This is my Photograph of the famous statue by Edward Valentine portraying a recumbent Lee resting on the battlefield and is located in the Lee Chapel in Lexington, Va.

In a marble-walled sepulcher above the family 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.  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.

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 were 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