"Of course," she smiled, never saying one word about how warm and lovely they would make the double parlors in their own home.
The next box was opened with intense interest. The men lifted out the upper part of a handsome bookcase. The next brought the lower half, a lovely desk, with many drawers.
"Oh," thought Mrs. Lee. "That will fill up that terrible space between the windows."
"This is the very thing we want," General Lee said, as the men took them to the walk. "We will put that in the basement of the new chapel. We will use it for our records and put our best books in the bookcase, and this will be the beginning of our college library."
And so it went. He used the best of everything for his college, and Mrs. Lee took only the odds and ends which did not fit anywhere else. Someone told her she should have taken a stand and insisted upon taking some of the best.
"Oh, no," she laughed, "it was worth giving all of it up to see the joy the General had in putting it to use in his college. The boys come first—both of us are so interested in them."
General Lee died in October, 1870, loved by men and women, boys and girls in both the North and South. His body rests under a beautiful white marble figure, which was sculptured by his friend, Edward Valentine. It is called the Recumbent Statue of General Lee and lies in the Chapel of Washington and Lee. This is now a shrine to which hundreds come daily from all over the world to pay their homage, love and respect to this great man.
—Courtesy Virginia State Chamber of Commerce
Virginia Military Institute