Washington and Lee was originally a small classical school. It was founded as the Augusta Academy (later renamed Liberty Hall Academy) by Scots-Irish Presbyterian pioneers, though the university has never claimed any sectarian affiliation. In 1796, shortly before the end of his second term as U.S. president, George Washington endowed the struggling academy with a gift of stock, one of the largest gifts to an educational institution at that time. In gratitude, the school was renamed for Washington, the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, president at the 1787 Federal Constitutional Convention, and first President of the United States. In 1865, shortly after his April 9 surrender to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union Armies, former Confederate States Army general-in-chief Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) served as president of the college for five years until his death in 1870, when the college was thereafter renamed the "Washington and Lee University." One of the oldest institutions of higher education in the American South, W&amp;L is the second-oldest in the Commonwealth of Virginia (next to the College of William &amp; Mary, founded in 1693).