2009 Robert E. Lee Southern Hero Silver Round

MintNorthwest Territorial Mint (Auburn, Washington)

IssuerSilver Trading Company (Shreveport, LA)

DistributorSilver Trading Company (Shreveport, LA)

CollectionSouthern Hero Silver Coin Collection

A high-relief bust of General Robert E. Lee facing slightly right. Surrounding inscriptions read "GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE" and "1807–1870." The lower fields are inscribed "1 TROY OZ" and ".999 FINE SILVER."

The Great Seal of the Confederate States of America: George Washington on horseback within a wreath of the South's principal crops. Legends read "THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA," "22 FEBRUARY 1862," and "DEO VINDICE."

2009 Robert E. Lee Southern Hero Silver Round Overview

The 2009 Robert E. Lee Southern Hero Silver Round is a one troy ounce .999 fine silver commemorative honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807–1870). It was designed and commissioned by Larry LaBorde, owner of the Silver Trading Company of Shreveport, Louisiana, who first promoted it as a tribute to the 200th anniversary of Lee’s birth. It is one of four portrait rounds in the Southern Hero Silver Coin Collection, alongside Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Jefferson Davis.

Lee was born on January 19, 1807, at Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of Revolutionary War cavalry commander Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee. He graduated second in the West Point class of 1829 without a single demerit and spent much of his early career in the Army Corps of Engineers, including work to keep the Mississippi River channel open at St. Louis. He served under Winfield Scott in the Mexican War, returned to West Point as superintendent from 1852 to 1855, and then spent the last years of his U.S. Army service on the Texas frontier with the 2nd U.S. Cavalry at Camp Cooper and Fort Mason, briefly commanding the Department of Texas. He was in Texas when the state seceded in early 1861.

When Virginia left the Union in April 1861, Lee declined an offer of senior Union command, resigned his commission, and joined the Confederacy. He took command of the Army of Northern Virginia on June 1, 1862, led it until its surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and spent his final years as president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, now Washington and Lee University. He died there on October 12, 1870. His legacy remains contested, particularly around slavery and the postwar Lost Cause tradition, and the round reflects how its issuer chose to remember him rather than a settled historical judgment.

The obverse presents Lee in high relief, framed by his name and his life dates. The portrait was adapted from well-known period photographs of the general, the same approach the issuer used for every bust in the series. The reverse carries the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America, whose central figure is not Lee but George Washington on horseback. The rider is taken from Thomas Crawford’s equestrian statue on Capitol Square in Richmond, which was unveiled on Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1858. Jefferson Davis took his oath as president of the permanent Confederate government in front of that unfinished monument on February 22, 1862, the date struck on the seal. The Confederate Congress adopted the seal’s design in 1863, and it was engraved in London by Joseph Shepherd Wyon in 1864; its wreath of cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, rice, wheat, and corn and its motto DEO VINDICE (“God will vindicate”) are reproduced closely on the round. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources records the statue’s role in the seal’s design.

Silver Trading Company sold the series in two forms. A limited proof edition of 200 coins per subject was struck from the original dies, each serial-numbered on the edge and sold in a blue velvet presentation box with an Airtite capsule. Alongside it, unnumbered bullion strikes of the same designs were sold in bulk at a small premium over the silver spot price. The documented example examined for this entry [confirm: carries no edge serial and is a bullion strike].

2009 Robert E. Lee Southern Hero Silver Round Attribution

No struck date appears on the round. Silver Trading Company took advance orders for the Lee coin in 2008, describing it on its order form as almost ready while the Jackson and Forrest coins were already on sale; the order form’s call to celebrate Lee’s 200th birthday in 2007 was promotional copy for an anniversary the coin had already missed. The 2009 year of issue rests on the earliest documented sale of the round, in June 2009, and on marketplace listings from April through July 2009 describing the series as newly minted. Original booklets accompanying the Lee and Jackson issues, published by American Lantern Press under its Independent Living imprint, identify the collection by name. The year is attributed, pending discovery of a dated invoice or announcement establishing the exact release.

Issuer and distributor are Silver Trading Company, established by its own archived sales pages, order forms, and catalog. A July 30, 2010 capture of the company’s proof page states that LaBorde designed the coins and commissioned their minting. No engraver is named, and no mark on either face identifies the manufacturer. The 2009 marketplace listings describe the rounds as struck by Northwest Territorial Mint (or “Northwest Mint”) for a southern-based organization, and Silver Trading Company’s bullion catalog of the same period shows the company also resold Northwest Territorial Mint rounds. Northwest Territorial Mint is therefore recorded as the attributed manufacturer, pending primary documentation.

2009 Robert E. Lee Southern Hero Silver Round Notes

• The collection’s four subjects are Lee, Jackson, Forrest, and Jefferson Davis. Davis was announced as “coming soon” in June 2008 and offered by July 2010, when the company’s site still illustrated it with a design rendering rather than a photographed coin.
• Proof edition: 200 per subject, edge serial-numbered, blue velvet presentation box, Airtite capsule, $24.50 on the original order form. Bullion strikes are unnumbered; their mintage is not documented.
• The issuer’s published specifications (39 mm, 2.87 mm) were boilerplate shared with every round in its catalog; this entry’s measurements come from the documented example.
• Unlike the 2002 Confederate Silver Dollar designed by Henri Klingler, this round belongs to a separate commemorative program focused on individual Confederate leaders. The two share the Great Seal reverse motif but differ in portrait style, production, marketing, and provenance.
• Silver Trading Company was founded in 2001 by Larry LaBorde (1958–2022).

2009 Robert E. Lee Southern Hero Silver Round References

• Silver Trading Company, “Southern Hero Silver Proof Coins: View All Proof Coins” (Wayback Machine, Jul. 30, 2010)
• Silver Trading Company, “Southern Hero Silver Proof Coins: View All Proof Coins” (Wayback Machine, Jun. 4, 2008) — [add URL]
• Silver Trading Company, Southern Hero proof order form (Wayback Machine, 2008) — [add URL and capture date]
• Silver Trading Company, silver bullion rounds catalog page (Wayback Machine, c. 2008) — [add URL and capture date]
• Original Southern Hero Silver Coin Collection booklets (Robert E. Lee; Stonewall Jackson), American Lantern Press, Independent Living imprint
• Contemporary marketplace listings, April–July 2009
• WorthPoint archive listings documenting surviving examples
• Virginia Department of Historic Resources, “Virginia Washington Monument”
• Rose-Neath Funeral Homes, Larry Wayne LaBorde obituary (2022)
• Northwest Territorial Mint (Auburn, Washington), The Texas Stacker
• Southern Hero Silver Coin Collection, The Texas Stacker
• Documented example examined (this entry)
• Texas Stacker Archives

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