Civil War Picket special: Take a look at more than a dozen items found in the Lee monument cornerstone box in Richmond, Va.

Two minie balls found in cornerstone box (Virginia Department of Historic Resources photos)

Piece of wood from the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania with minie ball

State conservators in Virginia are working to solve some mysteries about the 71 items found last month in a cornerstone box that was placed under the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond.

Why were 20 items found inside not mentioned in an 1887 newspaper article that detailed the donations? Do all the artifacts match what was described at the time?

An interesting assertion appeared last week in a Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) update about the project, which included an inventory of the box's contents. The article challenges media descriptions of the 36-pound copper box as a time capsule. 

William Bryan Isaacs, a leading Freemason living in Virginia, oversaw the placement of the box. The article asks whether he and others meant for the box to be opened by a later generation, as is the case with time capsules.

“Isaacs and his contemporaries would not have thought so. Not only was the term not used widely until the 1930s, but cornerstone boxes were inherently foundational,” the update says. “The items inside were meant for 'a far remote posterity' and were not intended to be readily accessed and explored on a certain date in the future."

Despite some moisture, contents were in good shape (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)

The statue of Lee on his horse was removed in September, part of racial reckoning across the country following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy and the building of Lee’s and other monuments across the South following the Civil War perpetuated the Lost Cause narrative, which asserts states’ rights, rather than the preservation of slavery, was the South’s chief cause. Many historians have challenged that view.

The Civil War Picket recently contacted the Department of Historic Resources for photographs of some of the artifacts in the box. Katherine Ridgway, state archaeological conservator, provided several and additional descriptions. The Picket believes it is the first publication to publish this many photographs related to the contents, with a focus on military-related items. (Some images are cropped)

It’s important to note the contents of the box did not highlight the contributions of many in the community. Local historian and author Dale Brumfield told ABC News, “What was not in it was anything relating to the Black community of Richmond. Richmond had a thriving Black middle class at the time ... and there was nothing pertaining to that."

"Gray and blue badge" and a muster roll of 21st Virginia (VDHR)

What was included was a wide array of items honoring Confederate soldiers and veterans, books, buttons, coins, newspapers and more. A few items pertained directly to Lee.

One more note before additional photographs below. The discovery of this box was not a surprise, given the newspaper article at the time detailing donations from area citizens. A box found shortly before in the statue pedestal was. It turned out to be items experts believe were placed by the monument's builders.

The inventory lists a Frank Brown as the donor of the piece of wood (top photo) from the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania, dated May 12, 1864. It includes a shattered Minie ball and a piece of paper describing the location.

Brown also donated Minie balls described as coming from the Battle of Fredericksburg. The box included five bullets, with the 1887 inventory indicating Brown gave three. But which three belonged to Brown, and were all five from Fredericksburg, asks Ridgway and others.

Additional Minie balls, with two indicating impact (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)

The cornerstone included numerous items made of paper, including documents, books and regimental muster rolls.

The Virginia Confederate button below is associated with Capt. Cyrus Bossieux, who, according to findagrave, enlisted in 1861 and served with the 1st Virginia Regiment (Company A, in which he served, was known as the Richmond Grays) and the 3rd Virginia Artillery.

Bossieux, interestingly, is in a famous photograph of the Richmond Grays at the execution of abolitionist John Brown before the Civil War. It is in the collection of the Library of Congress.

Bossieux button (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)

Ridgway told the Picket that the other button found in the box is described a coming from the coat of a Capt. Bremond. "We are still working with experts to make sure everything is identified correctly, but since there were only two buttons and we thought there would be more, there is more research to do here."Among the published materials in the box was a copy of "Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865."

It was written in the early 1880s by Carlton McCarthy, a private in the Army of Northern Virginia, which was commanded by Lee. (Book from cornerstone box, below, courtesy of Virginia Department of Historic Resources)

Goodreads.com provides this summary of the volume: “This Civil War classic of soldiering in the ranks debunks all the romantic notions of war. Like his Northern counterpart, the Confederate soldier fought against bullets, starvation, miserable weather, disease, and mental strain. But the experience was perhaps even worse for Johnny Reb because of the odds against him."

DHR, in its article last week, said it will post future articles on the two boxes found in the Lee pedestal. They will be published on Wednesdays. 

"We have asked experts from across the Commonwealth to choose artifacts and tell us more about them," the agency said. "We are so lucky that the artifacts were in such good condition and that Virginia has such fantastic experts to call upon to help us create articles that keep those who live in the Commonwealth and further abroad informed."

(Virginia Department of Historic Resources)

The items above are described as a Masonic symbol and a Confederate battle flag, both reportedly fashioned from the tree above Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's grave. The donor was listed as J.W. Talley.

At right, is a fragment of an iron shell purportedly fired at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862 and listed in the 1887 inventory as being donated by Frank Brown.

Ridgway says there are some questions about a rock described as being a piece of a stone wall at Fredericksburg, also donated by Brown.

"In the box was found a smooth stone, an aggregate of small stones, and a piece of what might be mortar. Are one or all of these the 'piece of a stone wall' mentioned in 1887? Some of these answers will take time and research," the DHR article says.

Rock found in box (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)

Ahead of the box's opening, Ralph Northam, who was Virginia's governor until this month, had tweeted about developments on what was then considered a time capsule. The opening of the box attracted national attention to Ridgway and others involved in the project.

"The whole thing has been kind of a whirlwind. While I was expecting the cornerstone box to be found, no one knew exactly when that would happen," Ridgway told the Picket this week in an email.

"Once they found it, there was a lot of work to do and the time flew by. I was working with such a great team of professionals from UVA, Colonial Williamsburg, and the VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) that the process went very smoothly, even with all of the cameras and reporters. Now it is exciting to have curators and historians from around the Commonwealth coming to see the artifacts and help us understand the contents of the containers."

Recovered box before it was opened (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)