Robert C. Peniston

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Captain (ret.) Robert C. Peniston is a former United States Navy officer. He graduated with the Class of 1947 from the U.S. Naval Academy. Among other assignments, he served as navigator of the presidential yacht Williamsburg in 1952. He commanded the destroyer escort USS Savage (DE-386) and the guided missile destroyer USS Tattnall. He was the commissioning captain for the guided missile cruiser USS Albany, which was placed in service on 9 November 1968. He took command of the battleship USS New Jersey on 27 August 1969 and helped decommission her on 17 December 1969 with these words: "Rest well, yet sleep lightly; and hear the call, if again sounded, to provide firepower for freedom." (New Jersey was recommissioned in the 1980s). He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1976.

Peniston became director of the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University, retired again, and subsequently began volunteering in the Special Collections section of the college's Leyburn Library, where he transcribed more than 3,000 letters from the library's Robert E. Lee collection and Lee-Jackson Foundation Papers. As well, he occasionally speaks to American History classes at the college.