[LEE, Robert E. (1807-1870)]. Albumen photograph of Lee with fellow Confederate officers and Northern philanthropists at White Sulphur Springs, WV. [Anderson & Johnson, August 1869].

5 3/4 x 7 5/8 in. albumen photograph on slightly larger cardstock mount.

Photograph of Robert E. Lee with some of his generals and several prominent Northern philanthropists, taken at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, August 1869. Ink script notation on verso identifies the subjects, and incorrectly dates the photograph "August 1870" instead of August 1869.

One of two known versions that was taken by photographers D.A. Anderson & G.G. Johnson, and one of the only from life photographs of Lee with his Generals in existence, during the war or after. Personalities in the portrait include: standing (left to right), Confederate generals James Connor, Martin W. Gary, John Bankhead Magruder, Robert D. Lilley, P.G.T. Beauregard, A.R. Lawton, Henry A. Wise, and Joseph L. Brent; seated, (left to right), Blacque Bey, Turkish envoy, Robert E. Lee, George Peabody and W.W. Corcoran, both philanthropists, and James Lyons, a Richmond lawyer. The Face of Robert E. Lee by Roy Meredith conveys the author's insightful commentary on the White Sulphur photographs as they mark Lee's gradual decline. The author explains that while the majority of the men remained remarkably still while the two plates were made, Lee "dropped his hat; he shifted in his chair in a way that suggests discomfort, even pain" (Meredith, 1981: 81).