General Lee’s Beloved Traveller

Traveller, first called Jeff Davis and later Greenbrier, was born in 1857 near Blue Sulphur Springs, now in West Virginia. In 1862, Lee purchased him and renamed him after one of George Washington’s horses. This sturdy American saddlebred, sixteen hands high, iron gray with black mane and tail, carried Lee through many of the Civil War’s major campaigns and later on pleasant late afternoon rides into the hillsides around Lexington. Not long after Lee’s death, Traveller stepped on a nail and developed tetanus. He died in the summer of 1871 and was buried in a ravine behind the college. A century later, his skeleton was reburied here.

Lexington, Virginia · United States