Lee Presidential Oath Plaque
Lee Presidential Oath Plaque
Bronze marker denoting the room in Payne Hall where Robert E. Lee took his oath of office as president of Washington College on October 2, 1865.
Erected: c.1940
Removed: July 2023
Originally Located In: Payne Hall
Current Status: Unknown
Commissioned By: University Board of Trustees and Leslie Lyle Campbell
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On October 2, 1865, Robert E. Lee took his oath of office as president of Washington College in a second-floor classroom of South Hall, later renamed Payne Hall. Thus began his monumental presidency, which transformed a sectarian institution exhausted by the Civil War into a modern liberal arts university.
On November 6, 1939, the Executive Committee of Washington and Lee's Board of Trustees directed its secretary to consult Dr. Leslie Lyle Campbell to identify and appropriately mark the room where Lee had taken his oath. Campbell, a local historian and founder of the Rockbridge Historical Society, was actively involved in preserving Lexington's historic buildings and landmarks.
The Trustees' directive was reported in the November 7 Ring-tum Phi, alongside several other improvements approved for Lee Chapel. By March 1940, the Ring-tum Phi reported that the Chapel improvements had been completed. Although the exact date of the oath-of-office plaque's installation remains unconfirmed, these developments suggest that it was erected around 1940.
University officials removed the plaque from Payne Hall in July 2023, alongside another marker identifying Lee's former office in the same building. The university declared shortly after that they would be contextualized in a new museum exhibit in the chapel. That exhibit was never installed.
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ROOM IN WHICH
GENERAL LEE
TOOK HIS OATH OF
OFFICE AS PRESIDENT OF
WASHINGTON COLLEGE -
In a July 16, 2023, statement, Washington and Lee University declared that its campus was “neither a museum nor an appropriate repository for Confederate artifacts.” The university identified four historical plaques recently removed from campus, including two from Payne Hall and two memorials to Traveller, which it announced were “being installed” in a “new permanent exhibit” in Lee Chapel titled The Power of Memory: Remembering Robert E. Lee.
The university never installed the promised exhibition. When the renovated chapel galleries reopened in June 2026, none of the four plaques appeared on display. In an August 21 response to The Generals Redoubt, Museum Director Matt Davis explained that “the exhibition plans changed with the establishment of the Department of Institutional History Museum and Galleries in July 2024.”
The university has not responded to subsequent TGR inquiries concerning the whereabouts and future exhibition of removed plaques. However, in September 2026 correspondence with The W&L Spectator, Davis stated: “Our storage facility is not open to the public, nor do we make a list of our collections inventory available to the public.” He further explained that “the size and weight of some of these artifacts are not conducive to public viewing.” Regarding their future exhibition, Davis wrote: “It is possible that some or all of these artifacts will eventually be incorporated into temporary or permanent exhibits once the new museum is open, and we hope to have online databases and viewing rooms in the future.”
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