To keep this charge, Lee rejected many lucrative business offers following the war. Instead, he accepted the challenge of leading the South in peace by serving as president of a struggling college in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Washington College became Lee s final legacy. Serving as president from 1865 until his death in 1870, Lee s quiet and dignified manner pervaded the institution. In his first year as president, a student asked Lee to detail the college s rules of conduct. He responded that, We have no printed rules here, we have but one rule and that is that every student be a gentleman.
The construction of a chapel was one of the first recommendations made by Lee to the Board of Trustees. Lee Chapel, as it became known, opened in 1868, and quickly became a focal point for students to assemble as well as a place to worship, if they so chose. For Lee, religious faith was central to life. He began every day at the morning chapel service.
This story of Lee s final years shows how a small chapel became both the object of controversy and the final resting place for one of America s greatest military commanders and statesmen.