Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

A Guide to a Robert E. Lee Letter, Accession 5655-a, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

This letter was given to the Library by Mr. Julius Barclay, Curator of Rare Books, Department of Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, on November 17, 1988.

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Scope and Content

In this three page autograph letter from Robert E. Lee , Lexington, Virginia, to Professor Charles S. Venable , the University of Virginia, July 6, 1866, Lee thanks Professor Venable for his kind invitation to attend the Teacher's Convention on the seventeenth of [July ?], which he must decline because of a prior commitment to attend the meeting of the Board of Trustees of Washington College , as President of Washington College.

Lee also writes of his advice to his son Custis to visit the Springs for their medical benefits, and his own intentions of taking Mrs. Lee to the Rockbridge Baths and Warm Springs . He asks Venable's advice about filling the vacant chair of "Mental and Moral Philosophy" at Washington College.