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)

Lee items, a bullet, horse hair and more were in a time capsule opened after Confederate monument moved in Raleigh

In May 1894, a metal time capsule stuffed with Confederate mementos and artifacts was placed beneath the granite cornerstone of a Confederate monument being erected in Raleigh.

Inside was a button said to from a dress coat belonging to Gen. Robert E. Lee, a lock of his hair and a strand plucked from the tail of his famous horse Traveler. Among newspapers, money and souvenirs was the bullet that killed the horse of Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew, the North Carolinian officer who was severely wounded near Richmond in 1862 while riding the steed.

Some 125 years later, the Confederate Soldiers Monument no longer stands on Capitol grounds. It was recently moved by order of Gov. Roy Cooper. 

A wooden box held items placed in time capsule

The time capsule was opened Thursday, three days after it was removed from the monument base. It yielded a sodden mess of items that conservators used water and tweezers to separate and discern. Buttons were rusted and everything was covered by muck.

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources provided a video and photographs of the opening of the dented metal box in a laboratory.

Rusted buttons found in capsule (NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources)

“Because the metal box containing the items had rusted through in places, the items contained in the time capsule were severely damaged by the elements,” the department said.

“Items recovered so far include a wooden box, a stone thought to be from Gettysburg, two buttons attached to a piece of textile and a strand of what appears to be horse hair. Preservation work on these items and the metal box itself has begun.”

Michele Walker, a spokeswoman for the department, told the Picket the items will become part of the collection of North Carolina Historic Sites.

According to the News & Observer, the capsule was found Monday when workers were dismantling the base of the monument.

Metal capsule shortly before it was opened July 2

Cooper cited public safety in issuing his June 20 removal order, hours after protesters toppled bronze statues of soldiers from the base one of three Confederate monuments on Capitol grounds, the newspaper reported. All three monuments were removed.

Among other items said to be placed in the time capsule were a Bible found at Appomattox and a letter written by a North Carolina soldier shortly before he was mortally wounded.

At Arlington National Cemetery, an opened 1915 time capsule yields two items tied to the Civil War and national reconciliation

Caitlin Smith, Tim Frank open copper box containing capsule

"Confederate Dead" pamphlet (Arlington National Cemetery)

On Oct. 13, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson made the short journey from the White House to Arlington National Cemetery, where rows of headstones are set on the hills overlooking Washington. Surrounded by thousands of spectators – including veterans of the Civil War and Spanish-American War – Wilson laid the cornerstone for a new Memorial Amphitheater.

A crane lowered the hollow cornerstone to rest above a copper box that contained items those attending hoped Americans would find meaningful when opened a century later.

Among other items, there were maps and plans of Washington, a signed photograph of Wilson, a 46-star US flag, local newspapers, a signed Bible and two artifacts tied to the Civil War: A program for the recent 49^th encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic near the U.S. Capitol and a pamphlet, labeled “Confederate Dead,” which detailed burial places for Southern soldiers in the area, including – in recent years – Arlington.

Items in amphitheater lower chapel (Elizabeth Fraser, Arlington National Cemetery)

Last month, the box was opened as part of the centennial of Memorial Amphitheater’s opening on May 15, 1920. The marble structure is used for services and special events, including the president’s annual Memorial Day address.

The cemetery is marking the amphitheater anniversary this week with the launch of an online exhibit. The Washington Post first detailed the opening of the time capsule.

Among those opening the box and examining its near-pristine contents on April 9 was cemetery historian Tim Frank, who described the “once-in-a-lifetime experience” in a cemetery blog post. The capsule included a Boyd’s Directory of the District of Columbia, and Frank was able to find a listing for an ancestor. 

Frank had the privilege of removing the contents of the box one by one, according to the Post. (Video above includes the examination of the items)

“These items were carefully tied, wrapped and arranged in the inner box, which was soldered shut,” he would later write in the blog. “That box was then surrounded by pieces of plate glass to keep an air gap between it and the larger copper box, ensuring that no condensation would damage the precious documents and mementos inside.”

