Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee

“ [404] and restore her to more than her pristine usefulness and prosperity.” General Lee had already declined the presidency of the Suwanee University of Tennessee, and shrank from any connection with the University of Virginia, on the ground that one was a denominational and the other a State university. He considered this matter nineteen days, and then wrote that he feared he would be unable to “discharge the duties to the satisfaction of the trustees or to the benefit of the country.” Then, too, he was excluded from the terms of amnesty in the proclamation of the President of the United States, he said, and “an object of censure to a portion of the country,” and he was afraid he might draw upon the college a feeling of hostility, and therefore cause injury to an institution which it would be his highest desire to advance, and concluded by saying, “I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony, and in no way to oppose the policy of the State or General Government directed to that object” ; and that, after what had been written, if the board should still think his services would be advantageous to the college and country, he would yield to their judgment and accept.

The trustees on August 31st adopted and transmitted to General Lee resolutions that, in spite of his objections, in their opinion, “his connection with the institution will greatly promote its prosperity and advance the general interest of education,” and solicited him to enter upon the duties of the presidency of the college at his earliest convenience. The “happy audacity,” as one of the professors of the Virginia Military Institute termed it, of the trustees gave to them the victory. That General Lee should put aside the many large and lucrative offers and accept this position at the salary then offered --fifteen hundred dollars per annum — was but in keeping with his great character. Washington College had descended from a classical school taught in the Valley of Virginia as early as the year 1749, known as the Augusta Academy. On May 13, 1776, nearly two months before the Declaration of Independence, in response to the patriotic sentiment of the times, the name was changed to