Robert E. Lee Chapel Seat

During his presidency of Washington College, Robert E. Lee attended morning chapel services alongside the institution's students and faculty, hoping to set an example of Christian devotion for the nation's youth. His customary seat in the college chapel, completed in 1868, was on the north side, near the front of the sanctuary. As students and veterans who had personally known Lee passed away, the precise location of this seat was gradually forgotten.

Among those determined to preserve these memories was Dr. Edward Clifford Gordon. Gordon had served as librarian, proctor, and faculty clerk during Lee's presidency and subsequently as a University trustee for over thirty years. At Gordon's suggestion, Washington and Lee history professor Franklin L. Riley wrote to the Board of Trustees on June 13, 1921, proposing a modest engraved marker identifying Lee's customary seat. Gordon and Riley had recently recovered its precise location through what Riley described as “considerable investigation.”

Riley had for several years been engaged, at the University's behest, in a broader effort to preserve firsthand accounts of Lee's years in Lexington. This project culminated in his 1922 volume, General Robert E. Lee After Appomattox, which brought together Gordon's recollections and those of more than two dozen former students who had known Lee during his presidency. The proposed marker reflected a broader institutional movement to commemorate the General's legacy amid the prosperity and generational change of the 1920s. Presumably installed shortly after Riley's request, the marker attracted little recorded public attention, and The Generals Redoubt has been unable to establish its precise installation date. For nearly a century, the plaque stood as one of the most recognizable memorials within the chapel sanctuary.

University officials removed the plaque alongside other memorials from the Chapel sanctuary in 2021. In June 2026, the University returned the inscription to public display in the newly renovated “Foundations and Frameworks” gallery of the chapel museum.

THIS MARKS THE PLACE
WHERE
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE
SAT DURING
DAILY CHAPEL WORSHIP
WHILE PRESIDENT OF
WASHINGTON COLLEGE

On June 4, 2021, the Washington and Lee University Board of Trustees announced plans to rename Lee Chapel and restore its auditorium to an “unadorned design,” physically separating it from the Lee family crypt and memorial sculpture. As part of these changes, university officials removed twenty historical plaques and memorials from the chapel sanctuary.

In a July 21, 2022, update, the university announced that “most of the other plaques will be moved to the galleries in the building or to the new institutional history museum, where they can be displayed with more historical context.”

When the renovated chapel galleries reopened in June 2026, six memorials removed from the chapel sanctuary in 2021, including this one, were returned to public display. These plaques were installed together in a display case in the Foundations and Frameworks exhibit of the chapel museum, without accompanying descriptions, interpretation, or historical context.

Eleven memorials removed from the chapel in 2021 have still not been returned to public display. The university has not responded to recent TGR inquiries concerning the whereabouts and future exhibition of removed plaques. However, in September 2026 correspondence with The W&L Spectator, Museum Director Matt 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.”

1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/General_Robert_E._Lee_after_Appomattox_%28IA_generalroblee00rilerich%29.pdf

2. Franklin L. Riley to the Board of Trustees of Washington and Lee University, June 13, 1921, Trustees Papers, Folder 404, Special Collections and Archives, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA.

3. https://www.wlu.edu/about-w-l/leadership/board-of-trustees/messages-from-the-board-of-trustees/message-archive-2020-2023/the-future-of-washington-and-lee-university

4. https://columns.wlu.edu/update-on-university-chapel-renovations/

5. https://columns.wlu.edu/university-chapel-renovations-nearing-completion/