by Kamron M. Spivey
A quick walk across Washington and Lee University’s campus — or a skim through recent museum publications — reveals a troubling pattern of factual inaccuracies, weak sourcing, and careless historical interpretation. These problems are not isolated mistakes. They raise legitimate concerns about the reliability of the university’s forthcoming chapel galleries and the broader Institutional History Museum project.
Consider the Museums Department’s newsletter series, “Reinterred and Reinterpreted,” which promises “a closer look” at figures buried in the chapel, such as “Light Horse Harry” Lee and his wife, Anne Carter. These articles, however, contain a remarkable number of factual inaccuracies for a publication issued under the university’s institutional authority.
Most egregious of the errors is the claim that, “During his presidency of Washington College (known today as Washington and Lee University), Robert E. Lee visited his father’s grave in 1862.”
Lee did in fact journey to Cumberland Island, Georgia — the original burial site of his father — in January 1862. At that time, Robert E. Lee was a General overseeing coastal fortifications in service of the Confederate States of America. His visit to Cumberland Island was gratifying, he told his wife, Mary — a scenic respite from “the enemy’s gunboats,” which were “pushing up the creek to cut off communication between [Savannah] and Fort Pulaski.” He would not become president of Washington College until October 1865.
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