted into a Lee museum, leaving only General Lee's office intact. It is no longer the vital unit of campus activity that it used to be, but it has grown in significance to become a shrine for all those who revere Lee and who admire the traditions of the old South.

Valentine's recumbent statue is probably the most widely known feature of the chapel today. After General Lee's death a movement was begun to erect a monument to him at the college where he had spent the closing years of his life. Generous contributions were made by W. W. Corcoran of Washington, Cyrus McCormick, General J. E. B. Stuart, General R. D. Lilly, and women's memorial associations throughout the South.

Richmond College Students Escort Statue to Lexington

Edward Valentine, Richmond sculptor, and a friend of the Lees, was chosen by Mrs. Lee to make the statue. Of the designs he submitted she chose a recumbent figure suggested by the statue of Louise of Prussia in the museum at Charlottenburg. Mr. Valentine set to work at his studio in Richmond, now the Valentine Museum, and finally, on April 1, 1875, announced the work finished. The statue had taken three years for completion and cost $15,000.

Students of Richmond College immediately made application for "the privilege of taking charge of the monument when it is sent up to Lexington and bearing the expenses of its transportation." The courteous offer was accepted by officials of Washington and Lee University, and the statue was conveyed by boat up the James River Canal, accompanied by a cortege of Richmond College students.

The carefully-guarded figure was turned over to Washington and Lee by the Richmond group and temporarily housed in old north dormitory on the university campus. Immediately plans got underway for a mausoleum to contain the statue and the remains of General Lee, which had already been interred in a tomb in the floor of the museum. General Joseph E. Johnston was elected president of the Lee Memorial Association to secure funds for the mausoleum, and on November 29, 1878, General Johnston, assisted by John Randolph Tucker, laid the cornerstone for the structure.

Funds for the construction gave out in two years, before even the roof and the interior had been completed. About $24,000 had already been spent by the association and $5,000 more was needed. The Memorial Association agreed to deed the statue and mausoleum over to the university on condition "that the mausoleum shall be preserved as a perpetual place of sepulture for the remains of General Robert E. Lee and Mrs. Lee and such other members of their family as it may be the pleasure of the family to have interred there . . . " The proposal was accepted and within a year the mausoleum was completed. The recumbent statue was placed in it, and on June 28, 1883, the unveiling ceremonies were held.

John W. Daniel, Virginia statesman, delivered the dedicatory address in the absence of Jefferson Davis, who was unable to attend because of age and ill-health. More than 10,000 people stood on the university campus to hear the famous orator deliver a three-hour eulogy. Among the invited guests were ex-Confederate soldiers, former cabinet officers of the Confederacy, general officers of the Confederate army and navy, members of General Lee's staff, survivors of the "Stonewall Brigade," Governors of the Southern States, and State officials of Virginia.

Recumbent Figure Unveiled Eight Years After Completion

At the close of the stirring oration a salute was fired by survivors of the "Rockbridge Artillery" from guns used by Jackson's army at the first battle of Manassas. Then Miss Julia Jackson, daughter of "Stonewall," pulled aside the curtain to reveal the statue to the public gaze--eight years after its completion!

The simple dignity of the memorial won it wide acclaim as soon as it was unveiled, and today it is recognized as one of the finest monuments in marble ever created. The statue surmounts a marble sarcophagus and represents General Lee asleep in his tent after a battle. At the foot of the sarcophagus is the simple inscription:

Robert Edward Lee
Born
January 19, 1809
Died
October 12, 1870

Today wrought-iron gates separate the mausoleum from the remainder of the chapel. These were added in 1929 after it was observed that tourists had begun to efface the marble for "souvenirs." The gates are never opened except for memorial services and as a special courtesy to distinguished visitors.

The chapel contains other artistic masterpieces, including the original Peale portraits of Washington and of Lafayette, originally at Mount Vernon, and Gilbert Stuart portraits of Washington, Madison, Marshall and Jefferson. Other pictures of Washington and Lee's presidents and benefactors hang in the chapel. Busts of Washington and Lee, the gift of Isadore Straus, were added in 1883.

The Peale portrait of Washington, representing him in the uniform of a British colonel, is of inestimable value. It is the only portrait ever made of Washington as a young man and the only one showing him in British uniform, which he wore during the period of the French and Indian Wars. The portrait was painted at Mount Vernon in 1772, and remained there until after Washington's death, when it and the Lafayette portrait were given to George Washington Parke Custis of Arlington. On his death they became the property of his daughter, Mary Custis, who willed them on her death to her eldest son, General George Washington Custis Lee. He in turn gave them to the university when he suceeded his father as president.

The Peale Washington was reproduced by the United States Government on a special Washington sesquicentennial stamp in 1932, through the courtesy of the university, and the original was loaned to the Federal Government for exhibition in Washington the same year.

Intimate Connection With University's History

Except for the pictures and the electric lighting which have been added, Lee Chapel is almost as it was in General Lee's time. The hand-carved speaker's stand and rosewood furniture that New Orleans friends gave General Lee are arranged on the platform just as he had them. The straight-backed pews, planed by hand in post-war Lexington, are kept intact, much to the discomfiture of students and others who must sit in them.

The building's connection with the history of Washington and Lee University is intimate. All presidents of the institution since Lee have taken office there--George Washington Custis Lee, William L. Wilson, George H. Denny, Henry Louis Smith, and Francis Pendleton Gaines. Final exercises are always held there, and Newton D. Baker, John W. Davis, George C. Peery, James L. Price and others high in the counsels of State and nation have received academic or law degrees from its rostrum.

In the museum on the basement floor of the chapel has been assembled the most complete collection of Lee memorabilia anywhere in the country. Prominently displayed there is the Lee family collection of pictures, composed largely of portraits of ancestors of the Lees and the Washingtons. Dr. George Bolling Lee of New York, a grandson of General Lee, has loaned the museum a large numer of articles owned by the general.