Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510130076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
At the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, curators displayed Lee's death mask, a floral garland that was taken off his coffin, and a picture of the funeral procession on Oct. 12, 1870. A death mask is the plaster or papier-mache molding of the deceased man's face, a mourning ritual in the 19th century.
The commemoration at the college began at 9:30 a.m., when Robert Peniston rang the Lee Chapel bell to mark the hour of Lee's death.
Lee, who became president of what was then Washington College in 1865, died two weeks after suffering a stroke in his house on the campus, which remains the president's residence.
``He had just come home and started to say grace, and words wouldn't come, and he slumped,'' said Peniston, the director of Lee Chapel. ``They cleared the area, made a bed for him and that was where he died.''
Lee was buried in the family crypt below the chapel, and his horse, Traveller, is buried outside Lee's office, which is in the basement of the chapel. The horse's skeleton had been displayed on campus until 1960, when deterioration of its bones necessitated its burial.
About 200 people attended an afternoon memorial service at the chapel, where a group of W&L students in Civil War period uniforms flanked a statue of Lee portraying him asleep on the battlefield.
James Robertson, a Virginia Tech history professor and Civil War scholar who spoke at the service, said Lee was more than an icon of the Confederacy. ``He probably became the most revered man in America.''
Lee refused to let his name be used for commercial gain, led the revitalization of the bankrupt college and never expressed bitterness about the war or refought the battles.
``He, perhaps more than any other person, found victory in defeat,'' Robertson said. ``He was not vindictive and did what he could to point the South back into the union. He taught us how to live, and he showed us how to die.''
Robertson recounted the story of a mother who went to see Lee at the campus and asked him to talk her two sons out of going to college in the North. Lee reportedly responded, ``Madam, forget your animosities and make your sons Americans.''
by CNB