Lee Exhibit In Richmond For Year

RICHMOND, Va. - "R.E. Lee: The Exhibition," which opened last January at The Museum of the Confeder-acy, will now run through 2001. "We are extremely pleased with the response we've had over the last year," said Executive Director Robin Reed.

The exhibition illustrates Lee's life through the most comprehensive compilation of his personal effects and other artifacts ever assembled, more than 90 percent of them from the museum's collections.

Beginning with his family ties, the exhibition uses Lee's own objects, images and words to relate the breadth of experience that defined his life - West Point training, 26 years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, superintendency of the U.S. Military Academy, Mexican War mapping and reconnaissance, command of U.S. Cavalry forces in Texas and of troops that quelled John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, Va.

With the dawn of the Civil War, Lee embarked upon a new phase in his military career, becoming the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Eventually he evolved into the living embodiment of the spirit of the Confederate forces, beloved by his men and the Southern public.

After Appomattox, Lee became the president of Washington College in Lexington, Va., so positively affecting the school that his name was added to the title upon his death in 1870. The exhibit also presents many items representing Lee's legacy in popular American culture. The correspondence written by or to Lee leaves the readers with the sense of a warm, spiritual
human.

The Museum of the Confederacy and White House of the Confederacy are in the historic Court End neighborhood in downtown Richmond and are open to the public Monday-Saturday 10-5 and Sunday 12-5. For additional information,
call (804) 649-1861 or visit www.moc.org.