Posted on 07/12/2007 6:04:07 AM PDT by RDTF
Two old steamer trunks sit in the rare-book room at the Virginia Historical Society, looking worn and forlorn. The smaller one was once red but the paint has faded to a dull rust. The larger one is brown with a piece of tin patching a hole in the top. On one side, a name is stenciled: "M. LEE."
That's Mary Custis Lee, Gen. Robert E. Lee's adventurous eldest daughter. In 1917, she stored these wooden trunks in the "silver vault" in the basement of Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust in Alexandria. A year later, she died at the age of 83. Her trunks sat in a dusty corner of the vault for 84 years, unclaimed, until E. Hunt Burke, the bank's vice chairman, discovered them in 2002.
Burke called his high school classmate Rob E.L. deButts Jr., who is Robert E. Lee's great-great-grandson. Together, the two men descended into the vault. Burke carried a basket of old keys.
"The first one I pulled out was a perfect fit," he says.
The trunks were stuffed with Lee family papers -- a priceless cache of 4,000 letters, photographs and documents. DeButts carted them to the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, which houses the world's largest collection of Lee papers. He spent a week there, sitting at a desk in the research library, reaching into Mary Custis Lee's trunks and picking out treasures and trash.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Excellent find.
Three cloth stars alone indicated a colonel in the confederate army, all general officers regardless of rank wore three stars in a wreath. Lee, for whatever reason, preferred to wear the colonel's rank on his uniform during the war.
I would love to sit there and review everything in there...
Very cool!
great tidbit
It's kind of interesting that General Lee's estate has become the closest thing we have to sacred ground in America. I think he'd be proud of it today.
Wasn’t he a Colonel in the Federal Army before he resigned? If so, maybe that had something to do with....speculation of course.
He was, and there is a lot of speculation why he insisted on wearing his old rank. If Lee himself ever explained why I'm not aware of it.
He was a colonel when he left the US Army, wasn’t he?
It is perverse if you think like a socialist. R.E. Lee's daughter was a racist, froth-at-the-mouth bigot, because her father was one of the top two or three racists in human history. Marse Robert was a bigot since he refused to allow the Federal Government to illegally trash the economy and laws of his state for some vague "high moral purpose."
Lee was a slave owner, and, like all slavers, raped and tortured his property on a regular basis. Did you know that, despite being a hereditary heir of the country's founding royalty, Lee was a traitor to his elite class?
/sarcasm off
Me either, I've studied this history more than most but less than a lot of people. I don't recall coming across that piece of info. Though I never really thought about til now either....back to the books! LOL
In a similar but much more humble vein, a woman that I go to church with presented me with a old tin box. She had no one to leave the contents to and knowing my love of history thought I would be best to inventory and conserve the items. When I opened it I was amazed to find a beautiful collection of artifacts that were owned and carried by her Great Grandfather who was a Sgt with the 141st NY Vol. during the war. Best of all was a bundle of letters tied in ribbon. Over 300 of them from 1862 to 1868 almost all were from him to his future wife. Most of them are describing camplife and being on the march with Sherman. Its mostly a love story set against the backdrop of the war. I assembled them in the order he wrote them and began the task of deciphering the faded and spidery writing. It took me about four months to get them all in clear text. Originally I simply wished for my friend to meet her ancestor. She had once tried to read them but gave up. When I presented her with the stack of pages I watched her hands tremble as he held the first page and she began to cry. Later she suggested that it might make a good book. I agreed and with her permission it is in process of being published both as a book and as a screen play. The photographs and relics are very nice some of them are things I’ve never seen before. It should be out sometime this Fall.
Could be why his men were so loyal. In his heart and in his actions he was really just one of them, a southern American fighting for his home against an encroaching federalist government.
Dixie Ping
ping
Okay, I was just perusing this thread for historical interest, and as a Southerner whose ancestors fought for the Union (and a product of the Federalist/Whig political tradition--America's true conservative tradition) I don't really fit into any easy category, since I'm opposed both to worship of the Confederacy and hatred of the South. And as a Theocrat, I don't even regard slavery as inherently wrong (provided it is practiced within Divine guidelines).
HOWEVER--this attack on morality is simply too much. "Morality" simply means G-d's Laws, and G-d's Laws are the only laws there really are. How ironic that "paleoconservatives" who are supposed to be "theocons" are attacking morality!
Henotheism and religious subjectivism are the true inner secrets of "palaeoconservatism," which is why their attacks on universal morality and advocacy of disparate local customs sounds so much like the Left's mantra "deze are de wayz of our pipples."
Further ironies: "western civilzation" and chr*stianity being defended from liberals whose main clients are Fundamentalist Protestants (Blacks) and inquisition Catholics (illegal Mexican immigrants). Sounds chr*stian and "western" to me!
General Lee may have been a patriot to Virginia, but he fought against the United States of America. That's fine if you don't claim to be an American (rather than a state) patriot. But to claim to love the United States of America while cheering a man who fought against it simply makes no sense.
I'm afraid the Jeffersonian/Calhounian "compact theory" is once again on the rise and being adopted by "conservatives." FCOL, doesn't anyone remember America's original conservatives--the Hamiltonian Federalists???
Once again, please remember that I am a Southerner and have no use for South-haters, nor do I dismiss slavery has inherently immoral, so please kindly refrain from the usual charges against those who don't identify with the Confederacy (though I certainly don't demonize it).
free dixie,sw
Oh, WOW!
General Lee encouraged his daughters to remain at home to care for their invalid mother. In addition, the daughters suffered poor health as well.
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