The “Confederate Dead’ pamphlet’s cover was printed in gray, and featured the Southern battle flag and the words “Charles Broadway Rouss Camp 1101 United Confederate Veterans Washington, DC”

Removal of copper box before its opening (Elizabeth Fraser, ANC)

I was able to find a copy of the 1901 booklet online. Scattered throughout are references to and diagrams of Confederate burials at Arlington. About 400 Rebel soldiers are buried in that section.

The cemetery devotes an online page to the subject. Confederate soldiers were allowed to be reinterred at Arlington 35 years after the war’s end. The article notes the end of the 19^th century brought a spirit of national reconciliation, at least for the white population.

In 1898, then-President William McKinley said, “In the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers…. Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories.”

President Wilson dedicates amphitheater cornerstone (Library of Congress)

The article points out that the “spirit of fraternity” cited by McKinley did not include African-Americans, who had largely been disenfranchised in the South.

“In 1871, a group of black soldiers had petitioned the War Department to relocate the graves of hundreds of United States Colored Troops (USCT) from the “Lower Cemetery,” where they were buried alongside former slaves and poor whites, to the main cemetery near Arlington House, where white Civil War veterans lay at rest. The War Department denied the petition. Arlington National Cemetery would remain segregated until 1948, when President Harry S. Truman desegregated the armed forces by executive order.”

The second Civil War item found in the capsule – which was moved a couple times since 1915 -- was a program for the Sept. 27-Oct. 2, 1915, meeting of the Grand Army of the Republic in Washington. This gathering of former Union soldiers was marking the 50^th anniversary of the end of the conflict.

Tim Frank holds GAR program (Elizabeth Fraser, Arlington National Cemetery)

By then, membership in the organization had dwindled as time and wounds took the lives of tens of thousands. The succeeding Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War describes why veterans sought such fellowship, even into their 70s and 80s.

“Men who had lived together, fought together, foraged together and survived, had developed an unique bond that could not be broken. As time went by the memories of the filthy and vile environment of camp life began to be remembered less harshly and eventually fondly. The horror and gore of battle lifted with the smoke and smell of burnt black powder and was replaced with the personal rain of tears for the departed comrades. Friendships forged in battle survived the separation and the warriors missed the warmth of trusting companionship that had asked only total and absolute commitment.”

(The final encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic was held in Indianapolis in 1949.)

Ceremony at US Capitol during 1915 GAR meeting (Library of Congress)

President Wilson, just two weeks before the laying of the Memorial Amphitheater cornerstone, spoke to the group during its Capitol encampment, citing their reconciliation with former foes.

“You feel, as I am sure the men who fought against you feel, that you were comrades even then, though you did not know it, and that now you know that you are comrades in a common love for a country which you are equally eager to serve.”

By their nature, time capsules are meant to provide a snapshot of what was important for those who left them for future generations. Cemetery command historian Steve Carney told the Post that 1915 was a time of nostalgia about the Civil War and Arlington was a symbol of reconciliation between North and South.

“You’re really transporting yourself back,” he told the newspaper. “You’re putting yourself in the mind-set of those individuals in 1915 that were saying, ‘Okay … what do we put in? What makes the cut?’ ”

Arlington National Cemetery plans to install later this year a time capsule to be opened in 100 years. Details on what might be included are not yet available.

David Ferriero, archivist of the US, with contents (Elizabeth Fraser, ANC)

Beauregard statue time capsule opened

History was revealed when a time capsule from beneath the P.G.T. Beauregard pedestal was opened in New Orleans' French Quarter. The box contained newspapers, currency and other items. The time capsule was placed under the monument in 1913. Historians said while there was some water damage to the artifacts, they believe much of the items can be salvaged. The equestrian statue of Beauregard was taken down by a crane more than a year ago after a contentious public battle. •Article